In January this year Google launched “Search Plus Your World”, a way to personalise search results. It really came as no surprise, as Google have been marching towards building stronger bonds between its users and their search results. I’m sure by now nearly every site going has a share button to Facebook or Twitter. The age of social media is now and Google sure weren’t going to miss out.
For those of you who don’t know, Google Your World is an application that Google+ users have available when they are signed in. A new icon appears that allows them three options to tailor their results:
- Personal results that only show results from the users’ own profile. i.e. Photos, videos, articles they’ve shared etc.
- Profiles in search, helping you find people or places that are close to you.
- People and pages, which help you find both Google+ pages and people profiles that you may be interested in, and allowing you to follow them at the click of a button.
It is an excellent way of narrowing your field of search. The reasoning behind this is simple: behind almost every query entered in Google lies a community. Those niche markets that are a bit web shy are suddenly available at your fingertips. Your World also provides easy ways of managing the level and depth of the personalisation of your search.
Obviously this impacts online marketing, and brings the SEO worker closer to social communications. It is a reminder that using social media to its full potential will certainly help boost your traffic, traffic conversion and SERPs. Still, the best way to make Your World work from an SEO and online marketing perspective is the same as making regular Google work for you. Invest quality into your site. SEO by nature is an all-inclusive kind of marketing. It has its fingers in all sorts of pies, from PR to branding. Social media then, and therefore Google Your World, is yet another aspect of web marketing that the SEO hotshot must consider. Oh and don’t worry, here at Precise English we can navigate all these things so you don’t have to. There, wouldn’t that be a load off your mind?