But search engine optimization and building search rankings go well beyond just keywords, an arbitrary amount of content and so on. It also has to be informative and interesting enough to be shared either through linking or the increasingly important social media mentions.

Simply writing generic content that doesn’t grab the reader’s attention won’t exactly yield a whole lot of benefit for your firm.

Headlines are how you grab this attention, which should intrigue the reader into continuing on for more.

Time is valuable….

Since we’re bombarded with so much information all the time, we’re only going to look at what really intrigues us and think will benefit us. Seeing a boring headline limits your content’s potential in this regard. And if it doesn’t see much in the way of traffic, links and mentions in social media, it won’t have the impact it can.

That’s why taking a few minutes to craft a headline that grabs your reader’s attention is so valuable. Headlines are an invaluable part of print media (…think about when you’re in the checkout line looking at the magazines). In the online world, headlines are doubly important due to the sheer magnitude of content that’s out there.

Nick Usborne has outlined 7 approaches to headlines that can grab readers’ attention and ignite their curiosity to keep reading. Using one of these will help you maximize the impact your content has on your bottom line.

Approach #1: Ubiquitous List

People love seeing lists, which are easy to scan and read. They are a lot of times a hit on social media. Lists can be especially valuable if you include some sort of benefit like “5 Ways to save on your Vacation,” or whatever is applicable to your business.

Approach #2: “How To”

Always a winner too…explaining how to do something will always draw a lot of attention. Be sure you say that in your headline (ex: “How to save 15% on your heating bill) so people will clearly see the benefit of reading further. Millions of people go online each day to find out how to do something – buy a car, pick a stereo, fix a flat, whatever.

Approach #3: Challenge

Another thing that compels people to read is a challenge. Do I know the answers or not? What don’t I know or what am I missing? Good example from Nick – “5 Things you don’t know about your teenagers.”

Approach #4: Intrigue

This approach is kind of like a brain-twister where the reader has to keep going to find the answer. “Body Found, Man Still Missing” is an actual headline from a newspaper. While searching for a missing person, someone else’s body was found.

Approach #5: Conspiracy

We all love a good conspiracy involving anyone in a position of authority (doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc.). Giving any indication they’ve hidden the truth will certainly entice readers for more. (Ex:  The truth about raw food diets)

Approach #6: Secrets of the Opposite Sex

People love delving into the mystery of what makes the opposite sex tick. If you’re targeting a specific gender, you will grab a lot of attention this way. (Ex: Why women love to shop or Why men love to watch sports)

Approach #7: Scarcity

Indicating scarcity of an offer or a closing window of time to do something will indeed motivate people to read further. People don’t like to miss out on something so their attention will be drawn by the prospect of a last chance. (Ex: “Last chance to get tickets” or “Deadline for applications soon”)

Examples of headlines are mainly from Nick with a few more thrown in there by me.

These 7 approaches to headlines will garner much more attention than regular, descriptive headlines. The result will be a much higher number of social media mentions, likes and shares.

Nick Usborne has an e-book on crafting killer headlines that I hope to obtain and read here soon. When I do, I’ll come back and share what I learned.

Have you taken one of these approaches in crafting a headline?

If so, did you see more conversions, shares and so forth?

Other Posts You May be Interested In

How Minor Tweaks to your Headlines Can Boost Conversions

Test Headlines with the ‘Breath’ Test

Beware of your Page’s Primary Purpose When Writing Content

10 Steps for Optimizing Web Content and Landing Page Copy

It’s commonly known in the search marketing world that Bing has partnerships with Facebook and Twitter and integrates them into relevant search results.

Starting this week though, Google is rolling out a transformative switch that will integrate pictures and posts from Google+ in with search results. Those of us signed into Google will be able to simultaneously search the broader web and our own Google+ networks at the same time.

This latest update from Google is dubbed “Search Across your World.” Jack Menzel, Google’s product management director, explains that members will be able to “…search across information that is private and only shared to you, not just the public web.”

While they will be clearly noted, Google+ results will be blended in with traditional ‘authoritative results.’

Let’s say you’re researching your next vacation to the Grand Canyon and type that into a search. Besides sites showcasing the park, any tours and attractions, you will also see a post one of your friends wrote in Google+ about their trip. However, it will only appear if the post or picture has been shared with you or if it’s public (…in order to alleviate privacy concerns).

And that’s an important thing to remember – this new integration with Google+ and regular search will include images as well. Therefore, if you use Google Image search, pictures from your friends will appear alongside results from the broader web.

From Google’s perspective, this integration of personal, private, public and social will ensure you’re getting more relevant results because this is the information and the people you choose to connect with.

These new features will only work if you’re signed into Google though (…another move to allay privacy concerns). And to allow more flexibility, icons will appear at the top of the page – one allowing you to include social results and the other allowing you to strictly see standard, non-personalized results.

Amit Singhal, who oversees Google’s algorithms, comments that “The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.”

Think of this is as another integration of different searches into one place. In the good ol’ days, you had to do separate searches for news, images and so forth. For a while now though, these results have been integrated with regular searches. Google is now simply including social in that mix as well.

How will this affect business’ search engine optimization efforts?

Only time will tell. One thing is absolutely certain though – we will report on these effects as they become available to us.

In the meantime, see this quick summary from Google below and take a look at these expert reviews from Mashable and Search Engine Land to learn more about these revolutionary changes.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

Google+ Now Open for Businesses and Brands

Google+ – What is it and how will it integrate into your marketing strategy?

Getting Wisdom from the True Masters of Social Media

Over the last few weeks of 2011, we took a break to assess the state of search engine optimization and where things were headed going into 2012. We do this in order to help our clients (…and readers of this blog) better understand where they should focus their online marketing efforts.

After reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going, we quickly realized that the lines between different types of search – namely organic, local, mobile and social – are now being blurred more than ever. Rather than web search strictly being the center of activity online, social is increasingly becoming the focus.

According to an exclusive web tutorial from Planet Ocean, web search was the sun and other types of search (…or planets) revolved around it. Now, instead of web search being the sun, social is quickly becoming the center of the universe with other types of search (…or planets) revolving around it.

As we’ve said here many times over the last year, being social is a critical strategy to being successful online – this will become even more critical in the coming year. A cursory review of search results for a variety of terms shows social mentions and engagement alongside traditional webpages.

Social is being aggressively integrated in Bing, who has partnerships with Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Google has basically bet the farm on its new social network Google +.

From these arrangements and others, we can ascertain that social sharing will increasingly integrate with web search. Going forward, social shares or votes will increasingly be the new links.

How many have liked, +1’d or otherwise made a comment regarding content on your site?

So how can I ensure my site continues to rank high in 2012?

Dominating your market online in the new year will require some tried and true methods mixed with some new ways of engaging your audience online.

Since the web has become increasingly social, it’s become increasingly democratized as well. Users will more and more be the driving force in determining which social networking platforms you ultimately adopt.

The key to all of this though is content – as in years past, successful online marketing will be driven by your ability to create reference grade content that helps the reader. In turn, this can lead to true engagement that builds trust and value.

Rather than a few pages earning links, success online will hinge more on how socially engaging your content is.

The more likes, +1s and buzz your content has, the better your business will do.

Besides content itself, freshness will also be a driving factor in maintaining and building high search rankings. It’s increasingly become clear that Google and others are placing a high value on ‘fresh’ content. Just in the last two months, we’ve seen Google make updates to its algorithms to reward sites with fresh content, especially in areas that are always changing.

This update though has sadly penalized some sites with great ‘evergreen’ content that’s been around awhile but still valuable. Repurposing this content will help you get around this ‘freshness’ problem, especially if you experienced a drop in rankings due to this latest update.

Also in 2012, expect to see more firms using social media tools for product development and testing as well as technical support.

What about mobile-based search? Will it continue to grow in 2012?

An emphatic yes!! It’s projected that by 2015, more users in the U.S. will access the Internet through their smartphones or tablets than a regular computer.

Mobile search is deeply tied into local search with over 40% of searches on a mobile device being for something local like a restaurant, doctor’s office or brick and mortar store. According to Google, 44% of searches from a mobile device in the 2011 holiday shopping season were for store locations and last-minute gifts.

With mobile devices, users can seamlessly float between mobile, local and product search as well as their social media activities.

In 2012, it’s imperative that local business establish their presence on places like Bing Local, Google Places, Foursquare and others. Don’t be hesitant to allow reviews – customer reviews give you an opportunity to address grievances and open yourself up to new ways of engaging customers.

So there you have it – things will continue to move at wharp speed in this new year – social and mobile is most certainly revolutionizing how people interact and find things they need.

Stay tuned to our search engine optimization blog as we slice and dice the trends and developments in the search marketing world. Most of all relax and have fun with the possibilities the online sphere will bring in 2012.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part I

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part II

3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

This latest update is known as the ‘freshness update’ because of its stated goal – rank newer content higher in search results.

The search giant says these changes should affect around 35% of searches, mainly in areas where the most recent content matters – current events, hot topics, celebrity gossip, product/movie reviews and breaking news are examples of where this principal would apply. See further explanation and a list of the winners & losers in this great post from TechCrunch.

Here are a few searches you can look at for an example – “Black Friday 2011,” “Penn State scandal” or “NBA lock-out”

One thing you will notice is how top results are time-stamped and annotated more visually than before. Some of these annotations are in days while others are notated in minutes or even seconds. From these ‘time-stamps,’ we can tell that date-specific content is being served now more than ever.

Considering this emphasis on placing newer content higher in search results, consider the following 7 strategies to ‘evergreen’ your content and increase your chances of a ‘freshness’ boost in search results.

1) Start and maintain a blog

It’s clear from this update that more timely content is better. Therefore, one of the best ways to accomplish this ‘timely’ requirement is to publish content on a variety of topics on a regular, even daily basis. A blog is one of the best ways to easily get this content online.

2) Generate ‘Link Bait’ pieces

Content pieces that are informative and entertaining sometimes bring in thousands of visitors, hundreds of social media impressions and dozens of links each day. When these types of pieces are published on your blog, you will certainly see higher rankings. Seeing the popularity and relevancy for so many people will be a strong signal to Google.

3) Use Time Stamps to your advantage

Take a look at the top results in our sample searches and you’ll notice that each one has a time stamp. Each ‘freshness’ result has a clear publication date pulled by Google from the piece. Time stamping is easy to do and automatic on many blog platforms like WordPress. Google recommends the YYYY-MM-DD format (…2011-12-12).

4) Maximize Your Use of Social Media

Make sure you’re using social media tools to ‘push out’ new content as well as ‘pull in’ traffic     and social signals to that same content. Nothing says ‘fresh’ like a Tweet, Facebook comment or a +1 on Google’s new social network. Also, you can tap into your social networks to help write more content for you. If that isn’t possible, getting your friends to simply promote your content or leave comments will dramatically boost your ‘freshness quotient’ with Google.

5) Dynamically Update XML Sitemaps

By default, XML sitemaps include time stamps for each crawled URL within the sitemap.      Making sure these time stamps are updated regularly when new content is posted is now a pretty big deal. Blogging platforms like WordPress do this automatically but for your regular site content, it’s recommended you install a standalone XML sitemap generator that will automatically update your pages when you do.

6) Publish more Press Releases

Press releases scream ‘fresh’ and timely. In this new era of freshness though, press releases just may be the best and fastest way to feed the search engine a steady stream of the type of content they’re displaying high in search results. However, a press release will only remain fresh for a couple days up to a week so think about ways you can ‘update’ a prior press release with new, more detailed information when possible.

7) Get into Google News

Although it’s extremely difficult for a lone blogger to get into Google News, doing so can have a tremendous influence in how/if your content will find its way to the top of these ‘freshness’ results.

After reading about Google’s new fascination with freshness, you may be thinking that you can simply make changes to a previously published piece of content. According to Google’s statements though, one of the more important factors affecting which content they serve is when they first crawled a page. Making changes to your content in the hope of getting a ‘freshness boost’ will not work.

Therefore, be sure your content is correct the first time!!

One observation about these changes that we and others like our friends at Search Engine News have noticed – freshness doesn’t always equate to ‘most relevant’ in terms of returned search results. Down the road, this distinction may cause problems for Google…we’ll see of course.

Related Posts

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Press Release Optimization – Why Your Press Release May Not Be Ranking

5 Common Mistakes that Stop Press Releases Cold

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A recent video from the head of Google’s Webspam team, Matt Cutts, tries to answer this question. In short, no it isn’t. According to Cutts, all SEO basically means is making sure your pages are well represented in search results.

There are many legitimate, or ‘white hat,’ tactics SEO pros can use to help your pages rank high, including:

• Making sure pages are crawlable with good links
• Using strong keywords in site’s content. Words everyday people will use, not insider industry jargon
• Constructing a site that’s highly usable and has a design conducive to search engines
• Making your site loads fast, which is one of many of Google’s search ranking factors
• Building a good URL structure that’s easy to follow for both users and search engines

Using techniques like these and many others are considered to be okay by Google. Sites that follow these guidelines and build good quality that’s easily crawlable will, over time, see their organic rankings build.

However, there are ‘black hat’ techniques as they’re called that Google frowns upon. Sites who are caught using things like hack sites and keyword stuffing will be penalized severely by Google. Sometimes, these penalties are impossible to recover from.

The goal of Google is to return the best search results as possible for their users. If a searcher isn’t able to find the right information, they will start looking elsewhere for it. As the #1 search engine accounting for over 2/3 of searches online, Google has an interest in making sure it returns sites that are informative and relevant to what the searcher was looking for.

Matt explains (…correctly in our opinion) how search engine spiders are not smart enough yet to figure out what a site is about all on their own. Therefore, it’s the site owner’s job to ‘help’ the spider learn what your site is about…this at its core is where SEO comes in.  In our experience, basic fundamentals are not addressed.  A good SEO will fix these SEO fundamentals (…listed above), analyze site traffic, ROI and other important factors to keep your site’s rankings consistently high.

With that said, SEO is about building a site Google can crawl and index. If you hire a search engine optimization company to handle your site’s SEO, there shouldn’t be any secret as to what they’re doing. Your SEO should be open about what they’re doing to get your site to the top of search results.

If they’re not, you should go elsewhere for these services. If the SEO firm is employing ‘black hat’ techniques, your site and business will be the one who suffers, not the SEO firm who used the shady tactics.

If your site is penalized for employing nefarious techniques, it will take a long time for you to make up the lost ground. Meanwhile, the SEO firm will have taken a lot of your money and will not suffer the same consequence.

Watch the video below to learn more.

One lesson though to keep in mind in this situation – buyer beware!!

This is just the latest in a round of intros from the search giant, the first being its +1 button unveiled over the summer. Many websites have now added this latest ‘share’ button to their pages.

The new Google + brand pages look very similar to personal profiles with the exception of a little square icon that sets it apart from an individual’s page. Individuals with Google + profiles can connect to their favorite brands on the new network.

Fox News, CNN, Angry Birds, Muppets and Pepsi are just a few of the names who’ve been ahead of the curve. In fact, many brands were so eager to get into Google + that they setup pages as personal profiles much to company’s dismay. This in turn prompted Google to rollout brand pages much sooner than they otherwise would have.

Our friends at Sprout Content have been proactive in building their Google + page (…we’re still working on ours though).

Google VP Vic Gondrata commented in a blog post “So far Google+ has focused on connecting people with other people. But we want to make sure you can build relationships with all the things you care about—from local businesses to global brands—so today we’re rolling out Google+ Pages worldwide.”

If you’re setting up a Google + page for your business or brand, you have to choose one of five categories, which include:

1.     Local Business or Place – for hotels, restaurants, brick & mortar stores – any type of business that serves a local area

2.     Products or Brands – for those who specialize in certain items (i.e. clothing, electronics, vehicles, financial services)

3.     Company, Institution or Organization – for companies, institutions, organizations and non-profits

4. Arts, Entertainment and Sports – for bands, books, movies, sports teams, etc.

5.     Other – for any who don’t fit into the first 3 categories

Of course with all of this news coming out about Google’s new social network, Facebook has made some major changes to its platform (…some of which mimic Google Plus’ circles feature and so forth). For brand pages though, there’s not a whole lot of difference between Facebook and Google + for now.

Facebook has more experience in this realm though so you can expect Google to be continuously rolling out new features.

Are you considering a Google + profile for your brand? Or are you going to wait and see how it all works out before jumping in?

In today’s fast-paced online world, negative press can spread like wildfire – and decimate your business in the process. This principle applies not only to online businesses, but brick & mortar outlets as well since many people research a business online before making purchasing decisions.

Just think about when you’re looking for products and services – would you trade with someone who has a lot of negative comments prominently displayed online?

Probably not…

So whether negative comments are legitimate or not, they can do great harm to your reputation and by extension, your business. That’s why adopting a comprehensive online reputation management strategy is an important, but often overlooked part of marketing a business.

Online reputation management can be broken down into two types – proactive and reactive

Proactive is just that…you go out and find where people are discussing issues relevant to your industry. You add to the conversation through blog comments, forum & social media discussions and targeted content to other sites. Syndicating content helps build your company as a thought leader in your industry, which builds trust and credibility among prospective buyers. Participating in the online discussion signals to prospective customers that you care, and are available to address their concerns.

In addition being a positive for your online reputation, participating in the discussion and adding unique content to external sites yields better search rankings for your firm.

Reactive reputation management is just the opposite. When someone posts a negative comment or complaint about your firm, you address their concerns promptly. Many of these comments though may be initiated by your competition, in which case you can contact the forum or blog and ask the comment be removed.

It doesn’t matter where negative comments come from – the effects are devastating just the same if they’re not addressed.

Promptly addressing complaints accomplishes two goals – one, it shows others that you’re prompt in addressing any concerns. Customers can rest easy knowing you’re there to help if anything goes wrong.

The other benefit to responding to negative comments is to dilute the negative press in search rankings. It’s commonly known that the vast majority of web searchers pay no attention to results past page 1, and especially past page 2.

If page 1 results for terms related to your firm are packed with negative publicity, that’s all anyone is likely to see about your firm. Responding to negative criticism and taking proactive steps outlined above pushes these negative reviews past page 2.

You may be asking…reputation management seems awfully similar to SEO?

In a big way it is. You’re trying to ensure that top results pose your company in a positive light. Proactive reputation management reinforces your on-site efforts to ensure you not only reach the top of the rankings, but stay there as well.

Check back often as we discuss different tools and methods for effectively managing your company’s online reputation.

SEO Buzz Marketing services from SEO Advantage help companies like yours harness these tools to effectively manage your online reputation. Check with us today to see how you can save money, enhance revenues and build a long-term basis for future growth.

One partnership our search engine marketing firm engaged in last year with gold bullion dealer Provident Metals has seen tremendous success.

When we start working with a firm to grow their online presence and by extension, traffic and revenues, we set realistic goals to accomplish the desired end. In the case of Provident Metals, traffic and search rankings for the bullion dealer’s site increased well beyond anyone’s expectations.

Since formation of the partnership in mid-2010, Provident Metals’ website has seen over a 600% increase in web traffic. Much of this traffic has been driven by the exponential increase in the company’s page 1 Google rankings. Coupled with social media engagement and a re-designed online store, the bullion dealer has experienced much success since teaming up with our firm.

Now that the new site design is complete and a large catalog of informative content is established, we’re now working to target some super-competitive phrases related to PM’s industry – think ‘gold bullion’, ‘silver bullion’ and others.

Dominating these keyword phrases will vault Provident Metals into the elite circles of the bullion industry.

We’ll continue to work with Provident Metals to build informative web content that builds search rankings and engages the reader to act. Providing timely and informative content is key to building thought leadership and trust with customers.

We’re excited to be working with such a reputable company that prides itself on superior customer service. Stay tuned for more important updates on our exciting work. In the meantime, read more about the partnership in our latest press release.

And if you’re searching for an online partner dedicated to helping businesses grow, contact search marketing consultants at SEO Advantage today to find out how you can effectively harness online channels to build website traffic and revenues.

Fast loading pages aren’t important for just web rankings – if a page is loading slowly or times out, how many will hang around to wait for the page to load?

Whatever the reason for a slow loading page – antiquated server, extra coding, improperly formatted images – having one (…or several) will certainly cause you to lose visitors and more importantly, customers. To see how important this is to the average web user, check out this page load graphic courtesy of Blue Compass Interactive and our friends at Planet Ocean.

So how can I speed up my page’s load time? And what’s the recommended page load time for both search engines and web users?

For the best results, it’s recommended all pages on your website load within three seconds.

If your pages are taking longer to load, the following 5 tips will help optimize page load time and ensure your rankings (…and customers) will not slip by the way side due to slow loading pages.

1. Use an image editing program that provides a “Save for Web” setting

Images are by their very nature pretty big. If your webpage is loading images as-is it can dramatically lower your page load time. A “Save for Web” setting will export your image in a compressed file size. Also, don’t forget to specify the original file size in your HTML code (i.e. 500 pixels x 300 pixels). Not specifying these dimensions means your web browser will have to work harder to display the image, thus increasing page load time dramatically.

2. Keep HTML coding to a minimum

Many webmasters, perhaps you, use WYSIWYG (…what you see is what you get) type HTML editors. These programs though add a lot of unnecessary code to your page and thus, slow page load time down tremendously. Examples of unnecessary coding include “comment” lines and “date stamps” to name a few. One program you can use to compress your coding is the GZip HTML Compression tool.

3. Consolidate Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) and JavaScript

These days, every page has at least one cascading stylesheet (CSS), third-party application or JavaScript file to load before the page will function properly. This can slow even the smallest of web pages. Therefore, it’s best to force the browser to fetch as little external information as possible. Consolidate your CSS sheets down to one if possible and embed them at the HEAD of the individual page.

4. Control how your site content is ‘cached’

Demarking and controlling how your site’s content is cached by the search engines will dramatically speed up your page load time. How you do this depends on the type of server you’re hosting your site on.

For an Apache server, you can physically adjust the “Expires” or “Cache control” header attributes. The process for a Windows server is similar and involves manipulation of the HTTP ‘client cache’ element. And if your site is hosted through WordPress, download and install the WP Super Cache plug-in which serves up static HTML pages to the majority of your audience and dramatically boosts page load time.

5. Reduce the amount of cookies

Consider downloading and installing a free ad-on like View Cookies for Mozilla Firefox to monitor the amount of cookies being exchanged between you and your site’s visitors. Review these cookies and see which ones you can reduce in size or eliminate altogether. If you can’t recognize the cookie, then you probably don’t need it. The fewer cookies your page has, the faster it will load.

As we always say, one ranking factor alone won’t determine the success or failure of your site in the search engines. With that said, on-site technical improvements are a sound way to securing long-term rankings. Therefore, if you find your site’s load time is a bit lagging, make sure you pay close attention to the above metrics.

Even though Google + has already grown to this many users, many of us are just starting to figure out how to integrate it into our social media marketing strategies. While there of course naysayers out there, much of the buzz surrounding Google + is pretty positive with many marketers saying it will eventually develop into the ultimate content sharing and marketing platform…more on that below.

But first off – how does Google + work and what makes it different from Facebook?

Google + is essentially the search engines latest foray into the social networking world. According to the company’s official blog:

“Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”

Google’s basic idea is to make all of their existing products (search, Maps, Gmail and more) socially compatible. Doing so, they hope, will challenge Facebook as the leading social network.

Each profile will center on the ‘stream,’ which is essentially the equivalent of Facebook’s news feed. This stream though will be joined by four other core elements – Circles, Hangouts (video chat), Huddles (instant message) and Sparks (things you may be interested in).

One key difference and advantage Google + has over Facebook – users, through Circles, have better control over who sees the information they post. On Facebook, all of your friends see what you put online, be it they’re your friends, family, co-workers, business contacts and so on.

With Google +, you will be able to have one circle for your friends, another for family members and another for business colleagues

We all communicate differently with various people in our lives. You don’t communicate with a business prospect the same way you communicate with your mother. Google+ reflects this reality.

And that’s one distinct advantage of Google+ when sharing your content online – it allows you to target your marketing messages to the people who matter most.

Will Google+ eventually become the ultimate content sharing platform?

That remains to be seen of course but Google+ has already solved many of the inherent privacy and ‘over-sharing’ issues that make Facebook problematic. Google+ also provides a rich multimedia and discussion environment that Twitter cannot match. According to Brian Clark at Copyblogger, Google+ has been put together in a way that “…encourages, rewards and protects content sharing.”

And one more biggie – Google+ will certainly be tied into search rankings, unlike Facebook. When it comes to better search rankings, building an audience on Google+ may be the best thing you can do.

At the end of the day, Google+ is taking many of the positive attributes about Facebook and Twitter and making them better. Google has had the luxury of watching what Facebook and Twitter did wrong and making it better.

Google being very careful in its pursuit though since their first two attempts at social networking (Buzz and Wave) failed to catch on. This latest social network attempt by Google hasn’t been released to the general public just yet – it’s being dubbed as a ‘project’ and is by invitation only.

We’ll keep on the lookout for how this latest innovation from Google can play into your social media marketing strategy. In the meantime, check out a demo and see how it works for yourself!