As Google continues to tinker with its search algorithm, the immediate effects of the smaller and unpublicized updates are not evident and Google has always been purposeful in what it announces and what it does not. Larger updates are given names like the most recent Panda Update and those it implements in the still of the night are just passing ships. A painter keeps locks on his studio door until the gala as to avoid overexposing his work to those who can’t possibly see the artist’s vision and end result for what’s in front of their face. I dare not compare Google to an artistic masterpiece; although I’m certain many inside their walls see it that way.

What Google has been proud to endorse and promote is the Google+ social network which several months ago opened up Google+ Pages for Businesses. The possible impact of a social network tied to the largest and most popular search engines infrastructure is yet to be realized but one can be certain Google will give due weight to posts on their own social network when users are signed in to their Gmail account and using personal search (Search Plus Your World).

There were some indications late last week from other industry writers that Google had begun showing a new “Latest Posts” area off to the right side of the search engine results page (SERP). This is prime real estate as Pay per Click ads normally occupy this space. A quick investigation showed a few interesting results and proved Google’s tinkering is a fluid process.

A search for “southern comfort mechanical air conditioning” under my personal Google+ account resulted in the same SERP view indicated by the other industry writers late last week. The Google ad space was taken over by results from my personal account’s circles in which Southern Comfort Mechanical’s Google+ Business Page is included (see below).

Examples of this newer layout were reported and based upon direct name searches, as my search above is accounting for each individual word in the Southern Comfort Mechanical G+ Page title. I might as well used the “+” operator and utilized Google’s Direct Connect feature.

What I wanted to know was how effective keyword searches were in bringing up a business’s Google+ Page or posts. My next search was for “air conditioning tune up” and the results were encouraging from a search engine optimization (SEO) viewpoint. Two links appeared in the top half of the search results page and the top organic link was the post from the actual G+ Business Page. As you can see the keyword search did not contain a geo-target, essentially drawing a relevant result from my Circles. The other result on the top of the page was a basic SEO result. However, the company’s Page link sharing history appears below the entry. The red arrow also notes the speed at which the link was pushed to the top of the search results (1 minute ago). The search was done less than a minute after the post was made and already was placed in the top spot (see below).

A search a few hours later for a geo-targeted keyword resulted in the same post ranking as well as another few basic quality SEO results (see below).

To be transparent, these same results do not happen for G+ users in my circles who do not have the Southern Comfort Mechanical business page in their circles. The degree of separation seems to be one, but that’s always been the point of Circles versus the Facebook Wall, even for public posts.

Advice Interactive Group provides Google+ Business Pages for our clients and Google is giving great weight and immediacy to these Google+ posts. It is important for your business to have a fully optimized Google+ Business Page. Consider this additional service to your SEO from Advice and call 877-692-7250 for more information.