Welcome to your world, personalized. Google search results have changed once again, this time to serve content that has been shared with you privately along with matches from the “general” web. Search Plus Your World is now live but is only shown to those logged in to Google.com. For an in-depth look at the functionality, check out searchengineland.com.
This sea change will have many deep reaching effects on search marketing. Let’s take a look at some early predictions:
Social Impact
This could be a fantastic way for brands to increase awareness. Google accesses individual’s information from Google+, so searchers will be shown results based on their contacts. Say I search for pizza in Denver. I could be shown a picture a Google+ friend posted of The Walnut Room’s Mean Green Pizza, decide it looks delicious and order from there. This result wouldn’t have previously ranked because it may not have had the weight without the personalization.
This is another reason brands need to be using Google+, regardless of whether a large percent of their current demographic is on the site. If Google is making it a priority, so should brands.
Of course, this opens up a flood of issues around privacy. Users should be warned something shared as private could be shared publicly by others. This has already been an issue in Google+, despite the fact the site warns you a piece of content was shared in a limited capacity before you try to share it with someone else.
Google+ profiles are also showing in search results, similar to direct connect for pages. This is important for entrepreneurs or those who are their own brand. Begin to type a name into the search bar and people you are connected to through Google+ will automatically populate.
People and Pages suggestions from Google+ will also start showing on the right side of the search results, when Google deems them relevant. The company has not revealed how this is determined but if you wish to take advantage of it, placing relevant keywords in your Google+ profile is a good place to start.
Image from searchengineland.com
The content displayed with Search Plus Your World only shows information from Google+, not Facebook or Twitter. Google claims it’s because these sites don’t allow it, which has sparked a bit of a cat fight.
An additional downside is that Search Plus Your World may not work as intended for individuals with multiple Google accounts. However, this is probably only an issue for those of us in the industry (or tricky online daters with multiple email accounts).
Paid Search Impact
On the paid search side, there appears to be no immediate impact from this change. The only exception is if the “+1” social extension is enabled your ad may stand out more if people are looking for personalized results. This can impact click through rates and quality score, and may result in higher positions at the same cost per click. Advertisers should definitely add the social extension in AdWords and continue to or begin being active on their Google+ business page.
Google tells us the launch of Search Plus Your World will not impact the way ads are shown for searches because the ads are targeted based on the query, not the content of the search results page. However, they confirmed ads with a high number of +1 recommendations have the potential to perform better.
SEO Impact
From an organic search perspective, this will obviously have a huge impact because the new program is listing G+ results at the top of the search results.
Brands should make sure the content posted on their Google+ pages are well optimized for their key search phrases. This will give them a better chance of showing up in the search results. It should also be a huge carrot for brands to share more (SEO-optimized) content through their Google+ network.
Building this network is also a worthwhile strategy. If your account doesn’t have much of a following, actively seek out people in your industry who do. Find some early adopters or influencers and develop a relationship for content syndication. It seems very likely the more people that share and +1 your content, the better positioning you will see in the search engine results.
These are all early predictions and only time and use will tell how Search Plus Your World will really impact digital marketing. This is by no means the first change towards personalization in Google’s search results (geo-targeting and primary language selection are nothing new) but there is no doubt this is a major step towards the merging of social and search. Obviously Google including personalized results from other major social networks like Facebook and Twitter would be another big game changer. Check back as we post updates on changes and shifting strategies.