Google+ Posts Appearing in Search Results
Imagine consumers being able to search for a product or service and see actual recommendations from their friends in the search results? Social proof is a big part of making a buying decision and now with Google+ Posts appearing in search results, the impact of others’ comments in social media will be more influential than ever.
According to SearchEngineWatch, “Google is moving public posts from Google+ into its social search functionality. This move signals the beginning of Plus’s graduation and may indicate further integration in the near future.” This means that not only will you see website results when searching for a topic of interest, but also Google+ posts appearing in search results will be expected. This will revolutionize the way SEO works and the information we consume. However, we need to understand social search to completely understand its impact.
Google+ Posts Appearing in Search Results | What’s Social Search?
Google initiated its version of social search some time ago. The way it works is that you can search for a topic of interest and the results you see are a reflection of your social circles’ interests. Therefore, your results are catered to you and what the people around you enjoy.
But now Google has integrated this feature into its default searches and Google+ posts appearing in search results will be the norm. This isn’t something that was difficult to see coming with most of the online community spending more time on social networking sites than anywhere else on the internet. Some time ago, Bing began including Facebook Likes into its algorithm.
As a matter of fact check this one out:
“In fact, Facebook is more than a social network for many these days. It’s the center of our social graph, it’s where we go to find and read the day’s news, it’s how we comment on articles, and its ubiquitous “like” buttons help us refine our interest graphs and are becoming the de facto way for us to voice our approval for nearly anything on the web. Likes” have become so significant that they factor into Bing’s algorithm for social search results, and even have a place in Blekko’s human curated search engine. “Likes” also determine popularity: the more “likes” a piece of content or status update gets, the more that item is resurfaced inside and outside of Facebook.” http://mashable.com/2011/03/10/future-of-social-search/
Google+ Posts Appearing in Search Results | How Will They Do It?
Of course all Google+ posts appearing in search results will need to be public posts. Here is the criteria for Google+ posts appearing in search results:
- The original post must be public
- The searcher must be following the original poster on Google+
- The searcher must be logged into their Google account.
This of course isn’t the best news for companies, but it is necessary to protect the privacy of Google+ users. However, if you are able to attract a lot of followers on Google+, then you should see a lot more traffic on both your website and social media pages as a result of Google+ posts appearing in search results in the near future. It’s essential that you add links to your Google+ page on your website, in your articles, and back to your webpage from your social media posts to increase your SEO traffic. This is the future of your online presence and with a search giant like Google starting up Google+ posts appearing in search results, it changes the game completely.