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.