By Sara Collins – 

Search engines have started taking factors like retweets into account when determining your organic search ranking, so if you haven’t already begun to incorporate Twitter into your SEO strategy, now is the time to do so.

If you have an active Twitter profile, you’re already off to a great start. However, if you have yet to create one, stop stalling and get tweeting already! Not only does Twitter provide you with a unique opportunity to engage with your customers, it also boosts your business’s profile and makes you appear more credible.

Use the following tips to work Twitter into your SEO strategy and boost your rankings:

Optimize Your Tweets

You already spend a great deal of time choosing the right SEO keywords for your website copy, so why not incorporate them into your Twitter content as well? Work keywords into your tweets so people can find them easily in searches. You can even #hashtag any keywords and phrases that make sense to do so, further expanding your reach.

Get Trendy

Use tools like TrendSpottr to keep track of topics currently trending on Twitter. If a hot trend is somehow relevant your business, jump on it and add a few tweets of your own to the mix. This is a great way to improve visibility and reach your target audience.

Make Tweeting Effortless

When you incorporate Twitter into the mix on your website, people are much more inclined to use it, because you’ve made it simple for them to do so. Your homepage should contain a Twitter badge that readers can easily find, with of course a direct link to your profile on the site. You can even make it really easy for people to follow you by placing a “follow” button around the Twitter badge on your website. It doesn’t stop there. Make it simple for readers to share content on your company blog and email newsletters by adding sharing buttons to each article. This allows them to tweet the content to their followers instantly, while they’re thinking about it. No matter how great your content is, people are much less likely to tweet links if they have to go to Twitter themselves and write their own post.

Create Twitter-Friendly Messaging

While it can be tempting to cut corners and use the same social posts for both Facebook and Twitter, don’t do it. Each site has its own unique style and messaging needs to be created to match that. You also want your tweets to be original, so they’ll rank higher, as posting something that’s already been said isn’t going to improve your SEO ranking. The earlier you hop on a concept and the more frequently you promote it, the more likely it is that you’ll develop impressive rankings for it. It’s okay to market the same idea multiple times, you just have to find different ways to relay your message.

Tweet Often

There’s no point in having a Twitter account if you’re not going to use it. It’s important to post tweets regularly to stay connected with your followers and to let search engines like Google know that you’re doing your part to add value to conversations relevant to your brand. Search engines like it when you’re an active part of the Twittersphere.

Welcome Guest Bloggers

Not only can guest bloggers add unique content to your blog, they can also bring boost your Twitter strategy. When a guest blogger writes a post on your blog, promote it on Twitter to gain credible followers, retweets, and clicks which are all very helpful to enhance search engine credibility. Of course, don’t forget to include your guest’s twitter handle in your tweets.

Choose Followers Wisely

Once upon a time it was believed that more was always better when it came to the number of followers you have. People went to great lengths to gain followers, including purchasing them, to get their numbers up. Then of course search engines got wise to this practice and didn’t care for it too much. It’s believed they take into account both who you’re following and who is following you to determine the level of influence you have in your particular area of knowledge. This is likely to become even more of an issue in the future, as Google develops more detailed algorithms.

If you’re already an active Twitter user, take a good look at your current practices and use these ideas to fit them into your SEO strategy. For those of you who haven’t yet created a Twitter account for your organization, use these tips as a best practices guideline when setting up your account and getting started (because you need to do so is right now).

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