How To Use Twitter for SEO

It's official. Google and Bing include social signals - namely, links that get tweeted on Twitter - when determining rankings in their search results. This was confirmed by Danny Sullivan in his December 1, 2010 post on Search Engine Land, and it was likely a factor for a while before that.

To put this new factor in perspective, Google uses hundreds of signals to determine how it should rank a website. These include inbound links to the site, the title tag of a web page, and site speed.

Getting people to link to your site is really all about having great content that people want to share, whether on their blogs or websites, or on Twitter. As Google and other search engines increasingly take note of social activity and the links shared on sites like Twitter, having a good social media presence will become increasingly important for ranking well in search results.

Many companies have been employing social media as a part of their marketing strategy, and for good reason. Now that social activity has so much impact on search engine optimization (SEO), companies that take SEO seriously know they must use social media as part of their strategy for getting onto the first page of search results.

Note for those who are not familiar with Twitter: "tweets" are the 140-character (or less) messages that people post on Twitter. Twitter offers help for new users on its site.

How Can I Use Twitter To Help My SEO?

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The ways of search engines are mysterious, and people are always trying to figure out which specific tactics will help more than others. But just as we know that other ranking factors are considered in light of giving searchers the best information for their queries, you can bet that search engines will elevate the best content on the social networks - especially the content that's shared by real people who have influence.

Based on case studies, the more quantity and quality of tweets that link to your website, the more of a lift you can expect to see in your search engine rankings for the linked-to page or pages.

#1 Mind the Text

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When you tweet a link, it's likely that search engines use the text you enter to determine what your link is about. It's very similar to the way that search engines regard anchor text on web pages - the text on which a link is built tells the engines what the linked page is about. This in turn can help the linked page rank better for the keywords contained in the anchor text.

#2 Who Says?

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Who links to you on Twitter matters. You probably know already that it's more beneficial if influential tweeple - "people" in Twitter-speak - tweet about you, or retweet your tweets, because they will reach a wider audience. The same is true for the SEO value of Twitter. Google and Bing both say they look at the author's authority or quality when evaluating links that appear in tweets.

The search engines are mum on how they determine author quality, but here are some indicators of authority that SEO experts think search engines consider:

• Presence of an avatar or portrait. Spam accounts often don't have one.
• Has the account been verified? Did the person confirm their email address? (People can't see this, but Twitter has this information, and the search engines may be able to get it.)
• More followers.
• Quality followers. (This means people who follow someone for a good reason - NOT purchased followers!)
• Ratio of following to followers.
• It may be better if the URL in someone's profile doesn't match domain they're tweeting about, because then it's certain the person isn't engaging in self-promotion.
• Twitter handles that don't have numbers. (Many spam accounts on Twitter have user names like Name8765.)
• A bio with complete information.
• Engagement. (Accounts that never reply to other people certainly seem spam-y to me.)
• Included in lists created by quality tweeple.
• The PageRank of a Twitter profile

Think of it this way, who would you rather have link to your website?

The idea of author quality is much like PageRank for web pages. If a web page has 100 links, each from a different page with a PageRank of 0, they probably provide the same SEO value as a single link from a web page with a high PageRank. A link tweeted by a respected and well-followed person on Twitter will be worth more - both for your reputation and your SEO - than 100 tweets from spam-y bot accounts.

Something to keep in mind is that using bots or cheap labor to create a ton of Twitter accounts and tweet links to your site would be nothing but a spam-y waste of time and money. You won't get any SEO value, and you could be identified as a cause of Twitter spam.

If you notice a spam-y Twitter account, click "report [username] for spam". 

What Can I Do To Encourage Tweets and Links?

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1. This should be pretty obvious - I hope. Create great content that people will want to share.
2. Make it easy for people to tweet and share your content. Consider including a Twitter button, a call to action, or some simple way for people to share a link to your website.
3. Engage with your followers and attract new, quality ones. See our Twitter Marketing 101 article for guidance.
4. Keep tabs on who has mentioned or linked to you and thank them. You can also ask them to link to the newest thing you've created.

What Do We Know About Twitter and SEO?

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Case Studies

The people at one website noticed the site suddenly ranked on the first page for a particular keyword right after the site was linked to by a prominent Twitter account - one with more than 350,000 followers - and that tweet was retweeted more than 100 times.

In a recent experiment, people were asked to link to one page from their website, or tweet a link to another page. The results so far? The page that was linked in 522 tweets outranked the page that was linked 646 times across 36 different websites. It showed up as the first result for a specific keyword search.

Points of Order

• Search engines take note of public Twitter accounts only. If you see the lock symbol, and you have to request to follow someone, their tweets won't help anyone's SEO.
• Websites still matter. You must continue to build good backlinks to your website to guide more people to your site and rank well in search. Links from Twitter are a new tool to help your SEO, but they can only do so much.
• Links from Twitter are still NoFollow. That's because Twitter can't possibly monitor them all, and judge which ones should be followed - that is, confer some link juice. However, when search engines look at the entire stream of public tweets to evaluate what's being discussed, there are norel=nofollow tags present on those links. Search expert Danny Sullivan believes that means links in Twitter do carry some weight, and help the links rank.
• Google and Bing look at links on Facebook, but they can only do so in profiles that have their status updates set as public. Most people have their Facebook accounts set to be private (the opposite is true of Twitter), so search engines see mostly just the information that's on public business pages.

What We Don't Know

• How long will the SEO boost from Twitter links last? Most SEO experts believe the boost in rankings from a tweeted link diminishes over time. That's because tweets are constantly replaced with new tweets, unlike a web page. So tweeted links don't have the persistent presence of a link on a web page.
• If you're going to get X amount of tweets linking to a given page, is it better if they're retweets of the same content, or uniquely written tweets? Not enough is known about this yet, but people can certainly get tired of looking at the same tweet over and over again in Twitter feed. That's not going to help you get more clicks.

I expect we'll know more about Twitter for SEO as more information is gained from experiments and studies.

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Taking note of social activity makes SEO and search engine algorithms more complicated than before, and hopefully better equipped to produce search results that really matter to people.

For website owners, it makes sense to think about earning links in the social networks, as well as on websites and blogs. Don't leave the benefits of sharing on the social Web on the table.

Want to know how many traditional backlinks your website has, or how your site looks to search engines? Check the Website Visibility Report here on AboutUs.org.

This article was contributed by Kristina Weis of AboutUs.org (visit).
Kristina is a community manager for AboutUs.org who talks with a lot of website owners who are trying to promote their business online. Have a question? Contact me.
 @KristinaWeis

Read more about growing your business on the web. Find out about new articles on Facebook, Twitter or viaRSS.

Marketing Planning Workshop

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Marketing Planning Workshop

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Maxwell Connect: 7 Things You Can Do to Become More Interesting

06.18.10

Maxwell Connect: 7 Things You Can Do to Become More Interesting

If you want friends, show yourself friendly. If you want to connect with others, become the kind of person others want to connect with. Be the kind of communicator that you would like to hear. “Connectors,” says John Maxwell, “create an experience everyone enjoys.”

A big part of being an interesting person, is being interested in other people; making them feel interesting. You’ll be amazed how interesting you become to them.

In Everyone Communicates, Few Connect, Maxwell recommends seven things to make yourself more interesting. They were presented in the context of speaking to audiences, but as you will see, they have application to one-on-one communication as well.

1. Take Responsibility for Your Listeners. It is our responsibility to make our communication enjoyable. It is our job to add value to others. Ask “What can I do to involve others and draw them into the conversation?” He reminds us, “Creating positive, memorable experiences does more to connect families than just about anything else.”
2. Communicate In Their World. “If you want to get your message across, you have to learn how to communicate in someone else’s world…. Too often speakers are unwilling or unable to get out of their own world and say things from the perspective of their listeners.” You have to learn to connect what you want to say to what others’ needs are. “People don’t remember what we think is important; they remember what they think is important.”
3. Capture People’s Attention from the Start. People make quick judgments about us all the time. As Sonya Hamlin suggests in How to Talk So People Listen, “from the moment when others first meet us, they are consciously or unconsciously evaluating us and deciding whether to keep listening or simply dismiss us. She says, If we’re not captured by something in those first moments, it’s ‘Excuse me, I see a friend,’ and off they go.” If it’s all about us and our opinion, it’s more likely that they’ll look for the friend.
4. Activate Your Audience. Communicate energy and passion.
5. Say It So It Sticks. “If you want people to remember what you say, you need to say the right thing at the right moment in the right way.” Timing is important. Find common ground and say things in an interesting way. Pause. “Connecting with people is a two-way street. It is a dialogue, not a monologue.”
6. Be Visual. Paint vivid pictures in people’s minds. “Anything that can help people visually helps them to connect.”
7. Tell Stories. “Perhaps the most effective way to capture people’s interest and make the experience enjoyable when you talk, is to include stories….We use stories to make sense of our experience. And when we share them, we help people understand us, themselves, and their world.”

"There's different ways that you can measure people's greatness. And the way I like to measure greatness is: How many people do you affect? In your time on earth, how many people can you affect? How many people can you make want to be better? Or how many people can you inspire to want to do what you do?"

—Will Smith, Vanity Fair, July 1999

John Maxwell asks, “In the end, what good is our communication if its impact ends the moment we stop speaking?”

37 Startup Insights

Earlier this year, I had a chance to attend SxSW. One of the highlights of my trip was a startup dinner which included Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of 37signals. At the time, they had just come out with their new book "Rework". I had downloaded a copy to my Kindle, but hadn't had a chance to read it yet. Now I have. Twice. It's a great book. Lots of practical advice for entrepreneurs. I highly recommend it. My second time through, I decided to pull out some of my favorite parts.

You're encouraged to share your favorite insight by using the convenient "tweet" links next to each one.

37 "Signals" From 37 Signals

1) Great businesses have a point of view, not just a product or service. [tweet]
2) Writing a plan makes you feel in control of things you don’t actually control. [tweet]
3) You have the most information when you’re doing something, not before you've done it. [tweet]
4) Stuff that was impossible just a few years ago is simple today. [tweet]
5) Failure is not a prerequisite for success. [tweet]
6) Don’t make assumptions about how big you should be ahead of time. [tweet]
7) Don’t sit around and wait for someone else to make the change you want to see. [tweet]
8) When you build what you need, you can assess quality directly instead of by proxy. [tweet]
9) Solving your own problem lets you fall in love with what you’re making. [tweet]
10) What you do matters, not what you think or say or plan. [tweet]
11) When you want something bad enough, you make the time. [tweet]
12) The perfect time to start something never arrives. [tweet]
13) Start a business, not a startup. [tweet]
14) You need a committment strategy, not an exit strategy. [tweet]
15) Huge organizations talk instead of act, and meet instead of do. [tweet]
16) Build half a product, not a half-assed product. [tweet]
17) Getting to greatness starts by cutting out stuff that’s merely good. [tweet]
18) The real world isn’t a place, it's an excuse. It's a justification for not trying. [tweet]
19) The big picture is all you whould be worrying about in the beginning. Ignore the details. [tweet]
20) Decide. You’re as likely to make a great call today as you are tomorrow. [tweet]
21) The longer it takes to develop, the less likely it is to launch. [tweet]
22) It’s the stuff you leave out that matters. [tweet]
23) Focus on substance, not fashion. Focus on what won't change. [tweet]
24) When good enough gets the job done, go for it. [tweet]
25) When you make tiny decisions, you can't make big mistakes. [tweet]
26) Pour yourself into your product. [tweet]
27) You rarely regret saying no but you often regret saying yes. [tweet]
28) Better your customers grow out of your product, than never grow into them. [tweet]
29) You can’t paint over a bad experience with good marketing. [tweet]
30) All companies have customers. Fortunate companies have audiences too. [tweet]
31) Instead of out-spending your competitors, out-teach them. [tweet]
32) Let customers look behind the curtain. [tweet]
33) Leave the poetry in what you make, there is beauty in imperfection. [tweet]
34) Marketing is not a department, it's the sum total of everything you do. [tweet]
35) Don’t hire for pleasure; hire to kill pain. [tweet]
36) Don’t make up problems you don’t have yet. [tweet]
37) A business without a path to profit is a hobby. [tweet]
What are your favorite insights from Rework?

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Looking for other startup fanatics? Request access to the OnStartups LinkedIn Group. 130,000+ members and growing daily.
Oh, and by the way, you should follow me on twitter: @dharmesh.

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10 Ways to Enrich Your Company’s Facebook Page

While Facebook is primarily known as a way to stay connected with friends and play games, it can also be used as an effective business tool for companies. With a variety of features and applications, Facebook allows companies to directly interact with their target audience to increase brand awareness, conduct research and promote a product or service.

However, the simple act of creating a Facebook Page for your company will not generate results. It is important for company pages to be appealing and engaging.

Affect Strategies has outlined 10 ways that companies can enhance their company’s Facebook page.

1. Populate your company page with a constant flow of industry news as well as news from the company.

2. Upload videos and photos of your company’s products, people and activities.

3. Create invites and post information for events that the company is organizing or participating in, such as webinars, conferences, tradeshows or speaking engagements.

4. Join network and industry groups related to your company’s business.

5. Refrain from engaging in games/applications that are not related to your company, as they will clutter your page and distract your audience.

6. Sync your Facebook updates with other social media, such as Twitter, LinkedIn or a company blog.

7. Consider conducting a contest or giveaway that only friends/fans can enter to win – encouraging them to invite friends or spread the word about your Facebook presence.

8. Use the Notes application as a blogging tool, which can be connected to an existing blog or updated independently.

9. Create a Discussion Board to engage your friends/fans in conversations about topics relate d to your company.

10. Develop Facebook Ads that are targeted specifically at your ideal customer/client profile. A small investment can boost interest in your Facebook presence and encourage participation.

Facebook Fast Facts
o There are more than 450 million active Facebookusers
o Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
o 70% of Facebook users are outside of the U.S.

Source: Facebook

Even Non-Beer Drinkers Should Take A Swig

Even Non-Beer Drinkers Should Take A Swig


Ever wonder who thinks up some of the domain names out there…what are they thinking…or is it what they’re drinking?

Bill Fisher loved beer, so way back in the early nineties he bought the domain name beer.com. It wasn’t intended for business, just pictures of beer guts and jokes. In fact, he so loved his brew that he also bought the domain names for his two favorite beers, Budweiser and Guinness. Eventually the internet began to boom and, evidently, Bill’s pics and jokes amused the folks at Budweiser and Guinness…well, sort-of. Fisher handed over the domain names so as not to go to court for trademark infringement, though he did end up with a stash of free beer and two free tickets to Ireland. It was the simple premise of beer.com, however, that changed his life forever.

“Whoever has the clearest, simplest address, the root name, they’ve got credibility,” says Mike Zapolin, the author of Internet Warrior, and former VP at Bear Stearns & Co. “There’s this amazing opportunity to buy the name of a category from a technical person or hobbyist, put some money in it, and you might be toe to toe with a Fortune 500 company in months.”

Mike, now nicknamed “Zappy”, bought beer.com from Bill and brewed new content. This time, InBev came calling…he sold the “business” for $7M. Zappy encourages tapping the barrel of internet identification, citing that 70% of all media is consumed online. The opportunity, he says, is in advertising. Of all the internet content, only 7-8% is advertising and it’s predicted to go to 10% by the end of 2011. To put this in context, a single percentage point increase represents an additional $7B spent. And, like all successful advertising, it’s the location that ultimately determines success.

So where do you start when it comes to building an online presence? John Battelle, CEO and Chairman of Federated Media says you still need the fundamentals: you need a solid brand. You need a great product or service, strong messaging and a well focused target audience. Do you know what you stand for, what you’re selling and who you are selling to? He encourages creating a fundamental foundation before launching into cyberspace, but when you are clear with who you are and what you’re selling, there are 3 quick things you can do to cut through the clutter:

1. Engage in behavior that already exists. Google went after search; pre-existing products/services were phone books and libraries. Facebook went after connectivity; pre-existing methods were the phone, letters and parties. Match.com just took the brick & mortar bar and made it virtual. Look at human behaviors that already exist and then establish a location for them online.

2. Choose a generic domain name. Too often we want to personalize, but these internet experts all agreed that shoes.com, chocolate.com, creditcards.com, etc. were far more lucrative targets than “yourname”.com…unless of course you’re Ashton Kutcher. Only businesses with well established brands (household names) tend to see mileage from the use of their brand name. So the message: say what it is.

3. Connect. Social media platforms such as Facebook are here to stay, and the fastest and most effective way to advertise is through links and connections, now called “Friend Casting”. Friend Casting is where links are shared by friends and built-in networks, who then forward information virally. You need a social media platform from which to launch, and the entire panel agreed that Facebook is the future for connecting. In fact, Facebook gets more traffic these days than Google!

So…with over 80 million Millenials turning to the internet for, well, everything, and using their friends on Facebook for purchasing pointers and perspective, it’s time to bring your beer to the party.

10 Tips For Writing Ad-Copy That Sells

If you’re going to write an ad that generates a dynamic and powerful response, follow the ten tips below to ensure your success:

1. Highlight a Single Benefit. It’s important to create focused ad-copy so that your prospects don’t become confused and overwhelmed. Choose a single benefit of your product or service that you wish to highlight above everything else. This is your “principle selling position” or PSP.

In order to create a PSP, ask yourself how your product or service is different than your competitors. Are you faster? More reliable? Provide better customer service? Make sure to paint a picture that shows your potential clients and customers exactly how your product or service will improve their life or solve their problems.

2. Write A Compelling Headline. Today’s consumers are exposed to thousands and thousands of ads every day, so in order to process all this information, they generally skim over information. If your headline doesn’t instantly grab their attention, you’ve most likely lost them. To create the most powerful statement, base your headline around your PSP.

3. Highlight Your Strongest Selling Points. The first few paragraphs in your ad-copy are incredibly important. You want to create a strong desire for your product or service by highlighting some of the most compelling benefits. Put together a bulleted list of the benefits your customer will receive by doing business with you.

4. Write Directly To Your Target Market. Always imagine exactly who you are writing for and then right directly to them. Are you writing to women? Men? Teenagers? Individuals struggling with their weight? It’s important that your language suits your intended audience so that they are better able to relate to you.

5. Use The Power Of Multimedia. As our audiences become more and more distracted, we need to create better ways to capture their attention. Using audio and video in your ads, engages more of the senses and, as a result, creates a much more interactive experience for your potential clients and customers.

6. Create Emotional Connections. Write copy that creates emotional connections through targeted benefits. For example, imagine that you’re selling facial cream. A feature might be that it contains retinol. However, that isn’t going to elicit any sort of emotional response. Instead, you should say, “Eliminates Wrinkles!” or even better, “Use Acme Cream and Instantly Look Ten Years Younger!” You have now turned a boring feature into a strong emotional benefit linked to people’s strong desire to look younger.

7. Use Testimonials. Obviously, it’s much more important what other people say about you and your small business than what you say yourself. So, make sure to include real and convincing testimonials of clients and customers singing your praises. Ask for permission to include their full name and a link to their website if applicable.

8. Write In A Natural Voice. The best way to write is in a very natural and unaffected tone. In fact, just write it exactly how you would say it. You want to make sure that your prospects feel comfortable reading your copy.

9. Incorporate A Call To Action. End by telling the reader what to do; e.g. “Ring now” or “Click here to order now for immediate delivery!” Needless to say, ordering details must be clearly visible and simple to follow.

10. Ask For The Sale.At some point, you will need to come out and ask your prospect to purchase your product or services. When you do, make sure to incorporate one of the following three items:

- A Great Deal: “40% off!”

- A Sense Of Urgency: “Only Ten Slots Available!”

- Risk-Free: “Backed By Our 30-day, No-Questions-Asked, Money-Back Guarantee!”

So, the next time that you are faced with writing an ad (whether it be a sales letter, brochure, newspaper ad or the likes), make sure to incorporate these ten tips for the best possible results.