Google + just got more important
So you’ve half heartedly setup a Google + page for your travel blog but haven’t yet had time to manage it properly?
After all, you’ve got a Facebook fan page and your twitter account to manage on top of trying to actually publish a blog post. Pinterest.com has also come along and lots of people are diving in, pinning and liking. As of last week the game has changed. In terms of a long term traffic driving strategy you’d be better off spending time engaging via Google +, here’s why.
As of last week, your Google + presence just got more important. Google are starting to roll out “Search Plus Your World”. It sounds interesting but what does it mean? Well, “Search Plus Your World” is kind of self explanatory. It’s a combination of the usual Google search but with an extra option (when you’re logged in) to search within your social connections, including Google +. The search results include other social networks that have publicly crawlable content, this means Facebook and Twitter content won’t be shown. Twitter isn’t too happy about this development:
“we’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.” – Twitter
Google did have a deal with Twitter to tap into tweets for their now defunct social search but this deal ended in the summer 2011 and it was Twitter who ended the arrangement.
Instead of using twitter’s data, Google now turns it’s social attention to it’s own Google + data. Here’s an brief video overview of Search Plus Your World.
Google + Profile Integration
As well as being able to search within your social circle Google is also integrating Google + profiles to the search query box. This means that if you are searching for someone Google will attempt to auto fill your search query with a match from your Google + circles.
Search Ranking Indicator
Google knows how important social is in terms of being an indicator of quality content. Having a human voting element such as the plus one button adds a reliable indicator to it’s other metrics (they use over 100 different metrics) that it uses to rank content. “Search Plus Your World” is another step to integrating Google + and tapping into social media to rank content.
Google never wanted to rely on other social networks such as Facebook or Twitter to provide it with indicators of what people where sharing. Google can’t tap into Facebook’s content as it’s not publicly available and certainly doesn’t have access to their “like” data,Twitter ended their deal to provide tweets way back in the summer of 2011. With Google + it has it’s own system and doesn’t have to rely on other companies to provide data or content to crawl, this is why Google is determined to integrate it with their product offering and to get people using Google +.
For more on the importance of this Google move check out this great video from seomoz.org on Why Every Marketer Now Needs a Google+ Strategy.
Travel Bloggers on Google +
I’ve heard some positive things about Google + from a few travel bloggers (Jodi Ettenberg being one who seems to be engaging on Google +) and have had more in-depth discussions on Google social platform than Twitter or Facebook. Many other travel bloggers haven’t really committed themselves to use Google + as of yet, stating they just don’t have enough time or don’t see any benefit from using it.
Going forward if you have already established a Google + presence and have built up connections/relations you’ll be in a good position to benefit from the exposure that Google’s social network is likely to have in the future. At the moment it comes in the form of “Search plus Your World” but it’s likely that Google will start to use the human voting of quality content via Google + as another metric with which to rank content on.
If you have a big presence on Google + and shared content you stand a good chance of ranking well within “Search plus Your World” and potentially Google’s main web search if the metric is integrated further down the line. Right now, “Search plus Your World” is a big new opportunity to drive traffic. Google are dangling the carrot of potentially exposing your content to billions of users if you have your content shared via Google +. For those that have dismissed Google + so far might now realise that if you continue to ignore it you won’t have the early head start and advantage that you could have by being involved early on.
Now is the time to engage on Google +
Pinterest.com is all very well and it might be good fun, it might even drive some traffic but I’d argue that in the long term your time would be better spent right now engaging via Google +. If you are already engaging via Google’s social network then you may have that head start, if you haven’t, then maybe you should get started?
Search plus Your World is being rolled out at the moment, you’ll need to be signed in with a Google account and be searching on google.com.
If you enjoyed reading this article check out TravMonkey on Google +:
Editor: Paul Dow
Wesite: TravMonkey.com
I’m not sure Pinterest and G+ are comparable 😉 I use one as a social network to talk to people and the other for collecting pretty pictures and organising them.
Yeh it’s true they are very different, but not all travel bloggers see Pinterest as something fun etc but another opportunity to drive traffic…. I’m just saying it’d be better placed on G+ 😛
I think that Pinterest is pretty good fun and good for pinning great images etc but for driving traffic travel bloggers focus should be on Google +… now.
Cheers for the comment John!
Well on that point I can certainly agree! 😎
This is great advice, thanks Paul. I’m definitely one of the bloggers who hasn’t quite embraced G+ yet. I really like it but I didn’t want to spend too much time building up another social network that isn’t going to bring me much traffic in return but it definitely sounds like I need to start using it more.
Thanks for the mention Paul. I don’t think that Pinterest and G+ are mutually exclusive, just that they might have different uses at the moment. PInterest won’t be baked into Search + with the new Google search changes, but it does have potential to be as collaborative as G+ is for breaking news/branding. Mediabistro did a good overview today: http://www.mediabistro.com/10000words/5-ways-news-organizations-can-use-pinterest_b9897. All in all, both interesting ways to engage people and share what you think is worth reading. G+ offers the great ability to have a dialogue in the process.
Hi Jodi!
Yeh I’m not saying the Pinterest isn’t worth using, just that there is an opportunity to gain an advantage in driving traffic from Google search by establishing yourself/brand in Google + now. Pinterest can bring engagement and even links and traffic but long term investing time on Google + is likely to have a bigger impact due to giving your site a better chance of ranking highly in google’s search in the future.
Some bloggers are looking at Pinterest as a traffic source, but I think Google + will be a much larger source of traffic in the future.
Thanks,
Hi Monica,
It’s really quite a big move by Google that should focus marketeers into using G+. If they don’t they could be missing out on ranking highly in search results. There is an opportunity there that will create a vacuum to drive marketeers to use G+.
Couldn’t resist pinning this one myself. 😉 ‘The King is dead, long live the King!’ etc. Was useful though, ta. Not sure I can be bothered with either right now, but we’ll see.
Hi Jools,
Thanks for the pin (pinned it myself too :D).
I think there are a lot bases to cover with social media right now but Google are taking a little bit of a gamble and pushing G+. I think investing time on it in the early stages will be beneficial…unless of course it fails.
G+ can have much more search impact (due to the popularity of Google search) than FB, Twitter, Pinterest etc… and that is the key.
Who knows what will happen in the future though, perhaps Bing will become a contender if Google slip up? 😀
Hey Paul, what’s the deal with +1 your own website? Any benefit or otherwise?
Hi Mike! Are you still in Canada?
The +1 is pretty much like the facebook “like” button… you can also share from it… the facebook like button has also implemented this so you can do the same from it. Difference being that +1’s will have an impact on search via “Google plus your world” (when it rolls out)…and potentially all Google search if they integrate the +1’s as a metric later down the line.
I think you’ll see the +1 button having more of an impact going forward especially with Google’s “Google plus your world” changes. Before the “plus your world” changes…if you search whilst logged in to Google you’ll get results influenced by people in your social circle who have +1’d content.
I’ve seen plenty of traffic from people who are logged into Google and think this is the traffic influenced by +1’s.
You may only see the changes in the US at the moment it’s still being rolled out.
Anyone care to explain why the +1 button shows up on ads, though? I don’t get how it could be compared to the FB like button when it shows up on the ads that I already don’t want to pay attention to….
Count us among those still on the fence re: Google +. We have a page there and a few hundred people in our circles, but G+ does not seem to be as well integrated with our social media networks as FB, Twitter, SU seem to be. For instance, it’s easy to share stories from our site on my personal G+ page with the click of a button, but to use our GGT page I have to go in and add them manually, which of course takes time. We have a set routine that works efficiently with managing all the other sites, but we haven’t seen enough return on G+ to implement it as part of our current routine. But we’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it.
Hi Bret,
I think it’s definitely one to keep an eye on, Google will be increasingly involving it with their products and potentially their main web search eventually… it could effect your rankings in the future.
Hi Adam,
I guess some adverts entertain people? Are you talking video ads? I’ve just watched a great VW starwars video with dogs barking. I’d love to + 1 it!
It’s great data for advertisers I guess that’s why Google are keen to collect it.
Yep I’m still in Canada, be interesting to see if google actually explain if +1 your own content is a postive or negative thing (like with SU where you are penalised for stumbling your own stuff).
Yeh never really thought about that. I don’t think it’ll be a negative thing.
Unlike Facebook which demands so much time on absolutely useless stuff, G+ can be managed without even going there most of the time. Here is how it works. People like me, although I am not a professional writer and dont even have a blog, I use G+ like a blog to say whatever I want to say, to drive traffic to, remain always logged in Google and have at least one window open, usually gmail. Of course we have the android phone also on always.
You only have to “go to” G+ only once it a while. You really dont have to. You can post content from the share button on any Google property. If some one responds, then you can see the alert in the notification area and you can respond right from the drop down menu. So some of the most active users do not visit G+ for “engagement”. We visit there when we are in a mood to just simply read or “consume” content served up by our favourite people or just random but interesting content from the stream.
In fact everything is too interesting and days dont have enough time to read all the interesting stuff in G+. That is not surprising because, they are there because they interested you.
BTW, there is nothing you can do to make people follow you other than posting interesting content. Visual content works best. If people notice you, they will follow you.
Dont forget to write a great but honest profile.
Whenever I see something interesting, I go to the persons profile and compare the stream. If the two are congruous, and interesting, I find a circle to put the in. Very interesting people go to my favourites circle which has 100% volume and remains on top
It is very easy to share pages which have the +1 button from Google.
If your site does not have +1 button it is your loss.
I use only +1 button although I have a facebook account since I consider facebook privacy agreements and their deals with websites are very shady to be euphemistic
The only reason Pinterest took off was because all their links used to be do follow so every website owner and his mother was signing up. Have you noticed that since Pinterest went no follow, the hype seems to have died down?
+ is just like a thorn in my side really. I know it is there but really want it to go away! 🙂
I would love somehow Pinterest to integrate into Google+ seemlessly.