SEO Tips for Twitter

Twitter, the popular microblogging website has received immense attention and traffic over the time. And a significant percentage of websites referring traffic to Twitter come from the search engines. This goes on to prove the intricate relationship between Twitter and the search engines.

Ranking Factors on Twitter

The increased popularity of Twitter is not without reason. Twitter provides an opportunity for businesses to engage with their target audiences and attract more visitors to their websites. This works just like the regular search engine optimization processes. This is why it is important to understand the various parameters and use them to their advantage.

Title & URL
The Title and the URL are two prime ranking factors that determine the placement of your link within the search engine results' page. Generally search engine results display the full name of the company/business/website along with its Twitter username. This is where the optimization opportunity begins.

Twitter Name & Username
Make sure the full name relates to your business and brand name. It is advisable to use the same name for the Twitter full name as well as the username. This will ensure the much needed consistency and brand alignment. Remember, keep your username short because it would be the fixed URL through which users would access your Twitter page.

About Me Paragraph
The small 'About Me' paragraph that describes you and your Twitter account is yet another important factor that governs the click-through rate. This section is visible in the bio of your profile page. The information in the bio is used as the Meta Description for your profile page. Moreover, this is among the first part of the page that users will be able to see before they arrive on your profile page from the search engines. So, make sure you provide a crisp introduction about your company and business telling people who you are and what your Twitter account is all about. Remember, you can either use the Twitter account for personal and professional updates or dedicate it exclusively for business updates. Whatever be the case, make it clear in the intro so that users know what to expect of the account.

Optimizing your Tweets

Your Twitter account is all about the Tweets that it contains i.e. content or links that you post. Now, you need to write a Tweet very effectively in order for it to have the desired search engine values. First and foremost, all the content that you post should be relevant and useful, and should appeal to your target audiences otherwise no one would care to read. Remember, Twitter does not pass any PageRank.

For users to find your Tweets, it is important to optimize you titles efficiently at the same time not ruining the quality of the Tweet. The idea if is to make strategic use of keywords while still drafting sensible Tweets. Just like your bio works as meta descriptions, your actual tweet will also be used as one when your tweets are indexed.

Also, make your Tweets small enough for users to be able to re-tweet the message easily. The problem with long tweets is that they can exceed the 140 character limit which further results in the loss of the original tweet when people re-tweet them. Thus, make your tweets about 125-130 characters long – short and crisp!

Kabir Bedi works as a senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a reputed web design company based in India, that specializes in providing a full range of web design services, website maintenance services and search engine optimization services. He has over 10 years of experience in the web industry.