Social media, it’s the word on everyone’s lips at the moment, Twitter and Facebook are becoming the new media darlings and everyone wants a piece of the action. Of course the fact that social media has become so popular is also arguably one of its downfalls, the rife buzz around the topic has led many to dismiss it as a vacuous, woolly practice that doesn’t yield real results. Return on Investment in the form of quantifiable results has always been a stumbling block for social, but now it seems it has proved its worth.
SEO agencies are results driven, so it speaks volumes that one of the most globally respected SEO resources as confirmed the effectiveness of Tweets on search engine rankings in a study revealed last week. SEO Moz are one of the world leaders in search marketing, they have a huge influence on the industry and are often the first to reveal trends and algorithm changes that other large, successful SEO agencies are quick to act upon.
So how do tweets affect search engine rankings and to what scale? SEO Moz were first alerted to the power of Twitter by pure coincidence. The company produces free downloadable beginners guides to SEO, one of these guides was publicised in a Tweet from ‘Smashing Magazine’, a web design resource with a health 350,000 followers. The tweet @ mentioned SEO Moz (@seomoz) and included a bit.ly link to the guide.
Lo and behold, within an hour of the tweet going live, SEO Moz were ranking well for the ‘term beginners guide’ coming in at number 4. Having never attempted to rank for the term before, or gained any traffic from it, the Moz crew were more than pleasantly surprised to see themselves sitting pretty in the SERPS, without any effort on their part. Hundreds of Retweets had generated enough links to temporarily lift SEO Moz to dizzying heights for such a generic term.
Surprisingly, the term continued to rank well and generate traffic for a week after the initial tweet. Of course SEO Moz didn’t stick at number 4 and the traffic spike plateaued but the fact is that they continued to do well off the back of the tweet in the medium term.
So there we have it, cold hard evidence that Twitter can indeed help with search rankings. You’re no doubt already wondering how you can replicate such a rankings boost using social media. The key with SEO Moz was quality, that old mantra ‘content is king’ rang true yet again, their beginners guides are comprehensive and informative, which lead to the initial tweet from an authority source. Get the content right, build the network and the rest will take care of itself
This is a Guest post by Joe, who is a social media and blogger for a company specialising in Ford Fiesta leasing and People carrier cars. You can follow him on Twitter @joe__johnson__
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