Do I +1, Share, or Comment. Does it make a difference where I do it?
You might have caught Rich Cedarburg's blog about Google Plus yesterday. It started out as me posting a question about +1'ing or sharing a post on Google Plus. Did it make a difference whether you did it from the original post, or should you do it from Google Plus?
This became a hugely interesting conversation with more than 45 comments. (Read our google plus conversation) Because you may not have time to read all of the comments, let me summarize what we learned.
What's the difference between +1, Sharing, or Commenting?
When you read a good blog, you want the author to get a little Google love, do at least one of these actions. Because Google needs to determine just how important the information is within this blog, it values each of these activities differently.
A +1 is good, think of it like a Facebook like. This is the minimal activity that you should do for the author. I would also say that if you are on Active Rain and you ever hit the suggest button, you should also hit the +1. Really, don't we care more about letting Google know this was a great blog than the AR Gods? In the longrun, which will help the author more? A share let's your circles (and Google) know that this is an important article. This means that you will write a little snippet about the article too. Be sure that you add keyword and long tail phrases because these are starting to appear in searches as well. A share is rated more highly than a +1 by Google.
The highest compliment that you can give the author is to also comment, however. We know when we look at our stats that while our blogs are clicked on by possibly hundreds of people, we may only get a handful of comments. Commenting on the post, or on Google plus, lets Google know that you were interested in the content.
The easiest way to remember this is to ask, how much time did it take me to do this? The more time you take (write an introduction to share an article vs click a button to +1 it) probably means that you cared more about it. Google is always trying to decide what is important to potential readers. The more people who have viewed it, +1'd it, shared it and commented on it, there is a greater probability that the result will provide the information to whoever is searching for those keywords.
Should I share from the original blog or from Google Plus?
Either way the author gets Google love. The big difference is that when you share from Google plus, whoever shared the article with you, also gets a little love. I think of this as multi-level marketing (only in a good way). Let's look at a scenario.
Today Gene Mundt shared a great article about home remodeling. Immediately, the author for the article is going to get some love, but by virtue of the fact that Gene shared it and his circle found it interesting, as noted by +1s and comments (engagement), Google starts to think maybe Gene is important to people. This will help his authorship rankings.
Now, I read this article and thought it was pretty interesting. I thought my circle might think it was interesting too. I shared it. While I went to the article itself to read it, and I could have hit the Google share button from there, I went back and shared it from Gene's article. Why?
Gene is who told me about the article (through his sharing). I wanted him to get credit for having shared it. By sharing his article, vs just the article itself, I was able to give him Google love too. Now Google knows that his followers REALLY care about what he is sharing with them. In either case, the author gets credit, but when you share from the one you learned about the article from, you help everyone.
Thank you for reading... Do I +1, Share, or Comment. Does it make a difference where I do it?
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