After much demand, Google+ recently announced the launch of their business and brand pages to their growing social network. They will be rolling out the new Google+ Pages over the next few days, making business pages available to everyone. Google+ says the new pages are to help businesses and brands engage with their fans, allowing individuals and businesses to connect and interact by adding one another to their circles.

DIRECT CONNECT

In order to connect more businesses with their respective searchers, Google will now incorporate Google+ Pages into search results. In addition to + Pages now coming up in search results, Google also offers Direct Connect which will enable searchers to connect with businesses, simply by searching their brand name with a ‘+’ in front of it. Below is a search we did on ‘+Pepsi’ which will return their Goolge+ business page and gives us the option to add Pepsi to our circle.

After a long wait, Google+ business pages for are finally here. Several companies have already jumped on board and set up their pages, including:

• All American Rejects
• Anderson Cooper 360
• Angry Birds
• Barcelona Football Club
• Burberry
• Dallas Cowboys
• Fox News
• Good Morning America
• H&M
• Macy’s
• Modelland
• The Muppets*
• Pepsi
• Phoenix Suns
• Save the Children
• Toyota
• Train
• WWE
• X Games
• Zen Bikes

If you are eager to hop on board, you can create your business page in the near future. Google+ is still in the transitional phase of bringing the pages to everyone, so some may receive an error message when trying to set up a page.  When Google+ pages are up and running, you will be able to create a page here : plus.google.com/pages/create.

If you need any help setting up your business page on Goolge+, adding a +1 button to your website, or questions on how to maximize the benefits of a Google+ Page, contact your SEO agency.

Submitted by Erica Machin, Titan Growth

Last year, Google completed its Google Caffeine update, which allowed for a far faster indexing ability for new content across the web. Now, Google claims to be building on that update by introducing a new algorithmic improvement which will decide when a search request requires a more updated, or “fresher”, results page. This new Google Fresh update affects about 35% of searches, but as Google has also reported, that means there may be just one or two different result listings in 35% of searches. Bottom line: the average searcher will probably not notice the change, but websites with a large online presence may see a significant gain or loss in their rankings.

As one might expect, some of the “winners” of this algorithm change include news sites and online retailers. However, we are surprised to see pizza chains and communications companies among those who came out on top:

Just as with the “winning” sites, those sites on the losing end also came from diverse industries, and some news sites were also unexpectedly included:

This update is one of the major ways Google is attempting to make their results as relevant as possible for users, and also to keep one more step ahead innovations from competitors such as the Yahoo!-Bing Search Alliance. It also offers another reason why website owners must stay on top of search engine behavior and changes. If you are concerned about whether or not your website and search terms will be affected by Google’s “Freshness” update, contact your SEO agency today.

Contributed by Amanda Finch, Titan Growth, Inc.

Inc. Magazine recently ranked Titan Growth on its list of the top 5000 U.S. companies, based on revenue growth. This is Titan Growth’s second year on the Inc. 5000 list.

The companies on this list have played an important role in fighting the economic downturn in America: according to Inc., these 5000 companies have added 370,592 jobs back into the U.S. workplace, a feat worth recognizing.

Titan Growth, a San Diego-based search engine marketing company, is also ranked No. 191 in the Advertising and Marketing subcategory. Titan Growth’s main focus is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), an online marketing strategy that works to improve websites’ organic rankings on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. In addition to SEO, Titan Growth also manages Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing, local search, and display campaigns, in order to present a well-rounded online presence for their clients.

Titan Growth’s President, Danny Shepherd, attributes their success to a lot of hard work, strong client referrals, and the utilization of TitanBOT, Titan Growth’s proprietary search engine spider. “TitanBOT gives us a significant advantage over the competition,” stated Shepherd. “We are able to crawl our clients’ websites the same way a search engine spider would, in order to anticipate the effect our changes will have on our clients’ rankings.” TitanBOT was created by the same engineers who were involved in the creation of algorithmic-based search, and this technology is helping Titan Growth’s clients dominate their market.

In addition to TitanBOT, Titan Growth also credits their success to a close-knit team of search analysts, a loyal client base, and a strong track record of results. Titan Growth continues to be an innovator in their field with their method of operations, training, and technological advancements, and looks forward to another successful year ahead.