You must login or register!
Inbound.org uses Twitter to register and create accounts. Your Twitter handle will also be your username here on Inbound and registration/login will enable you to submit content, post comments and create/edit your Inbound profile. Use the button below to verify your Twitter account.
Login or Register
This post conflates a few things and gets a few things outright wrong. First of all, there is no AuthorRank yet. At least, Google continues to deny that it is active in any significant way, and we see no verifiable evidence that it is a factor so far. The post leaves the impression that it is. More importantly, the present very limited use of AdWords Express would not work in the way the author envisions. First, it can only be used to promote Pages, and Pages can't have Authorship (and thus AuthorRank). Second, The AdwordsExpress system isn a very low grade Adwords. There is almost no control over it by the ad buyer. You give Google a budget and a link to your site, and Google creates ads and decides where and to whom they will show. There are no targeting options, so you can't "target it at influencers."
What is much more likely, and I fully expect this to happen, is that smart brands will hire (either on-staff positions or freelance pay) influential Google Authors who have relevance to their topic to write for their site. That would be a much more effective strategy, and would have more direct AuthorRank "juice" for the brand, then just trying to get those Authors to circle their Page via ads.
Thanks for your feedback Mark, your comments are right, my post was more a quick rant on the new Google Adwords express to build your G+pages with more followers. My intention was to write a forward looking and thought provoking rant, and I would love to hear feedback how any organization hypothetically could inflate their G+ page authority through these ads to get a leg up in the SERP's.
Thanks Dennis. Not meaning to knock your article or your right to think out loud! I just don't think Adwords Express and building up page circlers through it is the most scalable way to build what Mike Arnesen has dubbed "BrandRank." I don't even think it will be effective. In extensive testing I've done comparing why some G+ profiles easily outrank others for the same reshares on Google+ in Google search, follower count has a very low correlation to ranking authority. I'm not saying it counts for nothing; just that it probably won't count for enough to be cost effective to spend ad money on. Unlike Facebook (who have reinflated the value of a Like with Graph Search), Google seems to understand that merely following or +1ing a page is easy and has little value as an authority signal. I maintain that the best way to build BrandRank will be to get lots of high-authority authors publishing on your site that's linked with rel=publisher to a G+ brand page.