Topic: Google’s incorporation of social and personal content to the SERP
Opportunity: Achieve prominent search visibility through Google+ presence
Channels Impacted: Organic search, paid search, social
Google recently began rolling out its new “Search, Plus Your World” features to the search engine results page (SERP). The update introduced two new features that significantly impact paid search marketing and SEO:
- People and Pages: The SERP now prominently features the Google+ Pages of both people and brands—for branded and generic queries—even when the searcher isn’t logged in
- Personal Results: When logged in, the Google SERP now shows the searcher’s personal photos and posts from Google+ and Picasa. Personal results include the searcher’s own content, as well as content shared with the searcher. This new content is exclusive to the searcher, so everyone’s SERP is different.
People and Pages: Search Implications
Since Google+ Pages for Businesses launched, we’ve advocated that having a branded Google+ Page is essential for your search campaigns (see Why Your Brand Needs a Google+ Business Page Now). We noted that the primary reason to create a Google+ Page was to aid your SEO efforts. For instance, social content from brands is increasing achieving prominent visibility on the Google SERP, especially for branded searches. We told brands to expect to see their Google+ Business Pages in the top organic results for branded keywords very soon. What we didn’t expect was the prominence that Google would give Google+ Business Pages. For instance, the below search for “fashion” gives H&M’s Google+ Page visibility equivalent to a position-1 paid-search bid, even when the searcher is not signed in:
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