How Can Google's +1 Button Improve Your Website?

You may have heard of Google's +1 (Plus One) button. What exactly is it and why should you care? Basically, the +1 button is a small icon that shows up in the top right corner of search results. Searchers can click on the button and tell their Google network (explanation to follow) that they like this particular company, blog post, recipe, YouTube video or whatever your search reveals.

What is your Google network? When you enable +1, it will be made up of:

• People in your Gmail & Google Talk chat list
• People in your “My Contacts” group in Google Contacts
• People you follow in Google Reader or Google Buzz

What’s missing are people you are connected to via non-Google services, such as Twitter, Flickr or Quora. That’s something that will come in the future, Google says.

To enable +1, from your Google profile page, you’ll need to opt-in to +1:

Google's reason for implementing the +1 feature is to improve searches. But why should you care about the +1 button? Three words...search engine optimization (SEO). You can implement the +1 button on your website.

1. Content with a large amount of +1s will get higher rankings in Google’s organic search results.
2. Your content will get more visibility in the SERP (search engine result pages) if it has +1s.
3. You will get traffic. When someone sees a +1 on something, it's basically like seeing that someone said, "Check this out." or "This is great stuff". When someone clicks on +1, all of their Google friends will see that, and people trust friends, so a lot of them will click on it to see what it's about.

If you need help adding the +1 Button to your website design, call MarketingXchange and we'll be happy to help. We can even share other ways to improve your website's search engine rankings. Call us today (913) 649-4040.