Google’s latest revision to search has created a small uproar in the online marketing and SEO communities–not to mention annoyed Twitter to no end (Facebook’s probably irked as well, but Twitter needs the publicity–complaining loudly is a bid to stay relevant that Facebook doesn’t need).

Here it is in a nutshell. Google has always personalized your search results, tailoring them to location, previous searches, and a whole host of other things. It’s the reason why your “ranking”–where your link appears in the search results–is not as cut and dried as many people believe. I don’t see the same results you see, and your Aunt Maggie sees a different set of her own.

The latest update to Google Search, however, is adding a whole new element of personalization, bringing in socially syndicated content from your friends, contacts, family and professional circles. Great, right? Okay, but the kicker to this is, it’s only bringing in Google+ information, not social data from Facebook, Twitter, etc. That’s why Twitter’s so annoyed.

So what does this mean for your business or brand? It means, that while Google + is still a fairly new social network with relatively low adoption, and despite the fact that the ability to have brand/business pages is still pretty new, you need to be on it and sharing your content via Google+, or you’re missing out on a newly-important way to get your name in the top of the personalized, individual results that Google is dishing out.

Marketing agencies are jumping on this train for all their clients. You can certainly set up and manage your own Google+ profile, but an experienced online marketing professional can be a big help in getting that profile set up to give you the greatest benefit in search results.

Want help with your Google+ or other social media profiles? Contact me.

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