Wow! There’s a lot of hype in the interwebs regarding Google +1. Rightfully so as Google +1 is poised to steal away some market share from Facebook. Google’s aim is to provide the best search results to their users. While Google +1 will enhance search given the personalization and instant social proof it will provide, there is a HUGE residual effect that people may actually use Google +1 and their Google Profile for social networking. This will be substantially more than Google +1 buttons for websites.

Google +1 will become a social platform through an elegant user interface forcing you to put your contacts into circles, allowing segmented information in and out of the circles. When you update your profile you will be forced to select who you want to give the information to. The HUGE advantage for Google is their other products like video chat, GMAIL, SMS, Analytics, and a whole lot more that have been proven to be the best in the industry. If Google can successfully intertwine these proven products with a social network then it’s truly Game On.

Wait. It’s happening already.

Currently if you are hooked up to Webmaster tools then you can see for yourself how Google +1’s are affecting your site’s rankings. What? Really? Google is actually saying THIS WILL HELP YOU RANK BETTER. Nice.

Here’s a look (little condensed but you will get the picture):
Google Webmaster Tools and Google +1

There are three tabs in Google WM tools:

  1. Search Impact- This area will tell you how many people saw the search result with an annotation (i.e. Someone in their social circle +1’d it), clicks, and search impact (How did the click thru rate change?)
  2. Activity- This section will detail how many URLs/Pages received +1’s, new +1’s, +1’s compared over a time period, and new plus 1’s from other websites.
  3. Audience- You can guess what this is about? How many unique people +1’d your website. Sorry for the news, it probably doesnt count much if you +1 your article dozens of times.

If you don’t have +1 on your website. Stop. Add it. Here’s the code for Google +1. Secondly, make sure you have your Webmaster tools hooked up.

That’s it. It will be an interesting next few months in Googleland.

Please check back for more updates on Google +1 or leave a comment below (of course you can +1 as well 🙂

Meet Joe Chura

Joe began his career on the Ford assembly line at age 20, reading his college textbooks seconds at a time in between building cars. Over the next decade Joe gained experience at many different levels in the automotive industry, including running Ford’s regional sales team and a stint as General Manager of two dealerships, where he increased internet sales by 300%. Combining his passion for computer programming and innovation, Joe co-founded Launch Digital Marketing (LDM) and Dealer Inspire (DI) to bring new retail technology and better online experiences to both car dealers and shoppers.