Great Content Marketing Ideas for Using Google Plus

When Google+ was unveiled last year, a lot of content marketers wondered if they really needed another social media platform to develop and maintain. But, with the more recent introduction of Search Plus Your World, Google+ is getting harder to ignore.

So if you’re still figuring out how to make Google+ part of your content strategy, it might be helpful to take a look at a couple of examples of popular and engaging Google+ pages. I’ve chosen Dell — which has embraced Google+ and is doing some really interesting stuff with its profile — and also “Wired” magazine. Unlike Dell, “Wired” produces content as its core business; but like Dell, it has invested time and resources in its Google+ brand page and has quickly built a large following.

 

[Read More] Great Content Marketing Ideas for Using Google Plus.

Google Meets Miss Manners, Encourages Searchers To Thank Those Who +1′d Content

FROM Search Engine Land:

DEAR MISS GOOGLE: When I searched for something using your service, I found a friend had +1′d one of the of listings. What should one do in this case? GENTLE SEARCHER: It’s always polite in these situations to thank your kind friend. In fact, I’ve added a new “Thank” feature allowing you to do exactly this, though Google+.

Yes, a new Google+ feature has been spotted in the wild that further blends organic results with social  information.  Early today State of Search and charliesaidthat noticed a thank you link on an organic listing next to the Google+ users who +1′d a result.

[Read More] Google Meets Miss Manners, Encourages Searchers To Thank Those Who +1′d Content.

Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update, Plus Changes To How It Evaluates Links, Local Search Rankings & Much More

Google has confirmed a new Panda update at the same time that it’s announcing 40 search updates that happened in February (or are in progress right now).

It would be all but impossible to fully sum up the full slate of changes here, but there are a few that seem especially noteworthy and will no doubt produce a lot of speculation among search marketers. Here’s a look at the ones that stand out to me:

Panda 3.3 Update

Here’s what Google says about its latest Panda-related change:

[Read More] Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update, Plus Changes To How It Evaluates Links, Local Search Rankings & Much More.

Need a Cheat Sheet for Social Media? | Search Engine Journal

Well, Flowtown made a fantastic one and we want to share it with you. Now obviously many of us do not need this cheat sheet, but there are plenty of people that do!

[Read More] Need a Cheat Sheet for Social Media? | Search Engine Journal.

Focus on the User

See how much better Google’s results would be if they included information from across the social web, rather than just Google’s own social network.

[Watch The Video]  Focus on the User.

Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut

Now we know Google’s master-plan for integrating Google+ ever more deeply into the Google ecosystem: Pour the whole thing into Google search. Starting today, Google+ members, and to a lesser extent others who are signed into Google, will be able to search against both the broader web and their own Google+ social graph. That’s right; Google+ circles, photos, posts and more will be integrated into search in ways other social platforms can only dream about.

[Read More] Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut.

Google Me: How to Brand Yourself Online and Manage Your Reputation | Social Media Today

The process of branding oneself is much easier than many people think; it takes some strategic effort and planning, but once in place is a great asset to you and your brand. Whether you are looking for a new job, starting your own business, or consulting, one of the first things people do is research you online. They want to see what others are saying about you as well as how you present yourself to the public.  Below are key steps on how to get started.

[Read More] Google Me: How to Brand Yourself Online and Manage Your Reputation | Social Media Today.

Hit By Panda Update? Google Has 23 Questions To Ask Yourself To Improve

Amit Singhal, Google’s head of search, published a blog post on the Google Webmaster Central blog named More guidance on building high-quality sites.

Amit’s goal with this post is to have those webmasters impacted by this Panda Update, which rolled out internationally about a month ago, with some direction and guidance to help explain what sites Google likes and which they dislike.

Amit said that he cannot document publicly the “actual ranking signals” but will share questions you should ask yourself and consider when trying to understand why a site was impacted by this update. Those questions include:

[Read More] Hit By Panda Update? Google Has 23 Questions To Ask Yourself To Improve.

Google May Penalize Ad Heavy Pages

Ever encountered an ad-heavy page, where you struggle to find the actual content on that page? Google’s looking at penalizing those in its search results.

The head of Google’s web spam team, Matt Cutts, shared the news when speaking at the Pubcon conference today.

[Read More] Google May Penalize Ad Heavy Pages.

Google Search Algorithm Change For Freshness To Impact 35% Of Searches; Twitter Firehose Remains Off

Google announced they are rolling out a new search algorithm change that helps make the search results “fresher.” The big news here is that besides for the results being fresher, the results will change for about 35% of all searches.

Caffeine Was Infrastructure, This Is Algorithmic

Fresher results can make for more relevant results, which is why Google moved over to the caffeine infrastructure last year. That was only an infrastructure change, to make sure Google can index, crawl and return results faster. Now Google changed their search algorithm to show fresher results, fresher than ever before.

[Read More] Google Search Algorithm Change For Freshness To Impact 35% Of Searches; Twitter Firehose Remains Off.

Facebook Comments Now Being Indexed By Google

 

 

Add-on commenting systems like Facebook Comments enhance the user experience, but can make it harder for search engines to index content.  Most third party commenting systems leverage javascript to display information and add bells and whistles.  However, Labnol.org reported that now Facebook Comments are being crawled (and ranking) in Google’s SERPs effectively breaking the mold for third party commenting systems and rankings:

[Read More] Facebook Comments Now Being Indexed By Google.

Google Begins Withholding Certain Search Data, Citing Privacy Concerns

Google’s official response on the change was attributed to an anonymous Google spokesperson: “We’re continuing to iterate on our Panda algorithm as part of our commitment to returning high-quality sites to Google users. This most recent update is one of the roughly 500 changes we make to our ranking algorithms each year.”

Industry insiders point out that Google’s various algorithms can be exceedingly complex. The “Panda” algorithm was reportedly created to weed out content farms and other keyword-heavy, low-quality web sites and penalize them in Google search rankings. The result is meant to reward web sites that produce steady streams of high-quality original content by pushing them higher up in Google search results.

[Read More]  Google Begins Withholding Certain Search Data, Citing Privacy Concerns.