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Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Google+ What is it good for? Barry Adams Pierce Communications
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Barry Adams
• Digital Director at Pierce Communications
• Built my first website in 1995, started my career in all things online in 1997
• Specialisation in SEO
• Dutch (yes, really)
• Previous employers include;
Philips Electronics
Honeywell
Independent News & Media
• Editor for StateofSearch.com
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Google+
Google’s 4th attempt at social media.
(Can anyone name the previous three attempts?)
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Why Google+?
Why would a search engine launch a social media platform?
And then try again? And again? Until it got it right?
Why is social so important for search?
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
The future of search
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Where is search heading?
For the past 15 years search engines have evolved from information retrieval to the semantic web.
Information retrieval: User types in a query, the system retrieves and displays the most relevant results.
Semantic web: User types in a query, the system attempts to understand the context of the search and the user and show the most contextually relevant results.
Why? Because the IR signals are polluted (sorry) and because
users expect smarter search engines.
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
The semantic web = context
• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Context = Social Media
• Who
• What
• Where
• When
• Why
• How
Google+ combined with Android & the semantic web delivers (nearly) all the context the future of search requires.
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
G+: biggest growing network of all time?
• 20 million users in 24 days since launch
• 400 million users by September 2012
• 500 million users by December 2012
Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
The problem with Google+
• Social is not something you just ‘turn on’.
• G+ user numbers are ridiculously inflated;
Gmail? Google+
YouTube? Google+
• G+ user is not a typical web user;
Heavily slanted towards tech geeks & marketers.
And because G+ works for them, they say it works for all.
• Google is force-feeding us G+;
On the whole, the general public is not liking it.
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
So what’s in it for you?
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Authorship for individuals:
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Authorship for individuals:
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Authorship & Local for businesses:
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Authorship & Local for businesses:
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
How to enable Authorship?
First things first:
1. Get a personal Google+ profile
Ensure you have a good profile image
2. Claim your business’s Local Google+ page
Ensure you have your logo as your main photo
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Connect your G+ profile to your site
Link your content to your Google+ profile using a rel=author link:
And list your website on your Google+ profile:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2539557
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Connect your G+ business page
Link your website to your Google+ page using a rel=publisher link:
And list your website on your Google+ page:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1708844
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Verify Authorship
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
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Authorship statistics in GWMT
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
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Author Rank
Instead of using webpage & website metrics (PageRank), Google
might start using social reputation metrics to determine which
webpage ranks highest.
This (theoretical) aggregate metric is called Author Rank.
[Image Credit: Integrity SEO]
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Do +1’s Influence Your Google Rank?
Long answer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgVB4rcaY8Y
Short answer: No. (Not yet?)
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Google+ Local dashboard
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
To summarise..:
• Google+ is an identity network;
• Claim and implement authorship;
test and monitor in Google Webmaster Tools
• Make use of Google+;
publish your content to G+
create and engage with Circles
join and contribute to Communities
do Hangouts
• Just don’t expect much social interaction with actual customers or prospects (unless you’re targeting geeks & digital marketers).
• The value comes from increased visibility in Google Search.
Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013 Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013
Questions? @badams badams@piercecommunications.co.uk http://www.piercecommunications.co.uk