Why Your Business Will Struggle Online Without Google+

I’m sure by now you are probably sick to death of hearing about Google+, just another social media platform in an already crowded space, right?

What if I told you the single most important factor in your companies success online, would lie within what you’re doing on Google+ right now?

For most business owners, that would send nervous shivers down the spin, as it should – click here to learn how to obliterate your competition on Google+

Why Your Business Will Struggle Online Without Google+

Social Signals

Social Signals are basically an endorsement from your industries online community that you know what you’re talking about.

When you share content or make comments within your industries circles (like an online group) other members have the ability to ‘vote’ on your contribution by giving it a +1.

Love them or hate them, social signals are influencing the share of search engine traffic your website is currently receiving, and it’s impact is set to grow.

Google has even officially come out and said that +1’s for a URL have the highest correlation with search engine rankings over any other SEO factor. (Moz)

Google Authorship        

As we discussed in the last point, your industry peers have the ability to ‘vote’ for the content that you share within Google+, and when the content that you share is your own, every vote gives your authorship profile more authority in the eyes of the search engines.

Google has done this to stop spammy/low quality content flooding the web and retaining the same value as super high quality, industry-leading expertise – expertise that has true value to the end user.

As your content career progresses and you gain more +1’s and followers (or when you leverage a content marketing team) , the content you are pushing out into the web will have exponentially more value, attracting better rankings for your website and delivering more customers to your business.

Google Semantic Search

Semantic search is the future of online navigation. Our daily lives are becoming progressively more immersed with the digital world, and as that happens, semantics are going to count….big time.

So what is it? Well, ‘semantic’ refers to meaning (wired), which basically means that the information, search results or content being displayed in front of you has been personalised for you, specifically, based on peer recommendations and endorsements.

Think about the implications of this, with the digital world creeping ever closer, with Google glasses and augmented reality on the very near horizon, the connections and endorsements your business has with your target demographic is going to dictate where, when and how often your website will show up in front of your prospective customers when they are actively seeking your products.

Powerful stuff, huh!

This is a post written by Michael Bird, the Director of Digital Strategy at Social Garden. You can connect with Mike on Google+ or LinkedIn here.