Over the past few months, Google have been rolling out their +1 button on search results and websites. The button allows users to “vote” for which sites and results in Google search they find useful. For a while now, Google have been talking about how they want to factor social interaction into their search results. It is pretty obvious that the plus one button is a key tool in this objective. Further supporting this is a quote from the Webmaster Central blog: “We expect that these personalized annotations will help sites stand out by showing users which search results are personally relevant to them. As a result, +1’s could increase both the quality and quantity of traffic to the sites people care about.” One SEO company (SEOmoz) has experimented with this, and discovered that it did have a significant impact on a pages search performance. they shared shared page specifically set up for the purpose through his Google+ profile and then encouraged folks to share it through Google+, but not through Twitter, Facebook, direct linking, etc. Within minutes the post was shared dozens of times, and Two hours later, this test URL ranked #1 for its keyword phrase in Google search results. You will find full details of the experiment here. All of this adds impact to what we have been saying; “The key to internet marketing is being valued by your market, and you are seen as valuable if you deliver good, interesting content that is relevant to your target audience”. What the Google + 1 button does is allows people to show their approval for your content, and this approval will have a positive impact on your search results, helping you to Be Heard. So rather than spend resources on “Traditional SEO”, we would recommend that once you have done the basic on page optimisation, you should devote your time to generating good interesting content, and communicating it to those people you know. Then encourage them to “+1” your content if they like it. This should in turn make the content easier to find for those people who you don’t know, creating a positive spiral.
