Google's Social News - What Online Sellers Need to Know

[iwiw60]

Google's Social News - What Online Sellers Need to Know
By Ina Steiner
EcommerceBytes.com
January 11, 2012
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Google made an announcement on Tuesday that is rocking the world of search engine optimization and impacts online sellers looking for exposure in Google search results. According to the Google Announcement "We're transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships."

Online sellers who want their websites and products to show up in Google search results will certainly be affected. Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land explains Google's new "Search Plus Your World" - note that right now, it only covers Google Plus and does not cover content on Facebook, Twitter or other social networking sites.

That means retailers need to start exploring Google Plus if they haven't already. EcommerceBytes Contributing Editor Greg Holden introduced Google Plus after it launched last year and it is still a good primer for online retailers.

To help get a grasp of what this week's announcement means, check out this YouTube Video from Mike Essex of Koozai.com, who says every website now needs to have a sense of community. "You need to have people on your website sharing your content with other people, and if you haven't had great content before that people will share, you need it now, because otherwise people aren't going to socially share it, and you've got less chance of showing up against the people who do."

Essex says website owners also need to start building up a following of people on Google Plus.

Danny Sullivan notes that while the change is live now, not everyone will see it until it fully launches over the next few days. You must be signed in to Google, which will alert you with a message when it's live for your searches.

This chart from Comscore could explain the motivation behind Google's announcement - it shows Facebook had 166 million unique visitors in November, compared to 15 million unique visitors to Google Plus. With website owners and search engine optimization experts now looking for ways to take advantage of Google Search Plus Your World, expect these numbers to change over the coming months!
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What on earth?!! I'm in hopes that Gazza/Admin can enlighten us on this one!!

[lodegrundrunner]

Glad I signed up for my Google+ account now. It's a shame Google are resorting to forcing people onto their system though.

[suesjools]

What on earth?!! I'm in hopes that Gazza/Admin can enlighten us on this one!!

That makes 2 of us.

Best wishes for many sales to all,

[gbsbks2010]

Please can someone who has joined google plus pm me with their link, so that I can take a look.

It's taken me 2 years to get used to the ins and outs of eBid, and I am going to have to learn something new again!

[lodegrundrunner]

Please can someone who has joined google plus pm me with their link, so that I can take a look.

It's taken me 2 years to get used to the ins and outs of eBid, and I am going to have to learn something new again!

https://plus.google.com/103469259115799851559 This is the page I created for my website, close enough to my profile page.

http://www.ebid.net/forums/showthrea...yet&highlight= Thread with more info on it.

[RonOne]

I'm still trying to sort out Google shopping as not being Google search,
with bar codes, names and anything else to stop our stuff being advertised above eby's

Are Google trying to be to clever ?

[bykimbo]

I'm still trying to sort out Google shopping as not being Google search,
with bar codes, names and anything else to stop our stuff being advertised above eby's

Are Google trying to be to clever ?

Google *are* clever, I don't think there's much doubt about that. What they're trying to do is make their various toys work better together, to make the resulting all encompassing system overtake Facebook. Google plus, for example, is a much better system than FB, but there's so much baggage invested in FB that people are, understandably, reluctant to move across. I have quite a few techy friends who ought to be early adopters, but we struggled to get enough people connecting that way to reach a critical mass.

Google don't want to admit defeat, so they're trying to make more reasons for people to switch. I can understand that, and I hope it works actually... even if the transition is likely to be painful!

[cheaver]

Just found this on BBC about it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16511794

[redkiteshoard]

I think the real answer to all of this visibility problem is to radically raise the profile of eBid, so that people come directly here as first or early choice, rather than go through the search engines.

[astral276]

I think the real answer to all of this visibility problem is to radically raise the profile of eBid, so that people come directly here as first or early choice, rather than go through the search engines.

Brilliant solution.

Now all you have to do is detail how to achieve that and have eBid still viable as a business by the end of it. If you have the answer then I'm sure eBid would love to hear it.