As many of you may have heard or seen on your Google searches, Google recently introduced the “+1” feature. According to Google, the “plus one” button that you now see alongside your organic and paid search results is shorthand for “this is pretty cool” or “you should check this out.’” If you are logged into your Google account and conduct a search, each search result will include a line that shows who in your social circle +1’d that result, and more recently, will also show how many people in general have +1’d that result.

What does +1 Mean for Pay Per Click?

PPC and SEO are thought of by many as two separate entities with very little overlap. However, sharing landing page/ keyword ideas and performance are two examples of where PPC managers and SEOs can collaborate to increase the effectiveness of both. The +1 button is another factor that affects both SEO and PPC. Anything that makes your ad stand out compared to competitors’ AdWords gives you an advantage. Let’s go through an example:

• Fred logs into his Google account and does a search for baseball gloves.
• Fred sees that one of his friends or connections, +1’d an ad for Mizuno baseball gloves.
• Fred is much more likely to click on that ad.

Google has stated that +1 will not affect quality score, but SEO and PPC experts are saying the +1 feature could be huge for click-through rate. I agree, but I’ll go one step further and say +1’s will affect conversion rates as well. Word-of-mouth is a very strong influence in terms of buying behavior and online word-of-mouth is no different. If your friends recommend something, you are much more likely to buy it.

Plus One’s Next Step

You may be thinking, “Well, if more +1’s equals a higher CTR and possibly a higher conversion rate, why don’t I create ads that direct searchers to click the +1 next to my ad? It costs me nothing!” Good idea, but Google put a stop to this tactic back in March. What you can do is make sure your company, clients, employees, etc. know about the +1 feature. From there, you can see if promoting +1 clicks in a medium other than PPC is something you have the resources to do.