As Google is current rolling out its social search across 19 countries, I thought it'd be interesting to have a look at the effect of this and Google+1 on the SERPs and your SEO strategy (thank you @rochelledancel for the suggestion!).
Social search, what is it?
To put it simply, social search is the integration of social media results in the standard Google SERPs. For this to work, you need to be logged in to your google account and synchronise it with your other social accounts (twitter, facebook, you get the idea....). Your search results will now include pages/sites that have been liked or selected by your social contacts as well as the standard google results. The social element will be added just below the affected results.
Google +1
Google +1 works on the same principle and is the google answer to the Facebook "Like". If you like a site, you can just "+1" it , and friends in your network will see it displayed more prominently in their results pages.
What's the SEO impact?
Well at this point in time it is still difficult to assess as social search is still in its infancy. And like every new google tool, it could disappear very quickly (remember wave and buzz??).
One thing that is clear is the fact that if you don't have a google account synchronised with your other social media accounts, nothing will change. And if you do take the time to do this, then you'll also take the time to like or +1 sites that are relevant to you, so hopefully relevant to google too.
What should you do?
So at this point, I don't think there's any need for SEO experts to panic about social search, as if you get the basics right, people will naturally like your site, therefore reinforcing your rankings. Business as usual is the word, continue your SEO efforts with users in mind but don't forget to add those trendy social bookmark buttons on your site to cover all basis!
Are you worried about the impact of social search? have you experienced changes in your rankings? share your views
2 comments:
In strategy terms, this is a very interesting development. Most of the marketers that I work with understand SEO in the context of Google, and have yet to be convinced of the benefits of social to achieving their strategic aims. Consequently, where teams have been reluctant to invest money in social, the impending arrival of +1 in Google means that some teams have been anticipating a greater spend in content production. Why? Because, apart from being a fundamental SEO ingredient, social is all about the content.
I agree that, right now, the impact looks negligible, primarily because you have to be signed in to be able to do anything. However, with syncing become increasingly popular, I don't think it's that big a step to one day seeing people permanently logged in to Google.
@Rochelle,
I completely agree that this is something to keep an eye on in the future as search is becoming more and more social.
As always in search marketing, content is king, and without the right content for users and search engines, there will be no performance.
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