In reality, those profiles/accounts should be extensions of your ecommerce site. The logical linking structure (where everything funnels back to the ecommerce site) will usually signal to Google which listing is “the boss,” effectively ranking your ecommerce first, then pushing down your competition under the fold.

If that doesn’t happen naturally, you’re still in control. Since you can edit those top 5 listings, you can make some tweaks to float your ecommerce site to the top for better exposure. That top ranking becomes a lot more accessible.

I think the great benefit is that you’re using those listings to really advertise your brand in the search engine result pages, more than any paid search ad could do. You’ll be promoting your products, your values, your popularity, your customer service abilities, and anything else you let your social profiles speak for.

One not-so-hypothetical question to tip #3: “Use a variety of social networks to dominate the top positions for your keywords within universal search.”

Isn’t there a danger of allowing the strength of a social profile or account to overtake your brand’s high ranking? For instance, if I’m “Rob’s Shirt Co.” and I’m selling t-shirts on my site–I want people to go directly to my site to check out my goods. If my new Twitter or Facebook presence overtakes the top spot (over even just dilutes the results), am I hurting the potential for a sale?

These are the questions I’m seeing asked more frequently– especially now that we see real-time search results getting even more prominence.

Thanks!