Twitter SEO – How to Optimize Your Website For Twitter Search

A couple days ago I wrote about the 6 reasons why Twitter is the future of search. With social media and search fusing together, what does this mean for SEO? In other words, how do you optimize a site to perform well on a social “search engine” like Twitter?

In this article, my goal is to describe to you how the SEO game is changing and how you can most effectively take advantage of Twitter and its social conversation search features to increase your traffic and build your brand.

But before we dive into the tips, take a quick look at this article by Patrick Altoft entitled If Google did Twitter search. It does a great job of explaining how Twitter can improve its search algorithm and mimic the factors used by Google to determine the relevancy and authority of a page. Twitter has a tough road ahead, but with the right people and technology it definitely has the potential to be the “next big thing” and gain enough market share for certain social queries to put a dent in Google’s search business.

So SEO’s, how do you prepare for the social search revolution and optimize for Twitter? Below are some of the best things you can do now.

6 Tips to Optimize for Twitter Search

1. Keyword research is still important
As long as search engine optimization exists, keyword research will always be important. In optimizing anything for search online, understanding the language of your potential customers and audience is crucial. It will help you not only to improve your search traffic but also to tweak your marketing message and better relate to the people you are selling to.

That being said, tweeps (people on Twitter) are no different than searchers on Google. They use the language that they’re used to, both in their Twitter conversations and in search queries. Use tools like the Google Keyword Tool and Keyword Discovery to better understand the most common keywords and incorporate them into your own tweets and page copy.

The great thing about Twitter is that you can easily use it as a market research tool to better understand the people you’re targeting. Use the wealth of knowledge existing on the site to look into popular keywords and market needs. Then work to fulfill those needs, both on Twitter and on your own sites (i.e. look at the questions people in your target market are asking on Twitter).

2. Brand yourself and your Twitter profile
Branding is extremely important, in SEO and in social media. If you’re using Twitter as a business tool to reach out to more potential customers and increase your traffic, then you absolutely need to have a strong brand presence. Rather than using the same Twitter account to target various audiences, set up multiple identities and use them to cater to specific audiences. For example, don’t use the same account to tweet about both SEO and gardening. It just doesn’t work. Brand yourself and stand for something. Twitter search will eventually give more weight in the search results to Twitter users who talk mainly about the specific niche being searched for.

Being focused will also help you to stay consistent with your marketing message and get the attention of your target audience. This in turn will increase the chances of people following you and paying more attention to what you have to offer (more on this in the next section) – which means you get better rankings in Twitter search.

It also helps to customize your Twitter profile to be consistent with your brand image. Use a catchy background with all of your contact information and write a descriptive bio that includes your name, location, and website. For examples, check out the list top Twitter users.

3. Build relationships and get more followers
Google uses factors such as domain age and the quantity and quality of inbound links to determine the authority of a site. In the same way, Twitter will probably do something similar and give more trust to users who have been using the service longer and have more followers. Tweets of trusted users will likely receive a boost in the Twitter search results.

So what does that mean for you, a Twitter SEO? You need to build relationships with other people in your industry and build your Twitter audience by collecting more followers. Make connections with other people, online and off, through whatever channels you have access to (e.g. other social media sites, blogs, conferences, etc). SEO is quickly becoming more and more social and it’s not necessarily what you know anymore – it’s who you know. The people who are most-connected will rise to the top and get the majority of the attention.

If you want to build your Twitter audience fast you can start some sort of contest or promotion (like John Chow, Shoemoney, and even Namecheap). Just be aware that whenever you run these types of campaigns your followers won’t be very engaged with you because of you. A lot of them want the benefits and prizes but don’t care about you or what you have to say, at least in the beginning. The best way to do it is organically through real connections but promotions do give a good jolt to your numbers.

4. Add to the conversation and be engaging
As you may know, Twitter is a giant online conversation where millions of users exchange ideas and information. Since Twitter search pulls information from this enormous pool, it’s important that you add relevant content and links where appropriate using the keyword research insights you learned in step one. Sure, you only get 140 characters of space but that doesn’t mean you can’t pack a punch and gain attention. Spark up debate and conversation in your niche, answer questions, and add relevant content and advice whenever possible. Be an expert and an authority and engage with anyone and everyone. It will pay off.

5. Start viral marketing campaigns
Whereas inbound links represent “votes” for a page in Google Search, Twitter is likely to incorporate re-tweets (another Twitter user broadcasting your message to their own audience) into their algorithm to better understand the popularity of content. As a Twitter SEO, this means that you need to maximize the number of re-tweets of your content. Viral marketing becomes extremely important and in order to do well in Twitter search you need to have people talking about you and sharing your stuff on a regular basis.

Write interesting tweets and link to exceptional related articles to share with your audience. It might be a good idea to use other social sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon to find good articles you can easily share. Build up your profile and get re-tweets to your content, especially when you’re linking to your own site.

6. Add links and multimedia where appropriate & use Twitter as a marketing channel
A Twitter search returns tweets, so you may be asking what benefit you get from ranking highly with a 140 character message. The answer to that question is that by getting exposure in Twitter you add a big marketing channel to drive traffic back to your own site and increase conversions. You not only drive traffic to your site through links but you also establish your brand and develop relationships with potential customers – which means a big boost in your bottom line.

Twitter SEO is a lot like email marketing. Your first priority is to develop a solid relationship with
your followers by offering interesting and useful content. Once you have that in place you can add your own links and promotional marketing to drive sales.

What are you doing now to prepare for the social shift in search engines like Twitter? Anything else you can come up with to optimize your sites and brands in Twitter?  Leave a comment below and let us know!  And oh yeah, be sure to follow me on Twitter @gyutae. 

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