Google Search Becomes More Social

Google Search Becomes More Social

by Scott Brandon
on 06/17/2011

Have you heard about Google’s new +1 button and social search? It is Google’s newest initiative to counter Facebook’s social dominance and the ubiquitous nature of the Facebook “like” button.

As social media continues to grow, we are seeing a seismic shift in the way websites use peer reviews. As we all know, reviews are now commonly used on e-commerce websites to assist consumers in making a buying decision. Amazon is a great example of how an e-commerce site uses reviews to help shoppers decide if a product is right for them.

What’s changing now is to make those reviews socially relevant. While we all trust peer reviews more than we trust an advertiser or the media, we trust people we know even more. 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know. This is a very significant number.

Facebook has been doing an excellent job of integrating social data into review and ecommerce sites. For example, I am participating in Amazon’s beta test that integrates my Facebook profile with my Amazon profile. When I go to Amazon and sign in, I can visit my Amazon Facebook page. The page immediately tells me which Facebook friends have upcoming birthdays and using their Facebook profile (and I assume their Amazon profile, if they have one), Amazon makes gift recommendations to me for them. Amazon also tells me what products they sell are popular among my friends and makes further purchase recommendations based on my Facebook data.

Trip Advisor has a similar application and when I am looking at a destination or hotel, the application will tell me which of my friends on Facebook have stayed at the hotel so that I can ask them directly about their experience. This is reflected in the screenshot below.

  

The power of this data and what can be done with it is what scares the privacy advocates. I, on the other hand, think it’s great. I knowingly participate so I can save time and get relevant information I need.

Google has been on the sidelines and has seen Facebook’s importance to ecommerce grow. So, the Google +1 button is their answer to Facebook’s dominance.  The button will be available on Google search results, ads and third party sites. 

  

How it will work is when someone clicks the +1 button next to an ad or an organic result, your friends can then see a personalized annotation on their search results that show that you have +1’d it.

  

Google will integrate the +1 functionality into its products including Gmail chat, Google contacts, Reader and Buzz. What’s even more interesting is the ability to add +1 to your website, which will give users even more opportunities to endorse your brand.

  

The big picture idea is that these personal recommendations can drive more, better-qualified traffic to your site. 

  

 

The big question currently being asked is how much influence will the +1 button have on your site’s Google search ranking? Google has clearly stated that +1 will be one of the signals it uses in determining rank.

We have already begun adding the +1 button to all of our client’s websites. If you are a webmaster, web designer, etc, you can get the button here http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button. I would recommend adding to every page on your site.

It will take time to see how Google’s strategy shakes out, but by merely recognizing that the +1 button will be a signal within Goolge’s search algorithm it will be enough to push it into widespread adoption. How well it does, as a competitor to Facebook will be the interesting part to watch.

If you have questions about +1 or anything else, you can shoot me an email at sbrandon@thebrandonagency.com.