For the last year or so, social media website Twitter has boomed in popularity. These days, whether it’s movie reviews, political gossip, philosophy or general chit chat, the tweet is on the streets. The social media site is so popular it appears to be pushing Google toward real-time search faster than the search engine behemoth was ready for.

The decision to join Twitter is one that a lot of companies are making. The pressure is on. If your competitors are tweeting, you have to, too. What a lot of companies are discovering is that even though each tweet is only 140 characters long, tweeting is hard work. It can be very helpful to talk to experts about Twitter and other social media, and you can talk to us at SEO Consult about social media marketing. There are some things you should remember when it comes to Twitter and SEO.

It’s hard enough to formulate several updates a day that conform to your business image without worrying about SEO. SEO, though, should be a consideration when it comes to Twitter. Each tiny tweet can sit out there on the web for a very long time, and a smart business should make it do some hard work while it’s there.

One thing that is often missed is the Twitter title tag. This is very different to the title tags most people are used to, because it is part of the tweet. It is thought that the first 42 characters of the tweet are used in the title tag for Google. This means that the important information and keywords have to be squeezed into those first 42 characters.

You can’t really fit more than one keyword or key phrase into a tweet without looking awkward. Even squeezing one keyword phrase in can be difficult. Just as with normal keyword inclusion in SEO content, the key is to make it as natural as possible. If you can fit your chosen keyword into the first 42 letters, so much the better.

Keeping an eye on Twitter’s most popular terms each week can help you to maximise for timely search terms. This can help boost your popularity in Twitter and get your tweets featured in Google. At the same time, keeping your long-term SEO strategy in mind means that your tweets will stay relevant to your SEO campaign.

The term ‘retweet’ means when someone forwards your tweet to others. In order to do this, they have to be able to fit your Twitter handle, plus your message, within 140 characters. It is recommended that you keep your tweets down to 120 characters where you can for this purpose.

Make use of URL shorteners to feed links into your tweets. It can be easy to overlook the value of links in tweets, but Twitter is a perfect medium through which to distribute links. Have a look at Twitter-friendly URL shorteners like TinyURL. Be selective about your links. It’s good to link through to a page that’s relevant to the tweet you just posted, rather than your home site, as it drives users to content they will find interesting. Also, don’t link with every tweet, as it gets boring.

As with every social media platform, you must participate to benefit. Respond to other people’s tweets, even if they don’t directly benefit you. Also, make sure to reciprocate following wherever you can. Twitter users are highly sensitive to reciprocation and failure to re-follow will lose you followers.

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