Google+ and SEO

Google+ (aka Google Plus)  is often cast as Google’s answer to Facebook.  Now, there are discussions on how well Google+ has been embraced with some very bright people in the industry calling it an outright flop.

Google has had its share of failed products and they are very quick to shut down anything that isn’t flying.  The fact that Google+ is still going is evidence that Google is seeing sure growth in users; a growth not immediately apparent to the rest of us, and not as publicized as Facebook’s.  This is Google’s MO; they quietly put things right out in front of us — things we need like local search — and sit back and let our marketing survival instincts drive the adoption of their products.

Google+ seems to me to still be an “acquired taste” like single malt whiskey, and maybe as eclectic as a Dali sketch.  It doesn’t present itself in a neat and tidy, contained and controlled box like Facebook.  For some users, the dispersed and somewhat scattered structure may be confusing.  Google tends to be that way; there is such a wide spread to their product offerings, all loosely knit together, and such a freedom of use that combined, it all often seems incoherent.  I can understand that; I often stumble myself through settings and navigation between Google products.  Heck, even professionals have problems implementing Google Authorship procedures…

No matter, though.  Because Google controls  close to 70% of the search market and we all want our websites to rank well in their indexes, they have somewhat of a coercion power over us.   When they decide that Google+ will have a major say in search engine rankings, we all follow.  Paraphrasing; ours in not to reason why, ours it but to do or die.

According to a recent study by Moz.com, a respected resource in internet marketing, right after page authority, getting Google+  is the Number 2 factor in Google’s search ranking algorithms:

Google ensures this by crawling and indexing Google+ posts almost immediately.  With privacy settings, Facebook often blocks indexing of posts.  And Twitter outright blocks indexing with no-follow instructions.

While containing a high level of optimization in its very structure, there are many tricks posters can implement to take further advantage of Google+ for SEO; anchor text, title tags, the content length of the post and more.

If you haven’t started up an effort on Google+, now’s the time.  Follow people and groups, comment on posts, share great content and otherwise engage, engage!  The added benefit is that Google+, in my opinion, attracts a more serious audience with deeper content so the educational value is much higher.  Google+ is simply much more than a social mingling arena; it’s a true network bringing together and connecting the vast Google world in one place.