What happens should Google +1 prove a success?
With social media buttons now commonplace, the launch of another should be no big deal, had it not been by search giant Google. Tom Cull, head of search at MediaVest gives takes a look at Google +1 and examines the implications should it prove a success.
What it means for brands/agencies doing SEO
We have traditionally seen a fairly standard response rate curve in the rankings, moving from very high click-through rates for the top spot, through to much lower rates as you move below the fold. Over the recent years we’ve seen the an increasing number of queries resulting in ‘universal search’ results being returned with maps, images, videos, real time results etc all being included as part of the search results which gone some way to changing the response curve. With the inclusion of +1 information below each result, we may find more instances of a lower ranked site having more +1s than listings in higher positions and therefore receive a higher CTR, further removing our abilities to predict response rates by position.
The real interest from an SEO point of view comes when you consider their plans to release the code for webmasters to put a +1 button on to their sites. The Facebook ‘like’ button is already being adopted on to some websites, with varying degrees of success, but at present Google have said that FB ‘likes’ aren’t included as a ranking factor.
Current research is showing that Google’s ranking algorithm is now increasing the value it gives to (potentially even nofollowed) links from social media site so they will undoubtedly look to user +1 data to help determine a sites position in their search results. The race will then be on for websites to ensure they have a loyal and engagement audience who are willing to +1 them.
What it means for brands/agencies doing PPC
Google have confirmed that the volume of +1s that an ad gets won’t affect their Quality Score metric directly. However, what is unknown is whether or not one ad having more +1s than another ad will increase its response. With CTR being such an important part of Quality Score, we could see that +1 has an indirect effect, meaning advertisers whose ads have a number of +1s could see higher Quality Scores, giving them a more efficient campaign.
The AdWords team have reported that reporting on the number of +1s that an ad has received will soon be available in the AdWords dashboard as a new dimension in order for them to take full advantage of the data behind this.
What it means for brands/agencies doing Social and PR
Google already allows you to add various social accounts such as Twitter & Facebook to your Google Profile. As well as looking at the number of +1s any particular site gets, will they take this a step further and look to ‘weight’ each +1 based on the +1er’s own authority across the social sphere?
Tom Cull is head of search at independent media planning and buying agency MediaVest. Follow MediaVest’s 'Get Great Results' blog on Twitter @GGRtweet