Twitter for Better SEO?

Do you know that links tweeted on Twitter matter for SEO? When determining rankings in their search results, Google and Bing include social signals - namely, links that get tweeted on Twitter. Danny Sullivan confirmed this 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 aspect in perspective, Google uses hundreds of signals to determine how it should rank a website. These signals include inbound links to the site, the title tag of a web page, as well as the 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.

So, How Can I Use Twitter To Help My SEO?

The ways of search engines are puzzling, 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.

• Mind the Text - 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.
• Who Says? - 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-promotíon.
• 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 don't ever 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?

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.

Getting Indexed By Google

While Google delivering so much traffic, it is only normal to be eager to submit your page and have it indexed as soon as possible. Yet, submitting your page is not your only option, and it's not the best one.

Google says about its indexing process;
"We add thousands of new sites to our index each time we crawl the Web, but if you like, you may submit your URL as well. Submission is not necessary and does not guarantee inclusion in our index. Given the large number of sites submitting URLs, it's likely your pages will be found in an automatic crawl before they make it into our index through the URL submission form."

We can therefore draw two conclusions:

· 1. Submitting your site does not guarantee inclusion.
· 2. Most pages are found and indexed automatically, when Google crawls the web.

Big G have also made it clear that Google gives a page more importance when it is found through an automatic crawl. This can be easily confirmed when considering how Google's PageRank system works: when page A links to page B, part of page A's PageRank trickles down to page B, increasing page B's PageRank (and, therefore, its importance). A manually submitted page will not enjoy this benefit.

Knowing that manual submission is neither necessary nor the best way to go, what can you do to make Google find your pages?

The best way, at least in my personal experience, is to write an article on your area of expertise and submit it to popular article syndication sites. These sites will post your article, so that online publishers can use them for free in exchange for including your resource box at the end of the article. A resource box (a.k.a. bylines) is a small paragraph about yourself, written by you, which contains a link to your homepage.

In very little time, your article will show up in websites and ezines across the web. It will then be just a matter of time (usually days) before Google crawls those pages and finds your links. If you followed good web design practices and have included a link to a site map in your homepage, Google will follow it as soon as it finds your homepage, and all your pages will be indexed. It's as simple as that.
The most popular articles you can write are those that list a collection of tips related to your area of expertise.

Another good way to help Google find your pages is to exchange links with other sites. Google will crawl those sites, find the links to your page, and add it to the index.

Finally, remember to optimize your pages before you try to get them listed, so that you have a better chance of ranking high in the search engine results pages (SERPs). After all, what good would it do to get your pages listed if nobody can find them?

The Sandbox Effect

Sandbox Effect is causing new web sites not to rank very well in the search results of Google, not even for the least competitive phrases. It usually means that a filter is being placed on new web sites and cannot rank very high for most words or phrases for a certain amount of time.

There has been a lot of debate as to why Google uses the sandbox filter. However, it is believed that this is an attempt by Google to discourage web site owners that uses SEO Spam techniques or some call it as blackhat technique to rank high fast and make a quick buck before Google discovers it. This is largely because Google uses link popularity so much to rank web sites in it's search engine.

There is no way to know for sure if a new web site is in the Sandbox, but the best way to determine if you are in the Sandbox is if your web site has a good amount of quality backlinks, quality content and a good ranking on other search engines, such as Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves, but still no where in Google's search engine results for your keywords.

It is a common trend that it can take up to 6 months before a new web site can get a high ranking in Google's search engine results and out of the Sandbox, but this varies from web site to web site. It also depends on how competitive your new web site's market and keywords are.

There is no known way of speeding up the amount time a new web site is in the Sandbox. But some new websites tend to get away with it by doing some tagging through social bookmarking sites. Some would even buy links from blogs or sites with high PR and were able to be crawled by SE spiders earlier than expected.