Google+ and Its Growing Influence on Search

MC WOPR — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:25:42 +0000

For the inaugural Maine Pro SEO blog post I’m getting straight to business. I’ve been observing the fallout from Google’s recent moves in social and the Kenyan debacle, but rather than wax philosophical on Google’s ethics I’d like to talk about the practical implications of G+. The strength of Google+ as a marketing tool lies in its ability to branch out of your follower’s newsfeed and into their search results. With Search, plus Your World Google has made it so that you don’t have to be a fan of something for it to show up in your search results. All that is necessary for this to happen is for someone in your circles to mention something. So if I post about “snowboards” and attach a link to a snowboard store and someone with me in their circles Googles “snowboards” the link to that store will then show up in their search results. Now if Google+ was like Facebook in that I am generally only friends with people I know in real life, the power of this would be very limited. However, much like Twitter people actively using Google+ add people to their circles that share their same interests or whom they admire. When someone adds you to their circles you get a notification and if that person appears to have something unique or valuable to say you might reciprocate and add them to your circles. At this point you will influence their search results. Only people have this ability, as businesses have to have been added to a circle before they can follow back. Not to be cynical but I wouldn’t be surprised if companies start paying celebs and others with large followings to mention products and influence search results. I’m not a huge fan of Google’s move to integrate social into search, but I think its probably here to stay and web marketers need to get on board or be left behind.