I’ll admit it – it’s probably my biggest character fault. It’s not that I swear like a sailor or even that I occasionally skip a shower. No, it’s that…

I like to be RIGHT… No, I MUST be right. And not like “I like to win arguments and was told as a kid I should be a lawyer,” (although that is true too) but to the extent that I intensely weight every single possible option of everything – decisions, opinions, purchases, anything where that’s a choice to be made – looking for the “right” answer.

I infuriate my friends and family, as the decisions I make and actions I take have been so meticulously thought out that should they ever bother to question my decisions, actions, opinions (as people do sometimes, however gently), I have an encyclopedic response to each and every possibility they could throw at me. I win. I am right. Because I thought it all out beforehand to a degree that most find excruciating. Ask my husband.

So given this character fault, it’s a wonder that I made a prediction (because predictions could be… gasp… wrong!) in February that is starting (a little late, IMO) to get traction and airplay across the internet marketing and SEO space.

I made that prediction because I was certain of it and because it’s CENTRAL to your ability to succeed in this business going forward. It has come to pass. Allow me a moment to toot my horn.

(Beep – Thanks!)

So here’s the first time (February 2011) that I risked being right and talked publicly about the massive shift in SEO that you’re just starting to see other folks talk about:

If you missed this video the first time around, please go have a watch. It’s 8 minutes and it’ll change your internet marketing and SEO perspective.

And don’t get me wrong… I’m no social media fairy spreading “LML!” dust everywhere I go. That shit makes me want to puke. So does the term “joining the conversation” – although I’ll admit to using that one, probably as recent as last week (today is Monday, for the record) for want of a better phrase.  Point being, I didn’t make that video and I’m not writing this blog post because I have a social media product to sell you and thusly am trying to get you to see the importance of social media. I don’t sell social media products.

Here’s the developments since February’s video:

In May, Google admitted that “Author Authority” or “Author Rank” are ranking factors.

In June, Google’s Eric Schmidt went over the regrets they had in not entering the social space sooner.

In July, you saw that search results were now including author’s profile pictures right in the SERP’s, making author rank even more obvious.

Here’s what those thumbnails looks like:

This August, I spotted a nice write-up from Neil Patel on how search is affected by social, as well as a piece on 7 trends in SEO that includes social as a factor that’s working now. There’s been several others. Looks like this concept is finally going mainstream.

Plus, Google announced new “Multi Channel” reports available in Analytics which will making tracking the origin of your new customers and subscribers more effective and accurate – including those who come to your properties via social.

Now that we know that social signals matter in search ranking (the only way to get genuine positive social signals is to create content that matters and that people care about enough to share), and we know that Google is actively pursuing figuring out if YOU are an authority in your niche and ranking your content accordingly,  what do you think September will bring?