Internet Marketing Weekly: Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” presents marketing opportunities to businesses with Google+ business pages.
Search Plus Your World provides marketing opportunities to businesses.
Google’s moves toward personalizing search results took a dramatic turn a little over a week ago with the introduction of Search Plus Your World (SPYW). Now when you do a Google search while logged in to a Google account, you might see results from your Google+ network integrated into the search results.
Google+ isn’t SPYW’s only source of personalized information: you might also see photos on Flikr, threads on Quora, and other publicly available information.
Even if you’re not signed in or don’t have a Google+ account, you might see Google+ content on search results pages. This dramatically heightened visibility of Google+ pages creates a huge marketing opportunity for businesses. (Read more about how you can create a business page on Google+.)
Google+ business pages can now appear in several places in search results pages:
- In search results: Your Google+ business page, and the content you add to it, can appear in search results. Searchers may see your profile image, the text and images in your posts, and other information. Below your page or post might be a count of the number of comments or +1’s it earned along with the profile images of anyone in the searcher’s Circles who have shared it. All this color and special markup helps it stand out visually in search results. Also, the more comments, +1’s, and shares a page or post gets, the higher it’s likely to appear in search results. In other words, if you create a Google+ page for your business and fill it with engaging content, that could give you a boost in search results.
Posts from businesses' Google+ pages can appear in search results, as in this example from the Muppets.
- In sidebar suggestions: For some searches (even if you aren’t signed in to a Google account), a sidebar appears to the right of search results offering suggestions of Google+ pages related to your search that you might want to add to your Circles. If you frequently talk about a certain topic on your Google+ page (say, your city or your industry), your page might show up as a suggestion for that topic.
If you search for "Angry Birds" on Google, a sidebar will offer suggestions for related Google+ pages.
- In image searches: Even if you don’t search specifically for images, Google sometimes offers a row or two of images in regular search results. With SPYW, images from the people and businesses in your Circles may appear. Below each personalized image is a grey bar noting where the image came from. Clicking on the bar brings you to that person’s or business’s Google+ page. As a business owner, you can increase your potential visibility by posting and sharing interesting images on your Google+ page.
If you post interesting images on your Google+ page, those images have the chance to appear in Google's image search with a link to your Google+ page.
If you’re still casting around for worthwhile New Year’s resolutions, put creating and maintaining a Google+ page for your business at the top of your list.
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