First, I have to say that I think Google’s marketing strategy for Google+ is brilliant. I remember when I heard about Google+, I was intrigued. I went to sign up, and what do you know, I CAN’T. I have to admit, I was a little bit pissed off. Especially since my girlfriend got invited before me! Google is playing off the basic marketing idea of scarcity. If people think something is limited, or closed off from them, they will want it more! We all want to be apart of something, and by starting off with it being invite only, they are playing off of our desire to feel included, and elite. This is a concept you can use in your own website by using coupons, or limited promotions, and if used right it can be VERY effective.
I absolutely love the potential Google is bringing with their new Google+ Social media platform. Not only will this compete with Facebook in the social realm, but I have a feeling that this will offer new options in the realm of SEO. After you sign into your Google account, you will notice that Google shows little +1’s in their search engine results. After you +1 content, it shows up in your feed for others to see.
Since this +1 seems so closely tied to search engines, as well as the online social world, it is hard for me to imagine that this will not have an impact on search engine rankings! I have a feeling that in the near future, this will take on many of the features similar to the Facebook like button. I am all ready hoping that someone will integrate the +1 into squeeze pages, so the visitor will have to +1 to get something free, or view content. This has potential to make pages go viral!
Fishkin, a guy from SEOMoz did a study of how twitter and Google+ effect your website indexing. Now Google recently cut off twitter from the major effect that it used to have, but the results of the study concluded that both Google+ and Twitter can help you get your website indexed. The Google+ test page was ranked to #1 in 2 hours for a non-competitive phrase, and I can only imagine that it will end up impacting ranking as well. So, make sure you have a +1 button on your website along with a Facebook like button, and encourage people to click it!
