Twitter SEO Benefits & Application

Everyone knows that your Twitter profile URL is nofollow and doesn’t pass on any of the link loving, but there are still ways to attract some nice links with your Twitter account. Some of the links obtained won’t be all that powerful right now, but the way Twitter and its apps have been growing, it’s worth it in the long run…kind of like RRSP’s or a Chia Pet. Also on the topic of Twitter and SEO, someone either on Sphinn, SEOmoz or some forum mentioned that Twitter Search results were ranking well in Google lately. This lead me to some other interesting finds and ideas on ranking for a large number of longtails.

There are a few Twitter user directories out there in the wild and they do have an added benefit towards your link building efforts. With the added benefit of snagging a dofollow link, you also get to grow your followers. Another perk about getting links built to your Twitter profile is that you can rank it higher in the serps. I’ve got an Ecommerce shop that I run in my free time and I’ve managed to rank my Twitter profile for one of the top keywords within the niche, and it drives sales.

Twibs.com is a new business directory for Twitter users and accounts, and I imagine this will grow like crazy. The site has been around since January and has been growing decently since then, nearing the 100,000 mark on Alexa. Within your Twib Business Listing, you get a dofollow link to both your Twitter profile, and your homepage or blog. You can push your Twibs page into the Google index yourself, or waiting should end in the same result. There are nearly 10,000 pages indexed from Twibs, so the spiders are doing their thing.

Tweeple.com used to be home to what now is Tweeplepages.com, and they’ve made a few changes since I’ve last looked. The main domain, Tweeple.com, is undergoing either a site redesign or a code overhaul because I’m noticing some functionality changes on the new site. On your Tweeple Page, you do get dofollow links back to your homepage or blog, but now the links are being masked. Still a great place to make new Twitter friends.

Tweetfind.com is a Twitter directory and search engine to find like minded people. The site also has a few extra features like Twitter news, statistics and interesting user profiles listed daily. You can add yourself for free, and if approved, you’ll be rewarded with a profile page that includes dofollow links to your Twitter Profile and homepage/blog. It’s too early to tell if this site will continue to grow, but chances are good and the traffic has been slowly moving up since its launch in January.

JustTweetIt.com brings an interesting approach to the Twitter directory scene but it’s worth the 2 minutes it takes to submit. It’s free to submit and each category has a list of tweeters within that niche along with a link to their profile, and to their homepage. The link to your Twitter profile is dofollow while the link to your homepage is not. No worries though, you’ll find that once you add yourself here, your followers will grow.

WeFollow.com is the newest Twitter directory by Digg’s Kevin Rose, but it’s mainly a list of the biggest players on the social media site. You can add your Twitter profile for free which doesn’t add any link benefits, but it might help your followers list rise. A lot of people bitched about that the site doesn’t promote find new users, but following people within your niche who can attract that many subscribers can’t be all that bad.

I’m sure this is just a start to the number of Twitter directory like sites will start popping up, so keep an eye out and feel free to list any I missed in the comments. Now let’s take a look at what’s going on with Twitter Search queriry results, and how you could possibly rank easily for some longtail keywords. Now I know this is going to be exploited by some annoying spammers, but if you’re competing in a certain niche, why not try and take a bigger piece of the traffic pie with your account? Obviously the more heavily searched for terms will be harder to work with, but I encourage you to run some of your own tests.

So word on the street Twitter search page results are showing up within the search results, and they’re even ranking for keywords. I took a quick peek to see if it were true and found some pretty interesting results. I’ll make it brief because I’m most likely making some of you either sleepy, or nauseous from all the blue color in this post.

I picked one random indexed search query that contained a keyword that would be easy to rank for, then another that would pose to be a little bit more difficult. So first up on the list is the search query “wickedwire“. This is where it currently ranks;

The second keyword was a lot more competitive yet the search result for it ranked way higher than I would have expected. You all know the world famous beer, or the world famous book of world records….”Guinness“. Let’s take a look at where the search query ranks for this;

Well the evidence is there, but the question that comes to my mind is…how long will Google allow this. I’m partial to this search listing showing up because it does give the user a link to a very recently updated look into Guinness. But then again, the way it shows up within Google’s results doesn’t seem all that SEO friendly. Do let me know what you folks think about this.

Related Blog Posts:

Twitter SEO – How to Optimize Your Website For Twitter Search – Winning The Web

Is Twitter The Next SEO Haven? – The Blog Herald

Twitter, SEO and Online Marketing: You’re Missing The Point – SEO Group

Twitter Tweaks Its Title Tags For Google Juice – Techcrunch

Twitter: Incredibly Valuable Or Utterly Useless As A Link Building Tool? – Eric Ward

Twitter Links Are a Source of External Links…Sometimes – YOUmoz

Twitter Dupe Content and Link Building Strategy – YOUmoz