So sharing link in the social networking sites such as Google+, Facebook and Twitter can have effect on the ranking of the search engine of our posts? Of course, it becomes fairly standard for Bing and Google to display us the content which is being shared by any of our friends. But the question is what is there beyond the social graphs? The answers to these questions were being answered by Neil Pursey who is the owner of WebGrowth SEO agency. This SEO guy is presenting his findings in front of his packed audience in WordCamp organized in Cape Town which is the annual location of WordPress conference.

In other words the basic answer he presented is “may be”. We would never be sure as the algorithm of Google’s ranking remains a thoroughly guarded secret. But according to the case studies of Pursey which went through for defining the correlation between the consistence increase in all the traffics which are incoming and the following activities which are shared in the social media. He was able to display the correlations between these two very successfully. While the analysis on these case studies were taking place he noticed that there is a very similar effect coming out when this correlation was being implemented on the content pages of these Open Graphs. Even if his studies cannot conclusively say whether sharing content which is a viral effect for example on Facebook can particularly help in increasing the traffic or other reasons such as search engines help in increasing the site ranking but the channels of social media are very beneficial for the increased traffic and it is not a real surprise.

As we move on from the most likable social networking site i.e. Facebook, Google+ seems to have the most interesting effects all over on the increased traffic. Pursey have cited in one of his studies where the user of Google+ asked his followers who are thousand in number to +1 on a post which is ranked sixteen on the phrase of “vintage scooter helmets.” As long as Google is experimenting with the social signal on a regular basis but there still remains a doubt in the minds of many people regarding reproducing the legitimacy and the subsequent effects of this case study.”

The analysis done by Pursey leads to the often overlooked Google authorship in which the legitimacy can boost up your ranking in the search engines. It recommends to have looked into it strongly. Whenever you are creating any data or information or content your profile in Google+ is being linked to the Google authorship on an automatic basis. There is a plug in of WordPress which is also well known to be AuthorSure which is making it very easy for the implementation of the markup of Authorship of Google on the webpage or site of WordPress.

If we follow the studies undertaken by AuthorSure “after authorship if verified properly by Google it will help you to start building the author rank of yours which ultimately means that the higher rankings you get the more will be your face appear in the SERPs of the Google. It leads to the better rate of clicked through as compared through the listings which do not include the face to be listed until and unless you are looking quite scary in your profile photo given in Google+”

It is well said by Pursey that Google+ is a very important channel for social media and networking which affects the rankings in the search engine throughout in the future. He is also recommending that by taking a glance at the tools of Google’s Webmaster are also overlooked often.

At the end note Pursey concludes his presentation by using a quote which originally belonged to Matt Cutts who is the head of Google in search spam. He revealed the fact to Danny Sullivan that the links which we generally see are much more powerful and remain so than the signals of the social networking sites which can be determined from foreseeable future. Matt Cutts had given the above mentioned view based on the Land of the Search engines.

+Joshua Hood is an SEO expert, co-founder of SEO Miracle, who graduated from the University of Virginia with a B.A. in Economics in 2002. He has experience doing SEO for both small businesses as well as 3 years experience in New York City doing SEO for big businesses.