There’s no doubt that a truly powerful SEO campaign will better thrive by integrating social media.
One social platform that still doesn’t get the respect it deserves is Google Plus. Although Google Plus is an emerging social media network, its user community is growing fast.
But what’s far more unique about Google Plus compared to other social media networks is that it’s evolving the landscape of Google Search. This directly influences the practices of SEO, and offers even greater potential for ecommerce sites.
With the emergence of Google’s Search Plus Your World, a user’s social engagement on Google Plus can significantly impact his or her search results. As a result, your ecommerce SEO strategy should incorporate Google Plus into the mix. Below I share with you three reason why.
1. Standout in Google Search
Take look at the Google search results for “Newton Distance shoe review” – a specific model of running shoe designed by the brand Newton.
Ethan Newberry of GingerRunner.com is a perfect example of leveraging awesome content with Google Authorship to standout in Google Search.
Creating the awesome content was the hard part, however getting the rich snippet (or Ethan’s picture in the search results) was the easy part. For the review page that’s ranking in the #5 spot, Ethan simply linked his content to his YouTube page (a property of Google) in author section of the blog post. And from his YouTube page, he has linked to Google Plus profile. (In most cases you can generate rich snippets by linked directly to your Google Plus profile with the “?rel=author” string – see my author section below for an example)
Think about how you can apply this to your SEO efforts. Most ecommerce Internet marketers know that being an educator wins for SEO, especially in the form of insightful reviews and video product profiles.
By building a presence on Google Plus you can leverage your product reviews with Google Authorship, and thus generate the ever-powerful rich snippet. This can not only help improve your content’s click-through rate, but can also help establish your ecommerce brand as a credible resource.
2. Early Adopters Earn More Authority
Early Google Plus adopters can gain a momentous advantage by jumping on the bandwagon sooner than their competitors. Remember, Google Plus is in its early stages and only the smart brands are utilizing its potential.
The advantage of being an early adopter on Google Plus is that your ecommerce brand can establish more followers (rather have more people in your “circles.”) This can directly correlate to better organic search visibility and a stronger ecommerce SEO campaign.
Here’s a personal example. I was searching for “2xu compression gear” in Google. One listing that really stood in the #5 spot was a Google Plus post by ProSwimwear. Because I have ProSwimwear in my circles, their post was shown in my search results. Below is the company’s post in the Google Plus interface.
This is an outcome of Google Search Plus Your World – an effort to display more relevant and better quality search results.
The main takeaway point is this: the more followers your ecommerce brand can round-up via Google Plus, the more opportunities your followers will find your content in the organic search results. They key is post relevant content that promotes your product line, all the while catering to your target search market.
3. Retain Customer Loyalty
Parallel to earning more authority is retaining customer loyalty. Repeat purchases are huge sources of revenue for ecommerce stores. So by utilizing some of the techniques mentioned above, you can build a strong social media community that promotes brand loyalty.
The beauty in this benefit is that your actions on Google Plus have both a search and social influence. So not only can you retain loyalty via social engagement directly on the Google Plus platform, but you can also create subtle reminders by sharing keyword-relevant (or product-relevant) posts that appear in the search results.
When a past customer and Google Plus follower sees your brand’s content in organic search results, I’d be confident they would have more inclination to click-in to what your ecommerce company has have to offer.
