Google +1: what it means for your business

Al Mackin, managing director of search engine optimisation agency theEWord, discusses the potential impact of Google’s latest innovation.

As the internet becomes increasingly interactive, Google has introduced a number of tools to encourage users to engage with websites and feed back their thoughts. The latest of these innovations is the Google +1 button that allows users to show their friends and contacts which sites they rate - similar to Facebook's “Like” button.

Google has again shown that it is seeking to offer more social searches, enabling users to recommend content and making search results as relevant as possible.

The +1 button, which has been available on Google itself since March, is now being introduced to third party websites. Previously, users were able to click the button directly on Google allowing them to recommend search results and ads to friends. Now, even when on a different site, users can recommend the actual pages they're viewing.

To see recommendations from friends and contacts in a Google search, users must be signed into their Google account. Ultimately, if a large volume of users choose to press buttons on specific pages, these pages may then rank higher on their friends’ searches.

So, what does this mean for businesses?

Social online engagement is by no means a new concept for brands. We have long since moved away from the two-dimensional approach to internet browsing, and users are actively encouraged to express their opinion about websites.

However, the important thing for brands to bear in mind with the introduction of the +1 button is that how users rate their website may now impact on their ranking on Google searches.

Is SEO going social?
The launch of Google +1 has reinforced the concept of social search and serves to increase the amount of direct influence that consumers have over brands. Search engines look for a variety of criteria when ranking search results, from keywords and content to links.
However, Google will now also take into account users’ opinions and this should be a key factor for brands when developing their websites.

The Google +1 button incorporates personal recommendations, and it is for this reason that it will be a valued indicator for consumers. If you see that a contact has used and recommended a website, you’d be much more likely to click onto it yourself.

In fact, research shows that 40 per cent of UK residents are more likely to purchase a product if recommended by friends/family, so the power of personal recommendation should not be underestimated.

Consumers clicking the +1 button on a page on your website will ultimately affect your organic rankings – as more people give you a positive rating, the higher up you will feature on a Google search. The way to do this is by creating engaging content which encourages users to interact with your website and want to recommend it to friends and family.

Companies that are already undertaking Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and doing it well, will already be well ahead with this. A genuinely successful SEO campaign will involve ensuring that a website is as interesting and useful for users as possible. Ultimately, by doing this, it should encourage people to click +1.

How to do this
It’s really common sense, but by creating engaging content that is valuable to users, brands will encourage repeat visits and, hopefully, result in users recommending websites to their contacts.

In simple terms, SEO is the process of improving your website so that Google views you as a more “important” source of information than the other sites in your marketplace. If your website has greater credibility, then you will appear higher up in the results pages and receive a greater number of visitors.

The key to any good SEO campaign is to target the right keywords, and to achieve success in a timescale that will bring profitability.

It is also important to engage with users and one way to do this is to make your website as interactive as possible. We all like to feel that our opinions are valued and, as a business, interacting with your audience is one of the best ways to build up a loyal customer base.

In fact, research has shown that 78 per cent of UK residents said that being asked to contribute to a brand online would encourage them to recommend it.

Best practice SEO
For any business that is doing SEO well, the +1 button should be an extra tool to help them push their website up the search rankings. Best practice SEO involves creating genuinely engaging content and this new tool is Google’s way of pushing businesses to produce content that is so good users will want to recommend it.

It is companies that aren’t paying attention to what their audience wants that will get left behind.