Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has gone through a lot of changes over the years.  Search Engines are like little toddlers, they need to be taught what is relevant and quality for searches.  The goal of search engines is to provide the most relevant and best quality result to your search query.  The task of SEO is to provide search engines with all the necessary triggers of relevancy and quality to teach them what to display in search results.

The basics of SEO consists both of on-site factors, like header tags and title tags, and off-site factors, like back-links and social triggers.  Over the years the way we try to reach our goals with organic search has changed.  And with the introduction of Google’s “Search Plus Your World,” there has been a shift in search results based on the Google+ social graph.

If you do not have a Google+ social media plan in place, now is the time to adapt one.

6 Reasons Search is Changing

Google+ information is being heavily displayed in search results.  When you are logged into your Google account and perform a search, not only are you going to see the regular paid ads and the top ten search results, you are going to see Google+ results all over the page.

You will see the people that are in your circle along the top of the results page.  You will see content from your circle’s feed showing in prime locations in search.  Google+ is being displayed prominently and it will affect your traffic and potential conversion.

Google+ is in Search Results

Second, Google has made an aggressive change to the way search results are displayed.  They have introduced a new results box called “People and Pages on Google+.”  This is prominent and will grow in use.  This will only display when logged into your account, but the power is obvious.

Facebook, at the time of this writing has about 800 million active users.  Google has billions of users performing billions of searches each day.  The amount of data available to Google is significantly greater than even Facebook.

Google is essentially personalizing your search results based on your social connections and the things that you have indicated are your interests.  They are trying to learn what is most relevant to you and deliver the results that they believe you would want to view and your social connections help determine both relevancy and quality.

Google+ Adoption is Growing

Facebook has spent a great deal of energy and effort becoming the center of the social graph.  They have built an enormous amount of equity in “owning” the social space.  Google is making an effort to dislodge Facebook from that position because of the power of search.  Google+ is still a young social media platform.  At the time of this writing, it has about 60 million users.  It will reach 100 million by the end of 2012 and begin to grow at steady rate.

I don’t know about you, but when people perform a search using one of my primary keywords, showing up in organic search is good, but showing up in “People and Pages on Google+” would be great!  It is in a better position for clicks and gives me an opportunity to connect better with potential customers or users.

Enriching Result Snippets

The rich snippets that are being included in the markup will have impact in click through rates and impressions.  You now have images, icons of people in your circle, brands that you follow being displayed in the search result under a listing.  It is adding an element of social proof that search results have missed.

We will be more likely to click on links that people we know and follow have +1ed or shared on their stream than a link with no social proof.  Google is counting on these triggers.  These are the things that help provide them with better information that leads to better search results for its customers, you and me!

Social Triggers and Proof Matter

The current trend in search is to be biased toward social triggers and social proof.  The search algorithm is designed to deliver the most important content to its users.  The problem is that these mathematical formulas are missing a key ingredient, human behavior.  They are not able to understand and predict human behavior in a reliable, systematic way.  By incorporating the social element from Google+, they are able to utilize this data to help filter irrelevant and low quality results and deliver high quality relevant results specific to the user.

Your search results will differ from my search results because our social graph is different.  These triggers will impact the way Google delivers results.  Search becomes more personal.

SEO is Changing with Social

The impact of Google’s “Search Plus Your World” is yet to be completely understood.  It has already proven that is an important tool for online marketing and social marketing and it is now influencing SEO strategy.  If you have not began to look at how Google+ can improve your web traffic, jump in while there is still room to learn, grow and master.  Then you can become the authority that is showing for your keyword in the “People and Pages on Google+” results.