Social Media Google+ Launches Google Plus Your World

Social Media and the Internet has fundamentally changed the way people ﬁnd, discover, share, shop, & connect.

Social networking was the most popular online content category in the world as of October 2011, accounting for 19% of all time spent online, or one out of every five minutes, according to a whitepaper by comScore.

Did you know that 34,000 searches are conducted on Google EVERY SECOND?
75% of Internet users never scroll past the first page of search results?
US Internet users spend 3x more time on blogs and social networks than they do on email?
Websites with a blog generate 55% more traffic.
93% of marketers use social media for business.

Stay ahead of your competition. Learn all about the latest changes and trends.

Why Google+ Is A Must-Have For Marketers

Now here’s a different search, for photographers. Again, I’m logged out of Google+, incognito-mode:

Google+ Photographers

Is there anyone out there who still wants to say that being on Google+ doesn’t matter? Anyone? Because when being on Google+ means that you potentially can have your Google+ page leap to the top in those sidebar results, Google+ matters. It matters more than ever before.

Trey Ratcliff and Thomas Hawk are the only ones who get listed outside of ads on this page. That’s a pretty nice incentive for marketers to start using Google+, wouldn’t you say? That’s Google taking its weight in search and leveraging it to boost Google+ in a big way.

With Search Plus Your World, by default, there’s a new “Personal Results” view that appears. The view personalizes the listings you get based on both your own behavior and social connections In addition, content that’s been shared with you through the Google+ social network now also appears.

You’ll know that personalized results are appearing when you see one or both of the indicators below:

Prepare1 Google+

At the top left where the photos are points to a message that, in this example, says that there are “40 personal results and 425,000 other results” that have been found. Some of those 40 results for Prepare1 will be blended into the first page of Google results being shown.

The far right highlights a new toggle that Google has introduced, something that many of those who do search engine optimization have wanted for ages. It allows you to switch between personalized and unpersonalized results.

This is a screenshot of me logged into my Google+ account, and searching for Prepare1 in Google.

Prepare1 Google+ Profile

Private Content In Your Web Results

To summarize, personalized results include:

Listings from the web
Listings from the web, boosted because of your personal behavior
Listings from the web, boosted because of your social connections
Public Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos (all of which are also listings from the web)
Private or “Limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos shared with you

Another big change as part of today’s release is how people with Google+ accounts are going to be much more heavily highlighted in Google search.

Search Engine Optimization changed this week with Google+ which changes your strategy. Be prepared now to take advantage of it.

What Can Individuals & Brands Do?

1. Get a Personal Profile on Google+.

Google+ Logo

Fill out your profile completely using keywords.

2. Get a Brand Page on Google+.

Fill out your Brand Profile completely using keywords.
You then have to get your Google+ brand page into as many influential people’s circles as possible. These people also have to be in many other circles if you have hopes of reaching people outside of your immediate network. This isn’t an easy feat.

But there’s more: Search+ essentially forces brands to use their Google+ pages much like their own website. That means brands should integrate their main keywords into Google+ posts to increase their relevance in important searches. But again, this must be done in a natural, non-spammy manner.

It means that you need to be: