Google +1's and Google+ Local

[dsinger]

Hi fellow Mozers,

I manage 5 brands at the national level, each with their own Google+ profile and then under each brand, there are several hundred physical locations, each with their own Google+ Local page.  My question is, should we be encouraging visitors of each location's Google+ Local profile page to +1 the page?  Does it have an influence on local rankings and overall SERP results?

Our goal is to ultimately get our local websites to rank better than our less targeted brand sites and have our Google+ Local pages show in search results as much as possible.  Our local businesses convert to leads, where our brand sites are one step out from that and are used to feed into a "find a location" result that takes the visitor to the local site.

[RobertFisher]

Brad,

Questions around this seem to be prevalent lately so I am assuming more and more are realizing there may be value in the G+ piece. As to your question, First I will suggest you read this great post by Cyrus Shepard that certainly got some circulation. Pay attention to the Update at the end as it explains a bit re why it may be true.

Next, for your brands the first question is around the type of businesses they are. If they are a service area businesses you need to make sure you keep the brand pages (Google Plus) and the local unmerged. Read this from Mike Blumenthal. 

I do not know that driving the traffic from the local 'places' pages to the G+ will help you as much as getting reviews on the Places will or potentially, having content on G+ that drives traffic to the locations. By the sites having individual G+ buttons, those +1s will help that site/page IMO. (OK, over time, etc.)

Hope this at leasts adds a bit of information for you.

Best

Robert

[dsinger]

exactly what I was after.  thanks!

[vmialik]

Hi Brad,

According to the "predicted" http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors +1 Authority and +1 # counts is fairly low. That is mainly because for local ranking it is not thought to be a highly significant factor. This might change in the future in the comments Phil Rozek does say: "Pretty soon some of the “social signals” on Google Plus - like circles and +1s - will probably become significant."

For overall SERP results, Matt Cutts (spokeman, SEO celebrity, on behalf of Google) did say that +1's dont lead to higer rankings: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2290337/Matt-Cutts-Google-1s-Dont-Lead-to-Higher-Ranking

Hope this helps!