If you’ve noticed something new about your Google search results today – and not everyone will, since the changes being made are gradually across different locations and browsers – you’re not alone. Google has recently announced that they’ll start adding “+1″ buttons to listings.

What does +1 mean? It’s most similar to Facebook’s “like this” tab, which allows users to point out which pages are destinations they consider to be most helpful. The results are then made public to your Gmail contacts, although this may expand in the future, and Google has some tentative plans to collect aggregate +1 data for sites and pages to see which ones are most popular.

As a web user, this might seem like a neat little feature to share which sites you enjoy. But as an online marketer, it should alert you to some deeper truths and trends. Here are three things you definitely need to know about Google’s new +1 addition:

It’s further blurring the lines between search and social media. By essentially following in the footsteps of Facebook’s like this or Twitter’s “retweet” option, Google is positioning itself less as a pure search engine and more of a social hub. Expect that these Internet giants will continue to battle it out for the lion’s share of your attention.

Online marketers will try to one up each other. You can bet that, as soon as +1 becomes widespread, companies will be trying hard to one up each other with more +1′s. Not only will it make them seem more popular and possibly spread their marketing message, but there’s the chance that it could even help their search positioning down the road, if Google (logically) decides that sites with more approvals should get higher rankings.

Quality content is more important than ever. Ultimately, what +1 does is place more control into the hands of searchers. And what sort of sites and pages will they reward? That’s right, the ones with the most helpful – and most interesting – content. Having high quality writing and video on your small business website has become more and more important in recent years. That trend is only going to continue.

Need a Calgary Web design and online marketing partner who can help you stay on top of the latest web trends? Contact eKzact today. We’ll show you what’s going on in the online world, and how your business can take advantage.

Google and the other major search engines have reported in the past few years that “image result” queries are on the rise. This isn’t all that surprising — lots of people check out pictures of nature, super-models, sports events, and more — and might seem like it has nothing to do with you and me.

The reality, though, is that people aren’t just looking up celebrities and postcard landscapes… they’re also searching for images of friends, colleagues, and vendors.

What does this have to do with you, or your online marketing? It’s simple, the bigger and better you get, the higher the odds are that someone is going to decide to try to put a face with your name and Google you for image results. Or, the more pictures there are of you online, the more likely it is that someone searching your company is going to come across one of them. In either case, think carefully about what they would find. Is it something that would help, or hurt, your professional image?

If you aren’t sure, then your first step should be to perform a similar search yourself. Many people do this and are surprised at what comes up. For one thing, there might be a lot of photos of another person with the same name but (whether obviously or not) isn’t you. And for another, you could come up with photos you haven’t seen in years, snapshots where you have been tagged on other people’s social media profiles, pictures from old jobs or news articles, and so on.

Regardless of what you find, there are two things you deftly should do: first, try to remove anything that might harm your long term professional prospects; and secondly, make sure there are at least a few places where people can find a nice, comforting, professional photograph of you. In fact, go ahead and spend a few dollars having one done if you need to — it’s a small investment with a potentially large payoff.

Most of us aren’t famous enough that we have tons of adoring fans searching out our photos online. That doesn’t mean, however, that we can afford not to clean up our image online.

Need common sense advice and uncommon Internet marketing results? Get in touch with the team at eKzact — we’re one of Calgary’s leading web design, online marketing, e-commerce, social media, and everything else you need to keep your business moving ahead on the web.

As Google continues to develop it’s “Local Business Centre” one of the new advents is the introduction of physical labels that include a barcode. These physical labels are being sent to business owners that have already verified ownership of their Local Business listing on Google maps.

The barcode, or QR Code that is on the label allows people with smart phones to simply scan the code with the phones camera. Litterally within a fraction of a second, you receive all of the business details from Google’s Local Business listing including any coupons or offers that the owner has posted.

Reviews are also returned. The good, the bad and the ugly are returned. In fact Google even suggests that there is no better time than the present to leave a review -

“Leave a review right after you leave the business. What’s a better time to write what you think, than when you’ve just visited?”

There are already several QR Code scanning apps on the App Store. I dropped a $1.99 and got one and scanned the code on this page… It works very quickly.

To learn more about being a “Favorite Place on Google” you can visit this page here

Cheers -

David