Can Google+ Guarantee Top Search Engine Results?

by Jason Unger, Founder

Insights / Social Media / Can Google+ Guarantee Top Search Engine Results?

There’s an interesting video out from the search engine optimization folks over at Moz, whose software we use to track keywords and make sure our sites are running optimally, about the effects Google+ can have on your search engine results.

It’s long been thought that sharing on Google+ can help your content rank in organic results, but this seems to verify it. Watch the video (original post here) with highlights pulled out below.

 It’s really interesting what we’ve been observing over the last few weeks and months of Google’s development, so check this out. If I do a search for “data science,” and I’m logged into my Google+ account, I see under data science “How Moz’s Data Science Team Works.” Which is pretty weird, actually—I think that’s very strange, because this was just posted on our Dev Blog, which isn’t on our main site. It’s a subdomain, and it doesn’t rank very well. If you search and you’re not logged in, you won’t find it in the first 100 results at all. It’s showing up here because it’s been shared by an account that I follow. It’ll say, “Moz shared this.” And that’s happening because of the Google+ integration.

 What this means for marketers, particularly SEOs who are using search and social and content together in their marketing, is the audience on Google+ is becoming more and more valuable to us.

 Also, even if you don’t have a Google+ audience, it doesn’t matter because influencers—people who do have audiences on Google+—might be sharing your stuff. That’s fascinating to imagine. It’s almost like “Hey, I don’t use Twitter, but if I can just get someone to tweet some of this stuff for me, I know I’ll get traffic.” Well, on Google+, it’s not just the traffic you’ll get—you’ll also get high rankings from all of their audience. It’s really remarkable.

It’s an interesting discussion, and clearly shows it’s worth investing in your Google+ presence. But, as cautioned in the video, that doesn’t mean just +1ing every piece of content you create. At the end of the day, it comes back to Google’s main goal for site owners and publishers: create compelling and valuable content that’s worth sharing and of interest to your audience, and you’ll succeed.