There’s been a lot of talk recently about Google +1, the new ‘button’ from Google that allows people to ‘vote’ for your site and could affect your Google positions in some instances.

So, firstly:

What is Google +1?

Google tell us that:

Adding +1 buttons to your pages is a great way to help your ads stand out on Google. By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search ads and organic results might appear with +1 annotations more often. This could lead to more–and better qualified–traffic to your site.

This has been a little confusing for some people so we’ll try and put it in plain English for you

Basically, if you have the Google +1 button on your website pages or blog posts, then people can click on it in the same way they would click a Facebook ‘Like’ button. When they click on it (and to do this they must have a Google account), Google registeres that they like your page or post. So far so good.

When another person searches on Google, and your page or post is shown in the results, it will show the number of  ‘+1s’ it has had from their friends or contacts. Google is working on the assumption that people will be influenced by the choices their friends and contacts have made.

How will it affect my Google positions? If people don’t +1 me, am I at a disadvantage?

In most cases, the answer to this is no. Google tells us that +1 won’t affect the usual SERPS (which is a relief as we’re sure it will soon become easy to game). However, if someone searches Google while they’re logged in to their Google account, the results that have more +1s from their friends and contacts will be highlighted.

Should I use the Google +1 button on my pages and posts?

We think so. Although it’s not making a huge impact right now, think back to how little impact Facebook Likes made at one point – now they’re an integral part of promoting any blog or website.

How do I install the Google +1 button on my site or blog?

If you have a WordPress blog or site, there’s a plugin for that http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-plus-one/

If you have a Blogger blog, you’ll need to install one of their addons – more about this here: http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/06/add-1-button-to-your-blog.html

If you want to install it to your site manually, it’s just a case of adding some code into the head of your code, and then some more code where you want the button to appear – more on this here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

As you can see at the bottom of this post, we’ve installed the Google +1 button – we’d love it if you could help us to test it, first by clicking on it, and secondly by installing it on your own site or blog and letting us know in the comments below!

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It’s important to install a form of tracking software such as Get Clicky or Google Analytics onto your website.  This will allow you to monitor visitors, the length they remain, find any sites who have recently added a link to you (as people will click from the link to visit your site) as well as find reasons why people leave your site.  This information can prove invaluable as it will prompt you to edit pages, refine keywords and add to any FAQ on your site.

In Google Analytics, navigate to Content – Top Exit Pages and examine these pages closely.  Note that it’s common for the most common page here to be the Contact Us page as this means people have either called you, emailed you, or found your address for an invoice.

Look for any potential problems.  Are a lot of people leaving at a certain page?  Visit that page and ask yourself why.  Test all elements on that page.  What keywords had people used – were they frustrated and unable to find what they were seeking?  It may well be that this page needs refining for these keywords, or perhaps you need to encourage people seeking this keyword to visit a different page through your SEO targeting or through AdWords landing pages.  Get Clicky is great for spotting problems – especially urgent problems as it’s actually possible to spy on visitors through your site.  In particular it’s great for spotting 404 errors FAST!

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This question comes up repeatedly for me from my clients and from my delegates when giving courses.  They have discovered, when looking at their Google Analytics account that their Contact Us page is really popular.  They ask:

“Why is it, that my second most popular page after my homepage is the Contact Us page?”

It’s quite simply because you will have clients, colleagues and many other interested parties who are seeking your contact details!  They visit your website, visit the contact us page and then take your address, email address or telephone number from there.  Don’t even think of taking this information away from this page.  And shame on you if you only have an online form with no other contact details.  Tut, tut – go and fix it today!

You may wonder why they don’t already have it, but not everyone stores your details.  Many people tend to use your website as their address book.

So how can you increase visitor engagement?

Add in some useful information, some exciting news, or maybe create a competition to encourage them to stick around a little longer!

Please post any other suggestions here, or maybe let us know if you’ve tried adding something that worked, or didn’t work….

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