Google recently introduced a new feature to their search interface called ‘Search, plus your world’. It’s the latest in a fairly long, yet recent, line of updates to push the search giant’s social network, the feedback is mixed.

The feature will only be present for those who have and are signed into a Google+ account, when this is the case, the search experience will differ by

• Showing user profiles in drop down search bar
• Returning more personalised results relevant to your history
• Increasing links to prominent Google+ profiles
• Linking to profiles related to search query
• SSL security to all signed in users

There has been the usual SEO industry uproar about how “SEO is Dead” again but that’s common for any significant update that effects the results returned for any search. There has been increasing evidence over the past couple of years to suggest that social networks are impacting search results more and more, now Google has cemented this theory but with their own network. There is no doubt that a user could receive better results if they were personally tailored to them but since Google+ isn’t the only social network people user (and certainly not the most popular), how can it really benefit the user.

The common criticism of this latest change is that Google is making use of its industry leading search product, to promote another, its social network. Users are feeling that their use of the web is being restricted to the services provided exclusively by Google, with other offerings such as Facebook and Twitter being ignored all together.

There is also the impact on SEO, as usual the update is intended to provide better results, but are the best results really so reliant on data from one of the least used social networks? Will websites lose out on clicks even if they naturally rank 1st if above them lies several Google+ pages? Another implication of the update is that the search data for every user that’s logged in will not contribute to keyword data available on Google Keyword Tool, possibly the most important tool for SEO keyword research. If we cannot see this data we will not know which keywords are the most popular and therefore what to optimise for!

Anyway, as it is early days for Search plus your world, we must give it time and wait to see what effects it has on the use of the search engine, search results and SEO. Stay tuned for updates.

BDI Home Finders UK selected Manchester based SEO Agency Pixel8 to manage their search engine optimisation (SEO) campaigns on a three month trial basis.

The initial SEO campaign targets people who are looking to find, buy or to let a luxury property in the best areas of London or in the South East of England.

BDI Home Finders have an extensive network of house hunters in central London and across the Home Counties. They provide clients with considerable expertise not only in finding luxury homes, but their property buying and negotiating expertise can ensure that their clients pay the lowest price and get the best overall deal. For more information please visit BDI Home Finders UK.

When Pixel8 won this opportunity, their SEO consultants quickly completed the initial research and analysis then added new keyword-rich text to several pages on the BDI Home Finders website, to target specific areas of London. New Title and Meta Tags were implemented onto 17 pages within a week, and then a related-content link building process began.

Google indexed the SEO updates to the BDI Home Finders website within a week. Since then the website has achieved No. 1 and top 5 Google listings for a wider variety of targeted keywords and phases. If you’d like to know the exact keywords and phases that the website is ranking for please contact us and we’ll be more that happy to show you.

To learn more about our search engine optimisation services, please visit SEO or call the Pixel8 SEO consultants in Manchester on 0161 228 6489, 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail.

On 1^st. June 2009 the search engine optimisation (SEO) specialists at Pixel8 in Manchester started providing SEO services for the Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust website. The Trust manages nineteen sports facilities and leisure centres in Manchester including the world-class Manchester Aquatics Centre.

On 8^th. July 2009 visitors to the website reached an all time high.

Google visitors to the Trusts’ website from April 18 to May 31 totalled 4,557
Google visitors to the Trusts’ website from June 1 to July 14 totalled 8,687

The white-hat (ethical) SEO strategies that Pixel8’s SEO team implemented also increased visitors to the Trusts’ website from Yahoo! natural search by 65.62%, and AOL organic visitors increased by 165.52%.

The purpose of the initial SEO campaign was to increase the number of visitors to the Swimming, Gym and Membership sections of the Trusts’ website.

For the period June 14 – July 14 compared to May 14 – June 13:

Visitors to the Swimming Lessons page were up by 155.76%

Visitors to the Swim Free page were up by 40.04%

Visitors to the Swimming Activities page were up by 22.53%

Visitors to the Gyms page were up by 13.32%

Visitors to the Memberships page were up by 62.45%

Shaun Brennan, the Commercial Manager for the Manchester Sport and Leisure Trust said, “I’m really pleased with the SEO work that Pixel8 have delivered to date and the impact this is having on visitors to the website. Long may it continue!”

Pixel8 Account Director Jamie Watson said, “We’re pleased that our initial SEO strategies had a quick positive effect in the natural search engine results pages. We’re now working on the second phase of the SEO campaign for the Trust, and we expect to show equally impressive SEO results for the other sections of their website”.

For information please visit SEO. To find out what Pixel8 SEO can do for your website, please call our SEO consultants  in Manchester on 0161 228 6489, 0845 230 1336 or contact us by e-mail.