google plus for SOE

One thing everyone on the web is doing is scrambling for search engine rankings.

Obviously this means that any edge you can possibly use you want. What I have been doing lately is researching the impact of having a Google Business page (simply a google+ page for business) on search ranking.

Google+ is Google’s social network, a competitor to Facebook. As a competitor to Facebook, I think it has a long way to go. One of the main reasons that I can see for this is that Facebook has games.

However, as always, the big sledgehammer that Google uses to bludgeon competition is search rankings.

If you create a Google business page, when you search for your page you will find your Google business page will come up next to it, as shown in the picture above. It will have a map and a few details about your business, and if people want to they can click on your page and have a look around.

I have been combing the web (as I do) looking for evidence that Google business actually does anything to your search rankings.  I can’t actually find anything conclusive at this stage. There are many varying opinions on the web (as always). Some people say yes, some say no.

However, I will say this. Google+ is currently the second biggest social network in the world. They would like to be the biggest, obviously. If improving search ranking by tight integration with Google+ is the carrot they use to achieve that aim, I suspect they will do that.

Google is all about helping you grow your business (by using their services of course)

When you research what Google is saying, all of their promotional material is about how Google+ helps you promote your brand.  So it stands to reason that over time a Google+ page will have some effect.

On a practical note, when I look at Google Webmaster tools for my website (an important tool I will explain more about in a later post), I noticed that by adding links to my blog posts on my Google+ business page the links were showing as coming to my site from Google itself. Now as any SEO expert will explain to you, links to your site from quality sources are a very important part of the puzzle when it comes to increasing your search rankings.

So that alone is enough for me to say, yes, it’s worth it.

And of course, if web management is not your forte, and you feel confused by such things as Google analytics and webmaster tools and all the stuff I speak about, get in touch. I can help.

What Google say about branding using Google+

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