The Return of Tweets in Google Search Results & How it Can Impact Your Online Business

Twitter must have taken it to heart when I stated that they would continue to decline in the year ahead in my Bold Social Media Predictions for 2015 article. I say this because yesterday (Feb 5/2015), Bloomberg Business reported that Twitter reached a deal with Google that will allow tweets to show up in Google search results.

You may recall, that the concept itself is nothing new. Five years ago tweets were being indexed and showing up in search right up until 2011 when Twitter closed the door on the deal with Google in order to gain more control over the content being released on their platform. But like it or not, Twitter is now considered a news source. Considering that Google is including a variety of sources for their “in the news” delivery (Reddit included) in general web search results it makes sense that tweets from high-authority profiles make the cut.

For businesses hoping to better manage their online presence in real-time this is a big deal. Read further to learn how this can positively impact your brand.

How Your Online Business Can Take Advantage of Tweets Returning to Google Search Results

1. The Importance of Getting There First for Your Industry

Let’s say that you’re a retailer and are among the first to add a newly released product to your store/s. Or perhaps you’re a real estate agency privy to important news on impending mortgage rates. Whatever the case may be, by being the first in your locale to put that information online you become seen as an authority on product/service news by those searching for it on Google. These individuals may very well be your prospective customers/clients. However, unless you have a very strong social media following and/or your website’s SEO has you ranking well for any article that you post, this information won’t reach the masses. But now, with tweets popping up in Google search, you have a better shot at being the one to deliver important news relevant to your industry to consumers relevant to your business.

2. Building Your Twitter Following is More Important Than Ever

Google won’t just reward any Twitter profile by putting their tweets anywhere on their search results. Unless you operate within a very specific niche (e.g. a tiki mug maker) you will be up against a multitude of other businesses vying for the same space. Google, just like consumers, must perceive you to be an authority in your field before they “consider” your tweets to be a candidate for this new update. Starting today, you must concentrate your Twitter efforts on growing your audience significantly (connecting to your target demographic), but more importantly, growing the engagement (retweets, favorites) that occurs between users and your brand profile.

3. Create a Section on Your Website to Publish Announcements and Issue News Releases

While it’s great that your tweets may end up scoring a position on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) it won’t have much of a positive impact for your business beyond brand exposure. Essentially, SERPs will become your online version of billboard advertising unless these highly visible tweets link back to a page on your website that allows searchers to learn more. To make this happen, you need to maintain a daily/weekly blog and consider a section for internal press releases if the scope your business justifies releasing legitimate industry news on a regular basis. Once in place, you can craft informative tweets that link back to a more detailed accounting of the information being delivered to searchers. This will result in an increase in organic traffic to your Twitter profile and subsequent referral traffic to your website – and that’s where the magic (customer call-to-action) happens.

4. Improving Your Website’s Overall SEO Visibility is a High-Priority

This is Google we’re talking about, so the conversation cannot end without mentioning search engine optimization (SEO), even if the topic is directly related to social media (Twitter). Google will not likely rank tweets of a brand that has not connected its Twitter profile to a website with strong SEO visibility. You will need to let Google know that your website is an authority (there’s that word again) on a product/service topic by optimizing every page on your website for the keywords that indicate so, and develop a content marketing plan that will earn you organic traffic and backlinks from other high value websites with SEO visibility themselves. Once your site has accomplished this, its direct connection to your Twitter profile will only serve to boost the credibility of your Twitter profile and associated tweets. When that happens, your tweets will have a better shot at ranking in search under this new partnership deal between Google and Twitter. The beginning of your new SEO, content, and Twitter management plan starts here.

Follow Marcus Maraih on Google

Follow the MarcusMaraih.Com Page on Google

Like the featured image of this article? You may copy/paste it into your own content as long as you provide linked attribution to the homepage.

Comments

comments