And while I’m on the subject, Stever has a great post up on some tips for Encouraging Google +1 Votes for Local Business Websites. Key point for unsuspecting SMBs to take note of:
“Forget the new schemes popping up to buy hundreds of plus 1 votes. Those will be meaningless to a local business as it is very likely nobody in that network are local to that business. That and it is likely a manufactured network just to sell +1’s in bulk so again the people within the circles of those accounts are not likely to be local either.”
Check out this Kelowna painting contractor for a simple example.
3 Response Comments
Now… Way back when, I lived about 80 miles north of Vancouver… Not exactly close to Kelowna, but not a million miles away either. My Google profile has pretty much reflected this fact since Day One.
And while I could proxy into the neighborhood before doing so, I wonder if there would be any mileage at all in me hitting +1, despite the fact that my IP currently puts me on the other side of the planet?
And, if so, can this not also be ‘engineered’ to look more natural?
Yes/No/Maybe.
I’m out and about travelling in the UK every so often, doing Martial Art seminars.
If I see something I like, if I have a good experience in an eating place, if I get good service in a store … then I’ll +.
I can understand that it may be somewhat devalued – but why should it be fully discounted?
In reverse, surely, with local ties and interactions, are you not as likely to have local bias and manipulation to favour you with local +’s?
I’m hoping (really hoping) that G is smart enough to not make in grossly generalised evaluations on “value” based solely on location.
Instead, they should be doing things like monitoring peoples +’ing behaviour/patterns.
Thanks for linking to that.
As a further point to localized networks in social take a look at current counts of +1’s and FB likes on that painters home page.
After I placed those buttons there I told Stan to tell his wife to go click the FB like button, she’s a Facebook fiend. Well, many of her friends, mostly locals in Kelowna, went and liked it too. 42 likes so far.
Meanwhile the +1’s are me, my wife and I told Stan, as I know he is a Gmail user, if he uses G+ yet to go click the +1 button. He went and created a G+ account for the first time. He +1’d his own site but has yet to do much else with Google Plus.