The genesis of this post is a great Google Plus hangout about the impact of Google Plus for SEO led by Eric Enge with fellow illustrious SEO luminaries Mark Traphagen, Pete Meyers, Joshua Berg and Marcus Tober.For your edutainment I have the video embedded below and I’d encourage you to watch it if you want to get a deeper understanding the ways Google Plus can impact your SEO and search results. The video got me thinking which eventually led me to wonder, could Google Plus be the coolest super power no one know to wish for?
I’ll briefly give you a synopsis of the Google Plus hangout before giving you my thoughts on how Google Plus could yield a cool super power. Bear in mind this synopsis is no substitute for watching the video below.
- Google Plus is great for link discovery and getting sites indexed.
- +1s really impact personalised search results and +1s can catapult pages to the top. Google Plus Posts also rank highly in personalised search.
- Sharing on Google Plus via the share bar is do follow but the SEO value of resharing is fuzzy. Perhaps some trust value is attributed to the authors profile which in turn would increase author influence, future shares, etc.
- Google Plus should be viewed holistically, as should SEO, and no one ranking factor should be taken in isolation as now other factors corroborate the veracity of other factors. ie, One blog post with 500 +1s but no tweets, back links etc makes no sense to Google as there are no other search factors to back up the 500 +1s.
- Search results may be impacted by one or two highly authoritative Google Plus shares.
Google Plus – The Coolest Super Power No One Knew To Wish For?
The way Google Plus impacts SEO is an intriguing one I think – the +1s which impact via the S + YW (Search Plus Your World) to create personalised results being just one example. Also, the other thing to bear in mind, is that is still somewhat in its infancy and as it grows, and the data harvested by Google grows, the ramifications for search could be huge. Might it be a case that those who are too late to the party won’t be able to make up lost ground? ..possibly resulting in weak search rankings?
how will the top G+ users be able to impact search results on a local/national or even international level in the future?
It’s often been the way on other social networks that the early adopters cultivate a large following and as the network grows they can then ride the wave. The big difference between G+ and say Facebook or Twitter is that Facebook/Twitter never impacted search results as much as G+ already does..
Could it be that those with large followings and trust on G+ now will always retain and/or increase it? If so, how will the top G+ users be able to impact search results on a local/national or even international level in the future?
…it could be like the coolest super power no one knew to wish for..
What do you think? Leave a comment below with any of your thoughts on Google Plus and how it can, or is, impacting SEO. And, make sure you watch the hangout – it’s good stuff.
