Last week, Google announced (to MUCH fanfare online, but little fanfare offline) that they will be using more social search in their search engine ratings. What this means is you will see, if your friends and/or you are using Google+ (or other Google products) and you are using Google to search that you’ll see more personalized results from people in your network. Google calls it “Search Plus Your World” and it’s pretty interesting.

Rather than bore you with all the details, here’s a 70 second video from Google explaining the change a bit more.

Can’t see the video above? Click here to watch Google Search Plus Your World on YouTube

While Twitter and Google have gone back and forth on this (Twitter saying this is bad, and Google saying it’s all Twitter’s fault, read about it here), Jon Mitchell over at Read Write Web has written the best explanation of how Google is doing what it’s doing – and how you might incorporate it into your website too.

My thoughts on this are simple: Google is the biggest site for search. If you want to rank well on their site, you need to leverage their tools in the right way to boost your rankings. I’m not passing judgement – just sharing a statement of what I believe to be true.

How can you leverage Google’s tools in the right way?

Get a Google profile – You need to start by showing people how YOU want to be found. As a small business owner, stand up and be counted. Set up a complete profile at http://profiles.google.com

Put your business on the (Google) map – Add your business to Google Places listing sooner than later. Add as much information as you know. Don’t worry – you can edit it later.

Upload some photos of your business and your neighborhood on Picasa – Small businesses are seldom are so private you don’t want to share pictures of your building and your neighborhood. Take a few snaps with your smart phone or digital camera, and upload them to Picasa.

Read more about the changes in Google’s own words at Search, plus Your World.

YOUR TURN: Are you doing anything differently because of these changes? If so, what is YOUR best way to take advantage of Google’s recent changes? What help do you need to take best advantage of these changes?

If you’re online more than a little, it’s important to understand who is talking about you, and what they are saying. It’s also important to understand that whatever YOU say online will be there to infinity and beyond (or at least as long as Google has a cache).

And to dispel a myth, even if you’re not a celebrity, it’s important to know WHO is talking about you, just in case they say something nice, so you can thank them, or in case they say something bad, so you can do damage control.

So how do you find out who is talking about you, linking to you, and mentioning you on their website?

Google Alerts – Sign up for real-time alerts (via RSS or e-mail) anytime anyone mentions your name (I do last name but I am unique) or your website (use the WWW and without) or your personal mantra. It helps you find cool things like this mention of me on the Financial Times website.

Twitter Search – This is helpful for seeing who mentions you username or topics you’re interested in. I put in the search and subscribe via RSS but you can just keep coming back to it if you like.

BackTweets – This tool translates all the short URLs to your URL and helps you understand who shared your links in their Tweets. I like that you can get these via e-mail at the end of each day, so I can see who might be talking about my writing.

Do you have a favorite way to find out who is talking about you and your work?

Buy a copy of this fun onesy here.