Search engines like Google and Bing look at Twitter when evaluating search criteria in order to return relevant data to users. Optimizing your use of Twitter can land you high in those rankings and improve your traffic if you know how to work the system. Social media is too important a platform to be ignored so start putting it to work for you by following these tips.
Because Twitter s such a large network, one of the most popular available today, it can be a tremendous part of your SEO activities. In order for this to work, your posts or tweets must be on topic and relevant. Just doing this alone helps establish your brand and enhance your reputation. Vague tweets have no SEO value at all so avoid them whenever possible.
Make sure your username or brand name reflects your company, its products or its services. This name will be used every time your posts are shared or retweeted, so it needs to be meaningful. The idea is to get lots of retweets. The more you get, the higher our significance is.
When you develop your profile and bio, make sure to include the link to you website. You will want to use a link shortener if your URL is long in order to save precious space. Make sure the link you choose points to a page that will be meaningful to visitors. They shouldn’t have to search to find what they are looking for.
Posting links on Twitter does build your links and therefore improves your ranking with search engines. You can optimize this by spacing out posts with your links at intervals and using different keywords to gain the most response.
Twitter uses the world of hash tag to help categorize information. It helps users find posts that are relevant to them. A hash tag is the “#” symbol followed by a word such as #SEO or #developer. They can also be used to track trending information on Twitter. Use them cautiously and sparingly. A tweet with too many hash tags is uncomfortable to read. Instead, make several posts and use different hash tags.
Another feature of Twitter you can use to your advantage is “mentions.” To mention a specific user or retweet one of their posts, you use the “@” symbol followed by their username, for example @JohnDoe. A mention is as good as a retweet and can be used to answer questions or reply to other tweets. The more mentions you use, the better it is as it boosts your relevance.
Space your tweets out throughout the day. Even if it is easier to post them all at once for you, it can irritate your followers and clog their streams. Posting at intervals also works better because you are apt to catch different people at different times of the day. You can use special apps that let you schedule posts so you don’t have to keep coming back to Twitter all day long to post.