In modern SEO the aim of the game is quality over quantity, and backlinks from authority sites are the key to achieving this quality.

This is due to the fact that Google is continually updating their search algorithms to find this lovely quality across websites. Their most recent rewrite, Hummingbird, looks to social media to find vindication of quality.

Since everyone’s social media interactions are unique, SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) are becoming more and more personalised.

One trend Google has noted is people tend to share quality when they find it. So, for example, when my mum finds a hilarious picture of a grumpy cat, she’ll pop it up on her Facebook wall along with thousands of cat fans just like her.

Social Content Hiding From Google

Google’s aim is to make sure that anyone searching “Grumpy Cat” will find the same image that my mum and thousands of other people have shared.

Because of all this sharing Google wants to be able to deem the image to be a quality result for the search term. The problem, though, is that most Facebook activity is hidden from Google. Twitter also directs Google to not follow its links.

Google’s solution to this issue is Google+, a social platform in which nearly every post has all the characteristics of a beautifully optimised blog post.

One great example of this is to search “what's the difference between +1 and share”. You’ll notice a simple Google+ status update is the top ranked result.

Of course, you can always update your Google+ security settings to avoid your posts appearing in search results.

Google+ and Your Personalised SERP

Let’s get back to my mum and her funny image of a grumpy cat. And let’s say she shares that image on Google+, and it’s then re-shared, commented on and +1’d by all her cat loving friends on their profiles, pages and cat communities. Google then crawls these posts and the image will jump up the rankings for the search term “Grumpy Cat”.

Now there might be hundreds of grumpy cats out there, each as funny as the last and shared all over Google+. But what happens next is a very noticeable change since the Google Hummingbird update.

When I’m signed in to Google+, Chrome, Gmail or any Google service and search “Grumpy Cat”, one of the top results will be my mum’s post on Google+. Google sees my search and my connection to my mum because I have her in my circles on Google+ and this results in a personalised SERP.

But if I searched for “Grumpy Cat” while signed out of the Google’s services, incognito, my search results will be slightly different. My mum’s post will likely be lower down the rankings, or it might not even appear.

Using Google+ For SEO

This SERP personalisation is key to optimising your content. If your customers are using Google to find your products, it’s a very powerful SEO tactic. Imagine someone is searching for your product and finds that a friend of theirs has already posted about your product, shared your page or follows your company.

This interaction acts like an endorsement and gives your products a great advantage over your competitors, but it depends entirely on getting your customers engaged using Google+.

While Google’s Head of Webspam, Matt Cutts has denied that +1s have any direct impact on rankings, he has confirmed that content sharing and engagement using Google+ has a similar impact to any backlink. So when it comes to SEO, Google+ can have a vital impact on SERP.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jack McCarthy is the social media manager at roi.com.au, a leading Australian based SEO agency. Jack has run social media accounts for several major brands in both Australia and Europe before stepping into the world of social media optimisation. Follow Jack on Twitter @jackmccw, Google+, Pinterest or Instagram.

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