Introduction to Google+ (Plus) and who it will influence Social Search. Power Features Circles & Hangouts and a step-by-step view on how to set-up your Profile to harvest the benefits of increase search engine visibility for yourself and your business
Google is the fastest growing Social network right now. Google+ Reached 50million users within the first 90 days, A milestone that tool Twitter, Facebook almost 3 years. As the digital literacy in the population grows entering a new networks isn't as hard any more.
Google has the advantage that a lot of people use their other free services around the net, Gmail, Calendar Document Photos and more.
Enterprise level Google Apps users and companies are able to use Google+, too. But you don't have to wait that long. Why bother?
Right, who are we kidding? We do Google. In this graphic the big blue pie of the cake is 87% Google. The market analysts estimate the overall market share of Google by 65%. But you know how the Joke goes? For Internet search, I use Google, and so does Bing. The numbers are from a site's webstats. The site has about 1.2 million page views as month and about, 35% of those visits come through Search Engines. Social Network sharing drives traffic to the site roughly about 12% of the traffic. 92% of all purchasing decisions start with an online search. The is a whole black hat industry out there doing nothing but Search Engine Optimization. And Google employes about 100 people in the Spam fighting department. Social Network add a very important component to the quality of a search. Let's take a look....
Conventional Search: You put in a set of keywords and trust Google to place the most relevant links on top of the search results page. We are trained that the msot relevant links are on top and there further down the page or on subsequent page the level of relevance decreased. Apart from that the links look all the same. This changes drastically, when i tell google who I am. I log into my google account. Most of the time I am logged in any way because I live on email.
The situation for me changes. Now Google becomes Superman and gives me more help sorting through relevance for me. Now avatars of my friends/followers show up, telling me, that this person has share it and who I am connected to that person. It also adds those links, that I have plussed One before, and marked it as standing out . How much richer and more focused my search is now? What do you think?
It adds what's called social signals. It has it from Twitter, from Google+, not yet from Facebook as most sharing is done behind the Facebook login wall. And for Facebook, having access to the data is a business model so they are careful making it public. The Google crawlers are not yet going to Facebook. On this slides you see addtional signales: You see a hot links for authors, going back to Google+ and you see how many other Google+ people put the author into their circles. "So und so shared this on Google+" (9) Public Search for Google+ (11)
The social race is not about users per se. That's why Google is not really worried not having success in social. The success will come as they are very strong in Search. That race Facebook has already lost for now. But also the SEO business has changed considerably. Page 1, Position 1 is no longer the gold standard for successful SEO strategies. Users are back into the drivers seat in how search results are perceived. It's not who scammes Google more, it's who connects on content and on expertise.
Although Google+ doesn't provide for business/corporate appearances, you can be your business, you can gear your presence to be beneficial for your business. Be public, decide on your "public parts" and show them to us! Everything on your Profile is part of the bigger Internet. Let's go through the other parts of a profile view.
So even if there are no brand pages yet, you can still make your Google+ presence about your professional life and your interests. Although you can be very private with your sharing, and only share with your "Inner Circle" - You should consider sharing links, pix and videos publicly once in a while. It's counts as social signals for Search Engines. Go back to some of the earlier slide and review them "So und so shared this on Google+ (9) Shows up in Public Search of Google+ (11)
And it also helps people stopping by at your profile to see if you contribute to the conversation, comments and +1s are also public with your posts. Can be all about your business and the relevant information.
Any other social network doesn't get this right. Google + actually lists all the good sites you recommended previously you can review, you can delete you can reshare. And it's public. if you focus on your business and share relevant information to your customer or future customers. This is where it comes together. Social Signals in Social Search
If you carefully assembly a few circles with experts in a fields or groups or people you trust, sharing a particular circle will help others to connect with the group as well. Group of employees, Your training team, A publisher shares a group of authors, You know group of trusted resources, A professional organization shares the circle of their board members. Rober Scoble shares a group of photographers You can share them on your website as well as in your posts.