With the Google + members about to pass 18 million, the social media platform is gaining enough momentum that companies need to consider how to factor it into their operations sooner rather than later. This is true especially for small businesses, which may find that the platform can serve as a rudimentary stand in for more sophisticated online marketing tools. However, what Google + may give such companies with its free tool set - more time, more resources freed up - it could easily take away by realigning the rules of search.

New Marketing Tools

Without a doubt, Google + will open new marketing opportunities to small businesses, writes Benchmark Email, nothing that with Circles+ you can separate your clients and colleagues and even subdivide them into different categories. "In my case, I divide my groups into the different industries I market to and then target what content, updates and messages get sent where," Shireen Qudosi writes. "This way I’m also not offending others by wasting their time with updates that have no relevance to our relationship and interests."

Google+ also delivers superior functionality with Hangouts. For the SMB, "it's smart marketing that gets you instant access to your group of people and in turn allows them to access you with greater convenience," according to Qudosi. "Leverage this feature to build better relationships, be available virtually to any of your clients at a moment’s notice and inspire more confidence in yourself as a business owner."

But You Will Have to Reinvest in Search?

For small businesses that rely heavily on search, though, the picture gets muddier. The +1 button can be used by companies to signal approval of, say, a customer's post, writes Naveen Hariprasad at insideARM, a Forbes.com blog. That certainly will advance customer relations and it will also serve as another engagement tactic.

However, Hariprasad goes on, with Google using the +1 button "as a way to endorse a post by a contact, the overall vision for +1 is revealed to be a bit grander. Google envisions +1 as the tool that ties together all user-endorsed content across the web. Whether you +1 something in search results or a photo that your friend took of his dog and uploaded to Google+, you’re contributing to your personal version of Google’s search algorithm, meaning that content may eventually be served to you differently based on your +1 behaviors."

The end problem for SEO management, he speculates, is that it create a personalized set of results that varies wildly for every user.