How Will Google ‘Search Plus Your World’ Affect SEO?

Firstly, let’s get things straight. What Google calls “˜Search Plus Your World’ is actually “˜Search Plus Your Google+ and Picasa Accounts’. Google have just dramatically changed the way we search by allowing users with Google accounts to search “˜globally’ or “˜personally’. One is your traditional Google – which still uses Web History and Search preferences – and the other mashes up web results with a collection of photos, posts, pages and profiles from your Google+ account.

If you don’t have a Google+ account yet, look at my example.  Be sure to get signed up and add me to your circles.

Google’s aim is to allow you to search through your life

– your photos, things you’ve written, pages you’ve +1’d – and also what your friends have shared.  For example, if you search on Google and have a  Google+ page the results are more likely to produce results from people in your circles, and not the hundred other sites with the same info. Similarly, if you know you took a photo of something but can’t find it, Google will show you photos you have taken in search results. Google filters your results based on your likes, your activity, your content and your location, making search more personal than ever before.

If you are an SEO you’re probably about to cry – you’ve spent so long getting a page to rank on global Google results and Google has gone and changed search so that unless a searcher has already interacted with you or their friends have interacted with you then you won’t appear in their personalized results page.  If you need further advice please visit my SEO training page.

How does this change the focus of SEO?

At the moment, personalised search is only available  for Google.com when users are signed

into Google+. It also only draws information from Google+, which although phenomenally popular for such a young social network, is nowhere near as big as Twitter and Facebook. Chances are everyone will still use global search to find what they want. However, if you do appear in personal searches that’s even better right? Correct!

Popularity and buzz on Google+ have become very important. Currently, the best way to feature in “˜Search Plus Your Life’ is to really build up your Google+ presence. Get as many followers as possible, create content that people will share and encourage people to +1 your website and blog posts. The more followers you have, the more people are talking about you on Google+ and the more +1s you have, the more personal search results you will appear in.  With that said be sure to add me to your circles.   What’s great about appearing is that unlike a traditional search result with a snippet from your website or meta data, people know that pages come recommended by you. When searching for a product, users are shown results that have been shared and +1d by their friends – the best type of recommendation!

So get out on Google+ and make sure your brand is as visible as possible. Don’t hold off on your other social networks though as I predict that in the future others will open up to Google and people will be able to search through all their social profiles. Then it really will be “˜Search Plus Your Life’. Also, don’t abandon your usual SEO efforts as global search will be the main method of searching for a long time to come.

Silicon Beach Training runs ethical SEO courses in Brighton. Our courses are always up to date with the latest trends and we never advise delegates to do anything that could harm them in the future. We also run a selection of highly popular Management and Leadership Training courses.