How to measure the Effectiveness of Google Plus One

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Google +1 Button. Get it on your website.

Google +1 Button. See activity information in Webmaster Tools

You can see all plus 1 activity in Google Webmaster Tools

Knowing where to focus your social media marketing efforts can be a difficult decision. For any business social media marketing is an investment in time and money that you need to have some idea you’re getting a return on.

Google Plus could be as important as Facebook and Twitter

Google plus arrived a couple of months ago and all indications are that it is going to be as important as Facebook, Twitter or Link In, for businesses.

When it first arrived I added the Google +1 button to my site and now it’s been running for a while I thought I’d take a look at the plus 1 activity.

Section in Google Webmaster Tools

Luckily this is not too difficult. Google have added a section to their Webmaster Tools panel just for +1 metrics. In this section you’ve got links to Search impact, Activity and Audience.

The search impact link was not showing much, mainly because it has not really been running long enough. The Activity link is showing much more.

Activity from Google Plus1 Button

This shows a steady rise in the people clicking on the +1 button, from the different pages of the site. What will be interesting will be the button clicks from other sites, such as Google Plus, Facebook and so on. This should start to happen over time.

+1 Audience

Google Plus 1 Audience information for Webmaster Tools

The Audience section shows a similar story: a steady growth in the number of clicks on the +1 button. Again over time this chart will show characteristics, such as users location, age and gender (all information is anonymous, according to Google).

Has it helped with SEO?

Obviously with Google plus being so close to Google search, people are going to wonder how much it helps with SEO. So far I’ve not noticed anything I can obviously put down to adding the +1 buttons and people clicking on them.

Speaking from an anecdotal viewpoint, I do feel there has been some improvement in position for the website pages that have had +1 button clicks. Obviously there may be other factors to this, but it would seem to make good sense to get the Google +1 buttons on your site, as the whole of Plus One is becoming so popular.