When curiosity gets the better of you, it’s a good time to explore. We found some interesting things related to Google Plus today!
The following series of events happened while logged into my Google Account before I started my experimenting and for the duration.
Recently, while conducting a brand search in the Google search bar, Google suggest naturally started suggesting and showing topics/words that I could be looking for or interested in.
A contact who was a freelancer that I hired 6 – 7 years ago to do a few admin jobs for me came up as a suggestion. I only had 3 -4 transactions with this person and that’s all. We were never in touch after this time, in fact I had pretty much all but forgotten about this person entirely.
Today when I was trying to search for a certain brand, this suggestion from Google came up because I was logged into my gmail account. I typed in the brand name and this freelancer I had hired came up who now works for said brand as a suggestion!
Tuning into my inner nerd I got curious. I decided to experiment with the company I work for – Pure SEO.
I typed in Pure SEO and here is what was suggested – Richard’s name with a nice picture and a small excerpt mentioning that he is the Managing Director of Pure SEO which is based in Auckland. That’s so much information right there and you haven’t even hit the ‘Search’ button yet! Isn’t it amazing?
Screen Shot 2014-06-11 at 11.46.26 am.png
Another search but for a keyword this time – SEO
Screen Shot 2014-06-11 at 11.46.34 am.png
If I was from a different industry and wanted to get an SEO job done for a website and had an SEO person in my Google account (I’ve got a lot of contacts in my Google account, some of whom I don’t remember, or know their occupation), when I do a search for SEO (already signed into my Google account which normally most of the people are these days because browser saves these details) that SEO person from my Google account will show up in the suggestions. Just like how Richard’s profile showed up in these suggestions personalised for me.
What do I derive from this? Google loves Google+ (this goes without saying)
While we are on the topic of curiosity we think that people can potentially capitalise on Google’s love for Google+. Here are some suggestions from us!
INCREASE YOUR Google+ FAN BASE/FOLLOWERS/FRIENDS.
Increasing your friends and circles can help you build yourself/company as a brand, get more Google+ likes/shares by posting interesting content and updating regularly to gain credibility and authority.
It again enforces how much Google wants us to use its products
Follow and friend big names and brands, share their work, and give them credit
Start following brands and people who you like, share their work and identify yourself as an influencer. Get out there and promote their work and get involved in discussions with people all over social media but especially in Google+.
The Benefits of Google+
When optimising for businesses, a lot of the SEO is conducted around Google. Most small to medium businesses use the Google Apps suite (Gmail, Google places, Google+, Google drive) and even our SEO/SEM efforts we use (Google adwords, Google analytics, webmaster tools, the list goes on) Google’s tools on a daily basis.
A recent article on marketingland.com written by Alison Zeringue describes it perfectly “Google loves it when you play in their sandbox”. Google+ is certainly in that sandbox, with the lines of SEO and social media being blurred we think it’s becoming increasingly important for companies to develop their Google+ presence and start engaging with people and other brands and getting those all important +1.
When logged into your Google account, Google will show you biased results related specifically to you and who is in your Google+ circles. This is good because it helps promote you within your circles and can be quite targeted in some cases!
Our curiosity got the better of us, now its your turn to experiment and see what you come up with! We are interested in what you think about this be sure to leave us some comments on your findings.