There has been a lot of buzz around Google+ in the last few weeks. Some people are calling it a game changer. Some people are calling it a Facebook copy. Others are reserving judgment until all the facts are in. So far, all praise and criticism seems to just be a matter of opinion and preference, and it will be a bit of a waiting game to see where the chips eventually fall.
For example, many people dislike the homogenization of users on Facebook. There is simply no decent way to separate friends, families, co-workers, and mortal enemies. Google+ changes that by offering a convenient drag and drop interface to place contacts in “Circles” where the user can manage permissions with ease. Other people are already up in arms with the Google+ privacy settings.
But what does any of this have to do with SEO? Recall the Google Panda update when more weight was added to the way social media interacts with PageRank. Google began to provide indicators and rearranged display for a user based on the websites that their friends have visited or recommended. Google+ facilitates that trend further by providing a convenient way to get users to interconnect and interact.
Social media is an extremely influential player in the future of internet marketing. Websites that are suggested from people actually visiting or recommending them start to steer websites away from using impersonal ways of getting noticed. If that website does not have decent information on it, why would the user suggest it to their friends or recommend it to anyone? They would not. They are not interested in wasting the time of their friends or associates, much as they are not interested in having their own time wasted. Thus, Google begins to nudge their rankings in favor of websites users actually find useful as opposed to ones that are more technically correct than the next.
Regardless of all the hype, traditional SEO methods are not going away any time soon. Link-building campaigns and effective on-site SEO strategy are still the heart of and effective strategy, and incorporating social media should compliment your SEO strategy like a properly chosen wine or beer with dinner. Websites that already focus on providing high-quality information for users on websites are already at a distinct advantage as this transition continues to evolve.