Most internet marketers and social media marketing agencies will agree that the Google Algorithm is increasing the use of social signals at page level. This has included various different social factors including links within Tweets. Personally, it is very clear that the search engines are starting to use social recommendations as important ranking factors.
A couple of months ago Google release the +1 button. This allows visitors to recommend various content found around the web. Bing integrates the Facbook “like” results in their search results and so Google decided to do the same but with their own +1 button. Adding the +1 button on your blog or website content can give your visitors a way to make social recommendations that could influence the search results. Every logged in Google user will be able to see these votes if they are in your social circle. They can also see who voted for your content.
The influence of the +1 signal
A while ago, Google said that using the +1 button results on their search algorithm was definitely an option and they are looking at ways to improve their search.
We have done a little test a while ago with the +1 button. We have added it to a couple of pages on our website and we have encouraged our visitors to +1 those pages. We found a 22% increase in rankings and corresponding increases in CTR and visits for the pages being +1. We believe that Google is already factoring in +1 results on their algorithm for a while now.
The +1 button can affect the click through rate (CTR) which is another ranking signal. This is because others will also click on search results from the people in their social circles that they know.
Take advantage of the Google +1 button and add it to the content of your website and blog as this can help you increase traffic from trusted sources.
