Google+ and SEO benefits question

[MokaBox]

I recently started a blog for my yacht brokerage business. I mostly did it because I enjoy writing and have always been happy with the results that my social media initiatives have brought in this field. Every post I make automatically goes to twitter, facebook, linked'in, and google+.

This morning I posted a few photographs on my blog following a visit to a local shipyard called "Wider" that is building a 150' super yacht. I do a lot of business with this particular shipyard and have an exclusivity agreement with them for the vessel, so I am keen that if anybody looks for information on line they should find me before they find any of my competitors.

5 minutes ago I searched "WIDER 150" on google.com and found that my blog through my personal google+ page was in third position on page 1 (second position being my youtube video)! I am astonished by this. Happy...but astonished, especially since I did not add any tag words to the blog or make any particular effort to promote it beyond the usual twitter, fb, etc links.

Could it be that google favours the use of google + and automatically adds recent posts to a high ranking position when people search? When I set up my blog I accidentally linked it to my personal g+ page, which gets very little use, rather than my "yachtsforsale" g+ account which I use a lot more...why do you think it could be that google picked up on my personal page?

I'm still learning a lot about SEO, I'd be grateful for your comments and insight.

 

[zigojacko]

Yes, Google gives greater placement to decent content shared on their own network Google+. I don't believe they've admitted it yet, but they do. And it will get indexed and ranked super quick as well.

 

[UKSBD]

Check that you are not seeing personalized results.

 

[MokaBox]

zigojacko - Thanks...makes sense. The ranking is really super-quick. I posted the blog this morning and was already on page 1 this afternoon.

UKSD - interesting, I did not know that I may be seeing personalised results. How can I check?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Google is currently favouring its own content and is in fact subject to anti trust investigations as a result.

 

[UKSBD]

zigojacko - Thanks...makes sense. The ranking is really super-quick. I posted the blog this morning and was already on page 1 this afternoon.

UKSD - interesting, I did not know that I may be seeing personalised results. How can I check?

Make sure you are not logged in to Google when searching, use a different browser, better still ask others what they see

 

[MokaBox]

Thanks again UKSBD - I just tried using safari and although my videos and blog are all over the first two pages, the specific blog post through google + is nowhere to be seen. The result I saw using chrome (the browser I usually use) must have been a personalised result as you suggested. I'd never heard of that before...good to know!

 

[jdluckhurst]

The result I saw using chrome (the browser I usually use) must have been a personalised result as you suggested. I'd never heard of that before...good to know!

It is because of your cache and the fact that Google tries to give you results according to your previous search history, so always use a private browser to check rankings along with logging out of your emails/Google+.

However, Google does seem to favour Google+ more than others....it stands to reason in that it is one of their products!

 

[Uzair Kharawala]

G+ is going to play an increasingly bigger role in Adwords as well. You can now set G+ annotations / reviews, etc on your text ads which will attract potential audience to click your ad instead of your competitors.

In the search results, you can claim 'authorship' for your blog post i.e it displays your profile picture which again stands out more compared to the other posts with no photos.

Hope this helps.
Oz

 

[MokaBox]

Thanks Uzair. I'm not monetizing my blog for the time being, although I may do in the future. To be honest I have found Google + really difficult to get to grips with - far less intuitive than any other social media network I use. I can't even figure out how to get to my page without going through my youtube account!

It stands to reason though that using google+ will bring great SEO advantages, given that google is still the dominant search engine. The yachting industry on the whole seems a little behind the times where social media is concerned, so I'm hoping that by being one of the first brokers to use it so extensively I shall benefit in the long run!

 

[Uzair Kharawala]

You need to claim your Google + page URL. This is being phased out by Google and not everyone on G+ can claim the unique URL right now, so instead of a very long URL which is immensely difficult to remember, I now have our company page URL as https://plus.google.com/+SfdigitalCoUk1/

 

[vineeth]

Actually Google+ plays an important role in seo. And i guess slowly they will acquire the market space currently owned by Facebook and Twitter. If you analyze closely you can see that if you have Google+ page, it will be above the Facebook or Twitter profiles.So investing more time of Google+ is not a bad idea. Sooner or later they will win the race

 

[open sesame]

Well actually Google has cut back on Author snippets showing in results, they have started (I believe) to tweak their Author Rank algo so those authors who claim their content (using a reciprocal link) and it being consistently good (in the eyes of Google) should surface more in the SERP's.

But in your case, your only seeing your social profiles because your logged in. Google will show your content more prominent to you and those who follow your on G+ - they follow you because they like your content so it makes sense to surface your content more to those who follow in the SE.

When you use Chrome click the top/right dropdown menu and choose incognito, this should show you the SERP's as they are to the outside world.