I just read a very interesting article over at Web Pro News that talks about how Google will now be incorporating your social network connections as a factor in delivering search results!
As Chris Crum, a writer for Web Pro News points out, "If you are one of those people still skeptical about the business uses of social media, you may be interested to know that Google's Social Search is no longer just an experiment."
SEO is always a moving target. What you do today to increase your SERPS might not be the same a year from now. If you are in business and want to continue to get results from the Internet having a grasp of what works and what doesn't is vital.
The message out of this article is loud and clear ~ Having connections, followers, friends at the various social media sites such as Twitter, Friendfeed, and others is going to help your SERP placement!
What kind of content is in Social Search?
If you are signed in to Google, you might see social search results for a particular search at the bottom of the results page under "Results from people in your social circle." All the content shown within Social Search is publicly-available online through Google and other search engines. Social Search simply highlights content from your social circle to provide a personalized search experience.
Here are some of the types of content you might see:
- Websites, blogs, public profiles, and other content linked from your friends' Google profiles
- Web content, such as status updates, tweets, and reviews, from social services that your friends have listed in their Google profiles.
- Images posted publicly from your social circle on Picasa Web and from websites linked from their Google profiles.
- Relevant articles from your Google Reader subscriptions.
According to Google:
You can improve your social search results by expanding your social circle and encouraging your friends to publish content online: 
- Expand your public connections:
- Create a Google profile.
- Add links to your public social sites like Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, etc. By linking your public connections on other social sites with your Google Account, you're telling Google just whose content you're interested in seeing in your social search results.
- You can also add links to your public content so that others who follow you can see that content in their social search results.
- Add friends and contacts: Add people who you want to include in your social circle to the Friends, Family, or Coworkers groups in your Google contacts. Any public content that those people have linked to their Google profile can start showing for your relevant searches. Note that it may take up to a few weeks for new connections to start showing in your social search results.
- Subscribe to interesting content: Add subscriptions to Google Reader. Google will algorithmically select relevant content to show in your social search. Only you have access to your Reader subscriptions.
1. Have your Real Estate client/customer base follow you via social networks.
2. Regularly participate in social media so people will engage and then possibly connect with you.
3. Share your content via Social Media sites. If you don't have a Share This widget or something like it I would encourage you to get one!
4. Include your social network information on business cards, email, ect.
5. Incorporate your social network information into your online advertising/marketing.
Here is a terrific video that quickly describes how to create a Google profile if you don't have one and what this new search feature means to you!
So who is presently in your social circle?
Your social circle is the groups of connections you have including these contacts:
- Those in your Gmail (or Google Talk) chat list
- People in your Friends, Family, and Coworkers groups in your Google contacts
- People you're publicly connected to through social services that you've listed in your Google profile, such as Twitter, FriendFeed, and others.
- In case you were wondering, those that are connected to you via your Facebook profile page are NOT included in this as Google does not spider your contacts there.
- People who are contacts of those in your immediate social circle. Basically friends of friends.
See a list of your social circle connections at google.com/s2/search/social. This page shows your direct connections, secondary connections (friends-of-friends), and some of the content that each of those connections has published publicly online. The information displayed here is very interesting as it can shows you all the degrees of seperation that exist from your social media efforts.
You can also get to this page by clicking the link next to "Results from people in your social circle" on any Google search results page that's showing social search results.
See Bill Gassett's Google Profile. <-------HERE.
If you don't have a Google profile set up I would make sure you start working on one. It is very easy to get started and to add all the places online you are connected socially with others.
Good luck everyone. I hope this information continues to help grow your online business!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
About the Author: The above Real Estate information on social networking becoming more important for Google SERPS was provided by Bill
Gassett, a Nationally recognized leader in his field. Bill can be reached via email at billgassett@remaxexec.com or by phone at 508-435-5356.
Have a home to sell in Metrowest Mass? I have a passion for Real Estate and love to share my marketing expertise!
For Metrowest Massachusetts Real Estate and homes see Massachusetts Real Estate. Want to have MLS access to beat other buyers to your dream home? Sign up with no obligation at my MLS Property Finder Site.
I service the following towns in and around Metrowest Massachusetts: Hopkinton, Milford, Upton, Southboro, Westboro, Ashland, Holliston, Mendon, Northboro, Shrewsbury, Hopedale, Medway, Grafton, Northbridge, Uxbridge, Franklin, Framingham and Douglas MA.
Click here to view Bill Gassett's Real Estate profile.
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Bill: Good stuff thanks for sharing. Regards,
All I can say is that Google will turn us all into computer nuts before long. When will I find time to get out and meet clients? Show property? Write listings and offers. That aside, this was a well-written post. Thanks.
Has 'Bing' entered the race yet ? Does 'Bing' compete and work towards the same seo goals, or is it just plain old 'Google' intensive ? Does anybody use 'Bing' ? I love 'Bing'. I'm number one in 'Bing'.
WHEN??? WHEN???
I'm so pathetically behind in all of my Interent maintenance, I'm not about to take on another task.
Well, I'll add it to the list.
David - I believe Bing has entered the race. I am not sure if there integration is as deep as Google at this point but all the major search engines more than likely at some point will be incorportating a social search feature.
Wow Bill. I'm glad it's expanding its sphere. But the only person I imagine is this Facebook friend of mine mis-using this even more. I need to look at this in a positive light.
I also love the Share This tool once you introduce me to it. I wonder why AR wont allow that script. It would go viral with our blogs.
Lenn according to what I was reading you are going to start seeing this take shape now.
Loreena - Your Facebook friends are not included as Google does not spider your Facebook connections. By the way the Share This widget works fine with Active Rain and there is no longer a script issues.
Lenn - You can read Chris Crums article here. It is worth the look!
That is amazing. Thank you for the post.
Thanks for sharing this information with us this morning. I have it bookmarked for reference. Keep drinking the Juice
This may account for some of my rankings to be up. . .ultimately, the more exposure you have the better for you.
Bill, thanks for the preview of the larger article, I'll take a look there as well. It sounds like connections are important...so it turns out it is who you know!
This really stops you in your tracks. Great article. Naysayers for social networking may be converted whether they like it or not.
Bill, thank you. You have spelled things out in a very easy to read fashion. I am phone wench today at the office, and this looks like a work/study project for today.
I would really like to know if, when you have an RSS feed button, do you know if people are using it? Probably can find out on the web, just being lazy I guess.
Thanks again. Now I have much more work to do.
Great stuff Bill. Not sure how we are ever supposed to keep up with all of these things. I love all things Google and use their products all day long so hopefully that will help.
Checking out my social connections was quite the eye opener. So many of them!!!
Lots of information here. I must bookmark and return to this as I get off track following your great links!
Wow! Now I have my homework assignment for the day. I already have a google account but when I looked it tells me I do not have a public profile. I see that I need to get busy.
Thanks again for all the great info.
This is awesome- thank you...I have only been with activerain for a couple of weeks, but it amazes me that I can log in and within 30 seconds read about another valuable tidbit!
I hope that means that my Active Rain blogging will increase my SEO
Bill, thanks for the information, it made it clearer to me that I have some work to do, in order to help my business grow.
Thany you for this post. Just mare evidence that social media is here to stay.
You can put the ShareThis widget on all of your blog posts by putting it in your ActiveRain signature. Great article!
Gosh Bill, with all the snow and ice I wasn't going anywhere today but this isn't what I had in mind! LOL
Really now, I have a Google profile but didn't know anything about the rest. I'll get busy working on this too.
Great Bill, thanks for sharing, I'll have to carve out some time to look into some of these points. Great stuff!
Thanks Bill, I am going to check it out. I have noticed it on certain searches.
Some of my Tweets are being indexed too. Some I am not thrilled about. LOL
I'll be back after I can comment intelligently.
WOW - as always Bill - useful & up to the minute on what to work on - I do not have a Google profile and will be spending a good part of a day this week digesting this post and setting one up - THANKS! I have Google alerts for my name and was surprised to see a tweet that I did yesterday show up on the alert - and seeing more popping up thru comments I leave. As you said, SEO is a moving target - and so glad I follow you to get some aim!!
Wow, all my contacts right there, scary. Do you think they didn't index the Facebook ones because FB is yahoo, and Grady Burnett went to FB from GOOGLE?
Glad I visited my profile I had not added in my Posterous Blog or Photo Blog or Ann Arbor Breaking News site.
Bill - Another thing to keep us busy all day at the computer social networking away and using Google in the hopes that we click on Google ads. :) What will they think of next. Great post and another thing to add to my to do list.
This is really a great post. Thanks for sharing. Some of us need to get up to speed on our social networking skills for business development.
Bill
This is great information. I have to say that as a business it looks like a great idea, but as a private person, I am bothered to know that Google has my life in their hands. They know every thing about us. That is why I keep my email with yahoo. Not that Yahoo is not another huge company which can do as they please with my information.
Am I the only one concerned that our personal, private information is out there in the hands of corporations?
Just another thought.
Tere
Great information. I will start working on this area of my marketing also. Thanks
Bill,
I'm having trouble sorting out which ones are important, and which are going to go the way of the dodo bird.
Rich
Very informative. Put together the Google Profile. http://www.google.com/profiles/leebarroll Thanks for the post.
Bill this can be all so overwhelming. Finding a way to get it all done can make your head swim. Great info. See ya later, I'm going swimming:).
...Yet another BG post that will be bookmarked for further reference. (note to self: keep repeating "it is OK to accept help from a Red Sox fax, it is OK to...")
Bill...
I understand that Google is moving in this direction, I just wonder why. I don't see the value of a lot of the spurious information that is outthere, but they understand their market far better than I!
Great post. I have always talked and blogged about how important social media was going to be to Google. Recently I have told all of my real estate clients to expand their social medial circles.
Bill - Pretty amazing stuff and great info ! I guess the bottom line is to just jump in !
Bill: This is interesting. TLW wrote a featured post the other day that talks about why she doesn't want to the whole wide world (i.e., her gradnkids) to see her facebook page, which made a lot of sense, too! Google is very forward-thinking, huh?
Bill good info. Instead of a PA we are going to need a Social Media expert. I am still trying to fix and get more understanding of the things I am implementing currently.
Bill - Good to know we read the same articles....lol But I know you wrote this better than I ever could have... Nice job... Bookmarked for the future... Thanks for posting this very informative article...
Bill:
Your on top of it. It is no looker simple. Google is pulling in different directions in many ways.
Great post!
Richard
More to learn and now more to do. I viewed your Google profile and it looks great.
Hey, you weren't clowning around with this blog Bill. Social media activity is a big part of where people spend time on line. Those connections are what your Googles, Yahoos of the world want to park a little ad hyperlink next to ... your content that has a following they can piggy back on to sell their message on top of yours. You not longer want to just be on the internet...a real estate broker wants to be everywhere on line to tractor beam traffic back to their office in any creative way possible.
More and more and more good stuff ... thank you for keeping up with all this. What would we do without activerain content like this!!!
Bill,
There is so much to take in here...I will have to come back and take another peek after another cup of coffee....
Great info. I get the Web Pro News daily and try to keep up with it. Thanks I missed this one.
dizzy, downright dizzy is what google makes me. The one good thing is it is a level palying field, google gives everyone a chance to climb the rankings. You just need to spend the time and pay attention.
Hi Bill ~ Thanks for the reminder to update my profile. I'm so busy trying to stay on top of all this social networking I hadn't thought of that!
I'm signed up for Google alerts and often times it's my tweets that are noticed, so I figured Google must be attaching importance to social media.
Some great tips here. Like so many others I just wish there were a few more hours in the day!
Denise
I agree I am dizzy just reading this blog post. I am going to figure this out. Bill you are the man
Thanks for your great post, Bill! I had no idea how important this way until I read your blog!
Bill, thanks for taking the time to write this. This adds to everything else I have to digest and learn.
Bill...well-crafted about SEO...Cherise
Oh, great, now the # of followers and friends will be monitored. And, it may go to "who" is my friend/follower (someone famous or well-connected online). I understand the context, but not sure I agree. Thanks for the information.
Thanks Bill - bookmarked for further review (other than Sunday am and it's time for church!) I appreciate you keeping us on top of this stuff. Very intersting and I can see I have more work cut out for me.
I just added the Yelp widget to my web sites. I am doing almost daily reviews, and I have people friending me, as well as an iPhone app that lets me do something similar to Foursquare. At first I thought it was just something to get me reviewed then I looked at the stats. Over 27 million unique visitors per month. I would recommend it.
Missy - No I don't think so. Google has never had the information on our facebook profiles indexed. This is why it is important among other reasons to have a Facebook business page. These pages are indexed by Google.
Tere & Natalie - If you have anything published online like a website or a blog your information is already published. I do not see how this changes that at all. Anything you add to any site online is going to get indexed.
Wayne - I had a feeling there would come a day that Google would be doing this. It makes perfect sense.
Andrew - No clowning here:)
Everyone thanks for all your comments. Keep working those profiles and connections!
Once again Bill a great post full of useful information. I have been running a series of social media web labs for entrepreneurs (who have not jumped in) to show them some of the tools and how they can be used to grow their business. I will be pointing them to your blog during our next session.
Thanks
Thanks for the great post. I am adding this to my to do list.
Good information, now the agents should go through their facebook photos and remove some may be inappropriate photos of themselves in big partying modes... depending on their image and audiences!
Wow, before you know it the top ranked sites are going to be the sites with the most relevant real estate interaction!
Hi Bill: Fantastic info. I know how I'm spending the rest of my Sunday!
Excellent post Bill with some very good information. I have started working on mine!
Bill - Right now, my Google profile has links to my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook businesss pages. While creating and linking to profiles on numerous other sites may increase my SERP, wouldn't it also hurt credibility with "real" people, if they click on a link and there's just a profile and no content?
Josef - Thanks getting that kind of exposure would be terrific!
Marilyn - Which sites are you referring to? For example do you have a Youtube account, mybloglog, delicious, ect . These are places where there will be content I would if you use them. If you don't use a specific place that often you don't need to include it in your profile.
Bill,
This is very helpful, but there was a lot of content that I didn't follow. I know that I'm going to have to get up to date on this, so I have bookmarked it and will come back later.
It's becoming obvious to me that I need some professional assistance. So I will meet my "web guy" this week and show him this post.
Thanks for the insight!
Brian
Bill, excellent post and thanks for giving us this info in clear and non techy manner. I am forwarding this to some folks in my office who are finally coming around to the importance of social networking! Thanks!
Another great tip as always. I've done so many things that you've suggested over the past few months.
From watching the video, the key element seems to be "when I'm signed into my Google account." Thanks for providing so much background info on this, Bill.
This is why I need to learn more and more about things like Google, Twitter, Facebook and how to incorporate them in to my business.
Bill, I read Chris's report yesterday and thought of doing a blog on it as well - but have been busy with clients. You did a great job on this one as usual!! Congrats on a very well deserved feature (not sure how you do this so early in the morning too)!
I've said it before and I'll say it again - Google will take over the world...
P.S. - I've been really blown over by the indexing that tweets and comments left on other blogging platforms have been getting lately - and within minutes of posting/tweeting!!
Talk about overload. Thank goodness I have a vacation coming up next week. I'll bookmark this and ask you spome very pointed questions later, when my brain can absorb it all.
I have always said AR is more about the education that about the points or referrals. This is an excellent example where the information is spot on useful!
Cindy in Indy
Bill - Superb post with lots of information and benefits of having that Google profile set up. I have one but need to add more links to it to boost that SEO juice. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. :)
Bill... this is awesome information... thanks for putting this together. I do know that I am slightly behind on the frenzy, that I do have the basics going for me. Question to you... do you know much about these Fan pages? If I start a fan page for myself or a community, can they be searched? Do they get indexed? thanks
Hey Bill. Take it easy on us!
This post is TOO full of more stuff for me to do.:)
Gotta go now. Busy updating my profile on Google!
Thanks,
Ken
Thanks Bill, I'm creating my Google profile now. Putting all of the pieces together, it seems there are so many!
Jeff - Thanks a bunch. I would highly recommend getting a business page set up. Google does index the content of these pages.
Good evening Bill,
From the looks of it I have a lot of work to do on my social media connections and my Google profile.
Thanks for the update! I had better get busy and update my fan page inot something worthwhile.
Excellent post Bill and so right on. I'm seeing my tweets and Facebook updates all be indexed. My Facebook business page seems to be loved by google too.
Bill - Phenominal. I just started fixing my profile after reading this earlier. Hence the tardy comment. I have more to go but much thanks for this.
Wow, great article. That social networks tool with your direct and secondary connections w/ google is really cool. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for another Great Post! How do have time to practice RE? JK Keep sending us the info.
Bill- if you see stuff flying, or rather whizzing, over my head it's all of this information! Seriously, thank you for keeping us, as always, up to date. Just when I think I've got a grasp on what I need to do, I realize I'm already several steps behind. I'm not only bookmarking this but printing a copy so I can read it the old fashioned way.
We hooked up to Google quite awhile ago and am never surprised to hear how powerful they are and how much there is to learn. Thanks
Thanks Bill, I think! I visited my profile and added a few more of my links so I'm sure that's a good thing, but I'm gonna have to read your blog a couple of times at least!
Bill great content. I am glad that there are people here like you who keep us up to date on this stuff.
Bill, I had to bookmark this! Some of it I've done while other things I haven't taken care of. I believe all these things can help you SO much but it can be overwhelming to try and keep up! Thank you so much for the information, I'm going to do my best.
Thanks Bill. I needed more things to work on :) But this is great information.
If you don't have a Google profile set up I would make sure you start working on one.
Thanks for the heads up Bill,
I need to take a look at this.
Good post very informative not sure how we are going to keep up with all the changes and new things.
Bill there is so much here I'm going to have to re-read this later when my mind can fathom it all.
Bill, this is an invaluable post and proves I need to ramp up my other social media efforts. How do you do it?
Bill this is interesting and I am glad you brought this article to our attention, now I only need to find a couple more hours in the day :)
It should be clarified that unless your prospective lead has previously included you in their own "social network" which is, in this context, drawn only from their own Gmail contacts, presuming they use Gmail, you're only as visible to them as your traditional position in the SERP provides. The value of social networking remains a periphery to be leveraged in its own right but exposure by Google is a phenomenon less observable from the outside than it appears from the inside of the Google lens.
Hi Bill -- As always, your posts are so incredibly informative, so thank you. Boy, just as soon as you get the hang of something, three more things get added onto the heap -- change not only never ends, it seems like the assembly line keeps speeding up -- reminds me of that old I Love Lucy segment where she is on the assembly line wrapping chocolates and they speed up the line.
So much to learn and so little time. Glad I joined AR and have got an head start on the social media thing. Thanks for the great article.
Yes it is a case of everybody feeding off each other I think and it will continue to be that way!
Hello Bill,
Wow! What a fabulous post! Thankyou so much for all the terrific information & tips. I appreciate it!
What a great post! This one is a gem. Thank you for sharing.
Bill, Great post! I am overwhelmed to say the least and have a lot of work to do to get up to speed! Thanks for laying this info out in a concise manner!!!
Betsy
And here it goes, jus when I though I finally got the Google ranking algorithm down to a science...:)
My head is swimming. I'm already running as fast as I can. Guess that'll have to do for now. Thanks for sharing this important...and somehow upsetting...information, Bill. : ) -- Tanya in Montreal
Somehow I knew all that time I spend on my favorite social media sites would pay off one day. I'm still new to learning all the tricks but thanks for the article link and thanks for thos post!
What a great post. Plenty of info. SEO is always a moving target. Thanks for keeping us on top
Hey Bill, thanks for the compliment! That was especially nice after I was somewhere less than in complete agreement with some of your article's conclusions. Nonetheless, I completely agree that social networking is here to stay and is a dynamic force to be reckoned with. I wrote a short article on The last Temptation of Social Networking here on AR in December that delineates between social networking as an integrated tactic and sole strategy. I think everyone in real estate should engage fully in, and experiment with social networking. There's a lot of undiscovered potential and uses for everyone.
Katerina Gasset (any relation?) an AR Ambassador who, incidentally is in my Google social network as well, has some excellent advice on SEO and social networking as well.
I created my Google Profile after reading this. I can't seem to get the url I created to work. I tried to create it using.. ChrisWatters.. Then tried.. ChrisWattersAustin.. Said it worked but my url is some really long number.. http://www.google.com/profiles/111287986372322315433. - Not sure how to fix it. Have some more work to do I suppose :)
Hi Bill..thanks you reminded me to update my Google Profile..Great Post !
Thanks Bill!!! I always seem to learn something useful from reading your blog. I just created my profile. Let's see how it works!
Thank you so much Bill for sharing. I'm going to get right on this!
kp
Great info. I have so much to learn, but can't learn it without the help of you nad others who post on AR.
Bill, interesting I just recently noticed the social circle result in google. I created my google profile awhile ago I discovered it from a tweet that referred to a post in AR.
Thanks Bill, I always enjoy your informative posts, looks like I'll be doing some updates on my profiles again.
Dave - I am not related to Katerina but know her very well. She is very helpful to those who are new to the SEO game here in the Rain.
Chris - It should have just automatically generated your name? I am not sure what you did.
Everyone - Thanks for all your comments and compliments on the article. Social media marketing is here to stay. It is obviously a good idea to have a strong web presence if you are in business. Best of luck getting your Google profiles up to speed.
Thanks Bill, I will check it out. I get leads from facebook all the time.
Bill,
You got me hooked! I clicked on the link to vie my social connections, and now I am tweaking away with the profile.
Larry, Paul & Marchel - It really is interesting to see who all your connections are through the Google tools. Best of luck getting your Google profiles off the ground!
Bill,
Thanks for some valuable tips on social media, and how it is beginning to affect the Google SERPS.
Looking forward to learning more from your earlier mention of Agent Applause .
Added your AR feed to my reader today. Look forward to your updates.
Mary
Bill - this is such a comprehensive post with a wealth of excellent information. Thank you for sharing with us.
Thanks for the information. I have set up my google profile a long time ago...I better go check it out and update it.
Blessings, Jill
Mary, Wayne, Pam & Jill - I am glad you enjoyed the article on social media and getting more "friends".
I must admit, I have been skeptical about the benefits of social networking lately. Thanks for the info about the google profile...I need to set one up!
I am soooooooo Confused ........ AHHHHHHHHHHH, Do I have to play Farmville if I want to sell real estate?
Thanks for the great information contained in your post. Cliff K
Bill: This is AWESOME stuff! Lots of things I had been wondering about - thank you so much for the info!
GREAT information.
Thanks.
I'm exhausted. I miss the good ole days of actually being able to get to the bottom of something. Looks like it will never happen with social media. I'll keep plugging along.