Surprise! Why Your Business NEEDS to be on Google+ NOW!

Waaayyyyy back on July 15^th, 2011, I wrote a blog The Future of Google+. It was one of many such blogs in the blogosphere at that time discussing Google’s new social media site Google Plus. G+ was but a few weeks old, was growing quickly, and was a popular topic among Social Media Marketers.

Since that time, when asked, I have told interested clients that it’s a great platform, is something that they should consider for the future, but that there wasn’t any need to rush into it.

If they wanted to discuss it further I would explain that there has been a lot of talk on the web about “social networks having a greater influence on search results in the future”. That being the case then Google, the dominant player in search, is obviously in a great position to leverage G+ as both a social network, and a valuable search and SEO tool.

However, the “future” of search started taking form yesterday when Google announced “Search plus your world”. The idea of SPYW is to allow Google to personalize your search results - your Google search results page will now contain results that are specific only to you. Below is an image of the search results page that displayed when I searched “Social Media” this morning.

As you can see, the results page contains the normal “pay-per-click” ads in the top 3 positions, followed by the usual organic results. However, at the very top of the page there is a listing of “personal results”.

When I click on that the “personal results” link, I get a results page displaying results for “Social Media” based on who is on G+.

In addition, the right-hand side of the original search engine results page displayed results from G+, moving the Pay-per-click ads that usually appear there further down the page. As it happens, I am already connected to the results that appeared this morning, but if I wasn’t, I could “add them to my G+ circles” right from the search engine results page.

If you would rather not have your search engine results personalized, you can simply toggle the service off and on by using the switch in the upper right hand of the search engine results page. You can also turn it off permanently from you Google Settings.

You may not see G+ influencing your search results page yet. Google is going to release it over the next few days. It so far seems to appear on some of my search results pages, but not all of them.

So, if you are an Echelon Business Solutions’ client, expect a call later today. If not - the future is here - I would strongly recommend setting up a G+ page, and Circle us once you get there! We look forward to seeing you there soon! : )

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