A Practical Guide On How To Optimize Your Twitter Profile
Before I dive into the practical how to of Twitter SEO, I would like to draw your attention to an article by Patrick Altoft entitled If Google did Twitter search, it describes how Twitter could improve its search algorithm and mimic factors used by Google to determine the relevancy and the authority of a page.
Now, the aim of this post is to describe how you can get a jump start on Google and possibly Twitter in the near future, whilst ongoing SEO changes take place on Twitter.
As Twitter starts to work with Google, as oppose to against, Twitter search results, Twitter profile pages and individual tweets are starting to rank on the first page of Google.
Examples of this have been pointed out and discussed on various blogs. I am far from an SEO expert and would love to get your thoughts on this, but I do have enough knowledge to make a fast start to getting my tweets found by the big G’. Split into a two part ‘Twitter How To’ Guide, we will look into the changes I have implemented to improve the search rankings of my tweetin’.
How To Optimize Twitter ‘On Page’.
Whilst it would appear that as far as making ‘on page’ tweaks for the benefit of Google is currently limited to your username and full name (both are now included in the title tags of your profile), I have already started implementing the SEO stratergy below.
- Username. If possible include the main keyword you hope to rank for.
- Full name. Again, if at all suitable try to include your main keyword(s).
- Twitter Bio. Whilst you want to communicate a decent snap-shot of who you are and what you tweet about, including a few keywords here should be quite natural.
- Tweets. Ensure that some of your tweets are not only on subject and relavent, but also include keyword phrases. The use of hashtags are great for this. Remember,Twitter search results return hashtags and are all ready ranking with Google. (You should already be doing this to help other tweeps with simular interests find you.)
- Favorites. Favorite some tweets that include your keywords and/or relevant links. This is not just for SEO purposes but also a great way to build a bigger Twitter bio.
Twitter SEO Evidence.
Although when it comes to ‘on page’ SEO there is currently only evidence to support tweaks to your full name and username are helping Twitter pages rank on Google, I highly recommend to anybody on Twitter for brand building, marketing and promotion to be optimizing your Tweetin’ for future changes as Twitter continues to increase it’s relationship with Google.
Tomorrow’s Twitter How To will suggest ideas that I have implemented for ‘off page’ optimization. Right now this is how Google is finding Twitter pages and deciding on their value, so check back tomorrow or even better subscribe to the RSS feed to avoid missing any further posts on How To Optimize Twitter SEO.