I’m not one to throw around the word “necessity” since I think marketers should make their own decisions as to how they want to run their campaigns, but it seems as if Google is starting to force our hands…or our campaigns that is.
Google just rolled out its Search Plus Your World update which gives users results targeted to their social profiles and personal preferences. It incorporates within its search results targeted content and recommendations based on your personal search behavior.
You will have the choice to view “Personal Results” which yields a personalized group of results based on your social connections and web behavioral patterns.
According to Google software engineer, Amit Singhal, in an interview with Danny Sullivan from SearchEngineLand, “The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.”
According to Google, when you are signed in you will see the results of your personal search.
The personal results will reveal:
- Normal web results you are accustomed to seeing
- Results affected by your past search behavior and links you clicked
- Results influenced by your social profiles and connections along with recommendations
- Your private posts from Google+, your photos or Google Picasa photos (will be private or “limited”)
- Public posts from your Google+ profile, photos or Google Picasa photos
Why is this update important to marketers?
Google is favoring your activity on Google+ and using its data for algorithm purposes.
What about Facebook and Twitter profiles appearing in personalized search? According to Singhal, “Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service,” Singhal said. “Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work.”
In a nutshell, right now the only social site that is being utilized in the search results is Google+.
Take a look at these instructions as listed on the Google Plus Your World page:
- Fill out your profileThe instructions state that filling out a Google+ profile will make it easier for people to find you.
- Post your favorite contentGoogle says it will share your content with the people in your Google+ circles when they are searching.
- Appear in search resultsThe new personalized search will also include the profiles of related Google+ profiles.
Did you hear that? Your Google+ profile could possibly rank in Google in these personalized searches if it is related to a user’s search.
According to Google, “The more quality content you create and the more people that engage with you, the more prominent your profile will become.”
So, essentially, if you want to rank in Google without PPC or organic search, you must create a Google+ profile and grow it enough to show up in the search results.
With the “Related People and Pages” function, you will find Google+ profile recommendations related to your search keywords. Below, Google shows the example of a search for the word “music” and what users will see…
Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz did one of his whiteboard Friday topics on the “Search Plus Your World” update. In it, he showed an example of a Google search with the keyword SEO. The SEOMoz Google+ profile along with Danny Sullivan’s profile appeared on the first page of Google search results even though none of their web properties appeared on the first page in a normal search. The profiles seemed to be ranked by the number of people in their Google+ networks and how many +1s their content had received. Below his profile were the words, “Learn how you can appear here too.”
Rand alludes to the fact that Google is trending towards including more and more social signals in its algorithms and using them as ranking factors in an attempt to fight link spam.
Are you convinced yet? If you haven’t created a Google+ profile yet, will this new update compel you to give it a try? Let us know in the comments below!
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