Google+ cover photo and profile photo dimensions

Today, Google announced a Google+ redesign that improves upon many usability features of its social network. You can read the full post about the Google+ improvements here, but I want to point out some marketing opportunities for Google+ business pages.

The new redesign includes a cover photo which is very similar to Facebook’s cover photo for Timeline. Your profile image overlaps the cover photo, like Facebook’s does, but is much larger. In my opinion, I like Facebook’s combo better because there’s more real estate to work with on top.

I haven’t seen any official dimensions for Google+ cover photos or profile photos, but here’s what I’m working with so far:

Google+ Cover Photo: 940 x 180 pixels
Google+ Profile Photo: 252 x 252 pixels

I don’t have access to my normal images, so I quickly found the highest resolution image I could find to update my profile and figure out the new dimensions.

I also put together a PSD template that you can download to see how your cover photo might look before spending time uploading/modifying to fit the cover photo area and ensuring your profile image doesn’t block any important information or part of your photo.

Google+ Cover Photo Preview Tutorial:

Download PSD file and open in Photoshop
Drag and drop the image you want to use as your cover photo above the layer labeled “Cover Photo”
Right click on the “Cover Photo” layer and select “Create Clipping Mask”
Move/adjust your image to see how it will look (be sure to leave some margin space on the left side if you are using text so it doesn’t hug the edge)
Add any marketing messages
Hide all layers except what will show for your cover photo (remove profile image box and profile image layer)
Set your crop tool to 940 x 180 pixels and crop to your image
Save and upload to Google+ page

You can still upload a full resolution image to Google+ and it will give you the option to crop the photo, but you won’t know how it looks until you save and view your page live.

If you can’t or don’t know how to design a custom cover photo, you also have the option of adding several images (up to 5) from your scrapbook to create your own cover photo.

I really like the new Facebook Timeline layout for business pages and think these new features are a nice upgrade for Google+ business pages. I think Google+ does a better job than Facebook when it comes to displaying images — the image quality is much nicer. It will be interesting to see whether these new design changes will give people a reason to use Google+.

What do you think of the new changes? Will you use Google+ more? If yes, add me to your circles! Now, if they would just give us the ability to set a username . . .

I’ll update this post as we learn more and get official sizing information. Hopefully this helps at least one person. We’re all learning, so please share any other info you find.

Download: PSD cover photo template for Google+