Google Plus links have been showing up here and there in Google Knowledge Graph results, but I think the big G just pushed into overdrive. This morning I noticed Google Plus profiles showing up where Google Knowledge graph data has been displayed on SERPs that target brand queries, along with some new formats. Some of these have been around for a while, but I can’t remember which ones are old and which are new so I am listing everything I am seeing now. For example:
Here’s a closer look:
Of course SEOMoz rates one:
And Angies List (but not angieslist or angieslist.com):
A few observations:
- It appears that the brand has to have a verified Google Plus account to trigger this, but not all verified brands have one yet
- As far as I can tell it’s only showing up for “active” Google Plus accounts, providing a huge incentive for brands to get active on G+
- For brands with exact match domains/brands, this provides a big incentive to get busy on G+ as they can push the top ads down
- I haven’t seen any local businesses trigger this yet, but it’s only a matter of time and when it happens, this could be a big pull for more SMBs to get busy on G+
Stay tuned!
4 Response Comments
Yes, this is an ideal reason to “get busy” on curating/engaging within your G+ accounts.
Andrew:
I haven’t seen much of the knowledge graph at all (but then again I haven’t been doing a lot of brand searches lately) but this will be huge if small businesses can get displayed for local searches. I’m always coaxing my clients to get busy on Google+ but it’s like talking to a wall. Google+ is a ghost town to begin with so to get a small business owner active on it is hard.
Travis Van Slooten
To me, this development is not a reason for SMBs to get busy on G+. While at some point this will likely be available for local businesses, I doubt it’s going to happen in the next 3-6 months. And if it rolls out the way it’s currently behaving, then it’s just showing for brand queries, which means that unless you have a generic brand (e.g. Pleasanton Plumber), you are not going to see a big increase in organic traffic because of it.
Yeah i’ve noticed this cropping up in searches too, it would seem Google is making a big push to encourage businesses over the Google+