Google Plus Search – Why You Should Take Notice
Posted by Stephan | Posted in Google, Updates | Posted on 25-01-2012
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Google recently rolled out a new feature called Search Plus Your World (SPYW), which may well become a very important tool in your SEO strategy tool box. Since launching in June 2011, Google+ has grown at a rapid rate. Currently there are over 62 million users on the social network, with the number of registered users growing every month. The addition of Google+ Pages for business has also helped Google become a worthy competitor to Facebook and other social networks.
How does Search Plus Your World work however, and what does this mean for your SEO strategies?
SPYW Key Features
Still in its roll-out phase, SPYW is taking social search to the next level. As factors such as trust and reputation become more important in search, the new Google+ search feature takes both of these factors into account to deliver a personalised search experience that blends personal recommendations from Circles and friends as well as generic search results. This means that users searching for SEO for instance will be able to see the main results for SEO companies and tips, along with a Personal Results option that displays content from Google+.
The Personal Results search will display the following:
- Web pages
- Web pages matched to your browsing preferences
- Web pages from your social connections
- Public Google+ content
- Private or Limited Google+ content that has been shared with you
What This Means for Your SEO Strategies
From an online marketing point of view, SPYW offers a number of benefits for your SEO strategies. Much as Google Places opened up the possibilities for customised search, SPYW takes the concept of search to another level.
Instead of purely targeting the main search results, online marketers now have the chance to gain even more exposure through the Personal Results listings. Like Google Ads, these results are displayed in a prominent position on the right sidebar, with the option for users to display Personal Listings in the main SERPs too. Personalised strategies for SEO will also give online marketers a new way to get results, boosting reputation and trust as well as increasing engagement and social approval from audiences. Along with results, profiles, people and pages will also be displayed in search.
How to Set up Your Google+ Page
The first step in reaping the many rewards that Google’s SPYW is sure to offer is to create your Google+ Page. This can be done quickly and simply, with the following steps:
- Go to https://plus.google.com/pages/create to set up your page.
- Choose a category (Local Business or Place; Product or Brand; Company, Institution or Organisation; Arts, Entertainment or Sports or Other)
- Customise your page’s look and content
- Set up your Circles for your fans, customers, stakeholders and other audiences
- Start engaging with your Circles on a regular basis
Once your page has been set up and your Circles begin to grow, you can start building your reputation online to complement your SEO strategies through social search.
Here are a few posts outlining how important Google Plus will become and in details setup instructions with example pages:
Are you actively using Google+? If not, why not?





Reputation management, authority and trust have all become very important ranking factors in Search Engine Optimization. As such, it is no longer enough to send out a couple of link requests or submit hundreds of links to directories. Linking to low quality websites in today’s age of improved Google algorithms can even signal the death knell for websites who continue to try the old tactics without evolving to the world of social search.

