Many have been wondering how Google +1 is going to effect SEO and search results. As you may know, Google launched +1 as a “like” or “retweet” button and is a way to share Google Search results that you like with your friends and the broader web. SEO management company Conductor says that +1 does have meaningful impact on search results. And because of this, the startup is now pulling those metrics into Searchlight, and running analytics on them to give brands understanding of when Google uses these social signals to rank websites.
In Conductor’s research over the past few months, the top five companies showing up in Google’s Organic Search has 3 times as many Google +s on their pages, and 2 times as many Facebook Likes than the companies ranking 6-10. The startup also reports that 9 out of 10 times, the top ranking search results had more Google +1s and Facebook likes than then the results ranking 6 and beyond.
Conductor says that within seconds of a ‘Facebook Like’, ‘Google +1’ or ‘LinkedIn Share’, Searchlight customers are able to examine and report on social signals for their own domains, competitors and see who the performing brands are for any particular keyword or phrase.
Seth Besmertnik, CEO of Conductor, tells us that it can be challenging to for companies and brands to monitor how much +1s or likes that each URL is receiving. Searchlight organizes this info across tens of thousands of URLs and will tell them which keywords are helping with Google +1, and which keywords are not.
It’s still early days for these metrics, considering Google’s social products have only just been released, but considering the power of the Facebook like, LinkedIn Shares and Google +1s are probably going to be an important factor in SEO management and analysis.
