What does Google+ mean for SEO?

Recently, Google started using Google+ as a factor when generating search results.  The company is calling their initiative “Search Plus Your World”.  Why does this fact affect you? Almost 85% of people use Google as a search engine, so businesses should be mindful of any changes Google makes.

 

Google+ helps to make searching the Internet more personal.  Not only does it recommend search results for a person based upon what that person has searched for before, but Google+ also posts items from the person’s circle of friends (if they also use Google+).   These items could be pictures, relevant links to content friends have shared, and brands/people related to that person’s search.  All of this personalized Google+ content appears beside a Google + profile picture of the user or those users’ friends.  This Google+ content also automatically appears at the top of the page if a user is logged into their Google account, driving further down the page organically generated Google search results.

 

These naturally generated Google search results used to be the results that were important to get through solid Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques.  A top one, two, or three ranking was essential in getting traffic to direct to a business website.  While it is still important to aim at getting top-ranking Google results from traditional SEO methods, it is now equally important to concentrate on Google+ as part of an SEO strategy.  Here is why:

1. Hard to find.  If your business is not in Google+ rankings, your business will be hard for customers to find.  Because Google+ rankings appear at the top of the page, customers and potential customers will have to sift through Google+ rankings before they even get to the public listings for that keyword.  If you work to get your business to show well in Google+, then your business is more likely to show up at the top of the page where it will get noticed most often.
2. Become a friend of Google+ Search.  Create a brand page for your business within Google+.  If you need help doing this, you can contact us  here at EricWagner.org.  Google does not factor Twitter or Facebook results into their social settings, so brands need to integrate with the Google+ pages and use these pages like another web page.  Then your business page needs to be introduced to as many people in social circles as possible.  The more influential these people are, the more your business page will show up in the Google social search.  This function works similar to the Facebook “like” system.
3. Tag guest blogging posts.  Good SEO strategies integrate guest blogging.  If your business provides guest blog posts in your industry, then this content needs to be tagged with a rel=”author” html code that leads back to your Google profile so that your business gets credit in the Google+ formula.