Sacrilicious Marketing

So, if you have been following along the past few days, you have learned how to SEO your Facebook Fan Page, but did you know you can also SEO your Twitter profile? Social media is not immune to SEO and there are a few very simple and a few not so simple tricks that can help you to get the most bang for your buck out of your Twitter account in Google searches.

Most people think about social media in terms of socializing, but forget that it can be a powerful tool for SEO. Your Twitter account can be optimized for search engines so that you get the best possible value out of your profile. Here are a few ways to turn your Twitter account into a searchable work of art:

1. Pick a Username & Actual Name

Select a twitter user name that includes the keyword you wish to rank high in. For example, if you want people to find your Twitter profile when they search for Real Estate, make sure that ‘Real Estate’ is in your name.

Example:

@XYZrealestate

*NOTE: Do not use any dashes and make it short and simple to remember.

You can use your actual name for this or include the keyword again if it is appropriate (this doesn’t help with personalizing your account to you though).

*NOTE: If have an account already, you can fix this by logging into your Twitter account and clicking “Settings”. From there, change your ‘Name’. Do not change your ‘Username’.

2. Shorten Your Website URL

To accommodate Twitter using only the first 20 characters of your url, shorten it with bit.ly and get rid of the www. This will allow people to see the link before they click on it.

Example: http://bit.ly/ayacXC

If you need to change this, go into your Twitter account and click “settings”. From there go to the “Account” page and scroll halfway down the page.

3. Create a Bio

Be short and to the point, but make your personality stand out. You have 160 characters to make your personality stand out, so don’t waste your time with words that have no search value. Your bio should be a representation of who you are and how you want others to perceive you. This can make a huge difference in people deciding to follow you or not. Sometimes Google will include your location, so make sure that you provide this. The more exact the better!

*NOTE: To fix your location log into your Twitter account and clicking “Settings”. From there, change your “One Line Bio”.

4. SEO Your Profile Picture

Did you know that you can SEO your profile picture? You can’t add tags but, you can rename the photo before you upload it that way when it shows up in the URL it will have the keywords that you named. Be careful not to add spaces. Doing that will not translate the link very well. I don’t recommend changing your profile picture but, I would recommend changing the name of the profile picture and re-uploading it. You can do this by clicking on “Settings” and then “Picture”.

For example, rename your image ohio-real-estate.jpg and upload it and voila – you have a keyword rich url right inside your avatar picture! Sneaky but effective and your image will be indexed better in Google’s image search.

5. RSS Feeds

Why use a RSS feed for Twitter?

• People can subscribe to your tweets and receive instant feeds (We all love instant gratification!)
• Increase popularity and draw traffic to your Twitter account

Here is one way, using GoogleFeed Burner, to set up your Twitter RSS Feed.

• Go to FeedBurner. You can sign in using your existing gmail account or set up a new one.
• In a separate window, open your Twitter account and click on the RSS Feed icon.
• At the top of the page copy the URL and paste it into Feed Burner
• Add your username and password. This will people to view the feeds without getting locked out.
• Click next and your RSS feed is born!

You can now go through the dashboard and select the options you want for your feed. You can share widgets, add pictures, set up a title for the feed and make sure that it pings (connects) with search engines.

6. Tweet

Be sure that your tweets contain keywords and phrases that you want search engines to pick up. Occasionally use #hashtags as search engines are already ranking these and it will help tweeps find you in a Twitter search.

7. Favorites

Twitter Favorites with Keywords: Make sure that some of your favorite tweets contain keywords, key phrases and relevant links.

8. Tiny

Tinyurl.com your links. When you use a shortener like Tinyurl, search engines will recognize the link and rank them.

Example: http://tinyurl.com/yd3t4m3

9. Build Your Following

The more people you follow and having others follow you will increase awareness with search engines.

10. The Most AWESOME Tip About SEOing Twitter Nobody Uses!

This is the most important aspect of Twitter SEO. The more you have out there, the more you will get noticed. This will result in larger and more diverse followings and higher page ranks.

• Submit your Twitter profile & RSS feeds to directories (this is by far the most effective and easiest way to boost SEO to your Twitter profile which because it links back to your website – boosts SEO there as well). This is a very cool but often forgotten aspect of SEOing Twitter.
• Add your twitter username to blog posts and forums

Popularity: 11% [?]