Google+, What Is It Good For?

Copyright. All Rights Reserved Pierce Communications. 2013

Google+ What is it good for? Barry Adams Pierce Communications



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

http://www.stateofsearch.com/


Google+

Google’s 4th attempt at social media.

(Can anyone name the previous three attempts?)


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?


The future of search


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.


The semantic web = context

• Who

• What

• Where

• When

• Why

• How


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.


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?


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.


So what’s in it for you?


Authorship for individuals:


Authorship & Local for businesses:


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


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








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:









Verify Authorship

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets


Authorship statistics in GWMT

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/


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]

http://www.integrityseoexperts.co.uk/2013/03/14/is-author-rank-important-to-seo/


Do +1’s Influence Your Google Rank?

Long answer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgVB4rcaY8Y

Short answer: No. (Not yet?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgVB4rcaY8Y


Google+ Local dashboard


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.

Google+, What Is It Good For?

Technology

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