What the Google +1 Button Means for Recruitment Agencies

Following on from my recent article What the Google+ little red box means for recruitment agencies, I thought I’d hone in on one of the other main features of Google+….the +1 button and, in particular, demonstrate how it will dramatically affect how your recruitment agency is found online.

What is the +1 button?

It is similar to the Facebook ‘like’ button but with a huge difference…its impact on Google search results.

How +1s affect search

If one of your candidates, say Emma, +1s an article that your agency has published, this information is immediately fed to the Google search engine so that it can start to build up a picture of what authors Emma likes. Then, when Emma runs future searches, Google presumes that she would prefer to read content from your agency over other content so assigns more priority to your agency’s website in its search results. It will keep your brand in front of Emma’s eyes as much as possible.

Due to Emma +1ing the article, Google presumes that Emma’s friends will also want to know about your article (after all, we usually prefer to read content that our friends have endorsed over more general content on the web). So, when Emma’s friends run related searches on Google, it will again prioritise content from your agency in their search results. How fantastic to be able to compete in the rankings against all the usual recruitment agencies that dominate page one? Suddenly the playing field looks just a tad more level!

More benefits of the +1

The +1 is tied to the destination page on your website where the content is housed. The more +1s your content gets, the higher quality score – and hence search ranking – Google gives you.

Also, the more +1s you get, the more likely people are to click through to read your content. According to Hubspot, websites using the +1 button get 3.5 times more Google+ visits than those that don’t. This is largely due to people being able to see how many +1s an article has before they even click through to read it. Naturally, if there are lots of +1s, then people presume it’s going to be a valuable piece and are more likely to click through. That is an extremely powerful content marketing tool when it comes to driving potential candidates to your website.

A social vote

Think of the +1 button as a social vote – when someone clicks it, they are saying to their social-sphere, “this content is worth reading”. Then, as more people +1 your content, it begins its journey through the social-sphere, taking your brand with it, creating inbound links and driving new candidates to your website.

Important point to note

As far as we know, for the +1 to affect your search results, your content needs to be +1′d from your website, as opposed to within Google+ itself.