Opportunity in Google's Social Search

Exploring the New Opportunity in Google’s Social Search Features
Rand Fishkin, CEO + Co-founder, SEOmoz
May 2011; New York

Results from Google’s “My Social Circle.” To see results like this, just add “&tbs=frim:1” to the end of any Google query.
http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.html

The social connections appear to influence rank ordering.
These annotations undoubtedly increase CTR, particularly if the source is trusted.

Hang on a tic... How did they know I’m connected to Kalena on Facebook?! I haven’t yet added Facebook to my Google account!
http://www.google.com/search?q=mba+program+reviews

If Networks are Latent…
Google + Social Really Could Work for Everyone

Question 1:
What Networks Does Google Support?
Question 2:
How Can We Earn More Connections?

Currently, Google supports these 7 social networks
Use this URL while logged in to see yours: https://profiles.google.com/connectedaccounts

Facebook
“Shared this” language suggests that a “like” alone may not be enough to appear in these results
Screenshots from top results for http://www.google.com/search?q=seo-friendly+directories

More Friends + More Shares
Personal Pages can use the “Find Friends” feature
Company pages convert “likes” into “friends”
Good piece on earning more likes to company pages:
http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/10/01/13-simple-ways-of-increasing-your-facebook-likes/

More Likes on Company Pages
I like Ian’s self-effacing CTA, and the fact that a like on any post is actually a like for the whole blog!
SitewideFacebook “Like” buttons are neither banned nor blackhat, but they’re a great way to earn connections

Employ + Promote the “Share” Button
“Share” is a more intensive, lower conversion activity, but that’s probably exactly why Google thinks it’s worthwhile.
See http://www.seomoz.org/blog/facebook-twitters-influence-google-search-rankingsfor info on the correlation between Facebook shares + Google rankings

Yahoo! Pulse…
Umm… Yeah, sorry. I got nothing. I probably wouldn’t spend much time here either, as it’s largely a dying community (from a social standpoint).

Flickr
Flickr’s social interactions are primarily around comments + favorites on photos.

Flickr
You can see who’s connected to you via this link
Earning “contacts” are what get your shares to show up in Google results.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn is, perhaps, the easiest place to build a network. Virtually any invite message you send that includes a personalized, well written connection request has a good chance to be accepted.

LinkedIn Updates Don’t Seem to Hit Google
???
I tried dozens of queries through many LinkedIn connections with no results in Google. I’ve never actually found a “shared by” annotation from LinkedIn either…

Quora
If you haven’t yet started contributing on http://www.quora.com, the Google social integration is a great excuse 

Answering Popular Questions w/ Great Answers is the Best Way to Earn Follows
Hovering on a topic will show you follower-counts.
Find topics where you’re an expert; click on the “open questions” link + answer. http://www.quora.com/browseis a reasonable (though not great) place to start.

Use Graphics/Photos in Answers; it Works
50 Upvotes on an answer containing an image… Probably not a coincidence.
Tackling older questions where other answers haven’t been robust can often yield better results than answering something where a phenomenal response already exists.

Twitter
If you haven’t yet read it, http://blog.socialflow.com/post/5246404319/breaking-bin-laden-visualizing-the-power-of-a-single is really quite remarkable.

Yelp
Yelp’s data influences local, but not yet in a directly social way
Social results and local/places results don’t yet overlap, but I suspect it can’t be long.

Yelp
Talk + Events are the best ways to make connections currently
Unfortunately, Yelp, like LinkedIn + Yahoo, doesn’t appear to create sharing connections in the same way Facebook, Twitter, Quora and Flickr do.

Rule Social SERPs…
Rule the Future!

Q+A
Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder, SEOmoz
Twitter: @randfish
Blog: www.seomoz.org/blog
Email: rand@seomoz.org
You can now try SEOmoz PRO Free!
http://www.seomoz.org/freetrial

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Opportunity in Google's Social Search

by Rand Fishkin

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