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How Twitter Can Make You A Better SEO!

Everybody talks about Twitter and its effectiveness in strategies for SEO, website traffic, business promotion, branding, networking, and connection with customers. All True! Twitter works best for all the above specified areas and is ideal for every business niche. With 500 Million total users and 140 Million active users from different age groups the platform produces more than 250 million tweets per day. Check out this excerpt from a fascinating Twitter infographic:

How People Use Twitter

This 500M makes me crazy! I have asked many random people in random places what type of websites they use? What I found was most of them are on Facebook but I have yet to come across a random normal person who claimed to at least “use Twitter”. The most typical answer is “Yeah I think I have an account there but I never really use it. But I know a friend who uses it.”

I’ve also found less interest in using Twitter than Facebook. But if you were to ask me, what is my most visited website – my reply would be Twitter. I use it for work updates, sharing interesting content, and personal promotion – most importantly to stay up-to-date with the latest technology and trends of my (SEO) industry and to make connections with industry experts.

OK. It was a quick intro about Twitter. Let’s move towards why I’m writing this post and why I wanted to write this post.

SEO Journey

In our SEO world, we always love to share experiences and knowledge. Today, I’m sharing with you my career, experience and my growth. I started my career in December 2008, with a Web Agency as UI (User Interface) Developer and SEO. In the start, I was more focused on UI Development (to learn) then got 2 SEO websites and started giving equal time to both areas. After time, I achieved some good results (with the guidance of a Senior) so the Company decided to make me full-time SEO where I had a team of 2 Fresh SEOs and I started handling some more SEO projects. I had now spent around 2 years in SEO. A short story about my career!

As I was experienced working in UI department, I worked on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and little PHP, CMSs, some Adobe software and more…  I produced good results as I understand coding and user choice (so better in Onsite Optimization) and started learning in-depth about SEO. After time, I read an Interview with an SEO expert. He exposed 2 tips at the end, you must use Twitter for learning and read SEO beginners guide to build a good SEO base!

I opened my account on Twitter, created an SEO profile and started following all his “FOLLOWING”s on Twitter.

Sorry, if I bore you but that was a necessary part of my post.

It was a quick background of my race. Currently I’m helping different clients and working full-time for a Web Agency where I help building-up SEO strategies, keywords positioning, content generation, social media, brand promotions, and CRO … In the start, I didn’t know much about SEO and within a year I had a good handle on different market niche with remarkable progress on client’s business. It was not an easy journey but I got to have good knowledge on the latest trends, Algorithm updates, new techniques, latest technology, handy tools, all things that I think, are necessary requirement to know for every SEO!

Secret of SEO Learning

A great guide of my SEO life is Twitter that helps me become a passionate SEO with the good knowledge of Google updates, latest trends, daily tips and other techniques for link building, Conversion Rate Optimization, Google Analytics, blogging, better site structure, social media management and more…

  • I’m used to reading daily 10-15 blogs on average from different websites that is being shared on Twitter. The learning opened my mind for SEO and helped me understand how expert SEOs work, think and get the projects to success.
  • Reading helped me stay up-to-date with the industry news, latest changes, new additions, and daily tips.
  • Twitter helped me connect with other SEOs by following their tweets. As they use Twitter for sharing experiences and daily tips.
  • It makes easy interaction and helps exploring their SEO thoughts via their daily tweets. Also, check the links they share.
  • Appearing on Twitter regularly, helped me become more visible to the SEO experts.
  • Interaction with the industry SEOs via replying to their tweets and making them re-tweets helped me build good relationships with them and get a follow back.
  • I found Twitter, a best teacher too. It is the fastest way to get a reply to your questions from industry leaders. They always feel happy to help!
  • It helped me build an identity as SEO and a way to connect. It also helped me become recognized as a skillful SEO
  • And more from the experts below!

The purpose of writing this post is to highlight the importance of using Twitter. As I found many SEOs are not aware of the advantages of using Twitter, it can also help them in hiring process, career building, vast knowledge, SEO tips, content generating ideas, fascinating articles, and more…

Read the Industry expert thoughts about why SEOs should use Twitter

Sha Menz

Twitter: @ShahMenz

Twitter has always been my best and most immediate source of industry information and at the rate things change in the SEO/Inbound space, the need for it is a no-brainer! I tend to use the people I really respect most in the industry as a bit of a “filter”. I learned a long time ago that there are a handful of people who can be trusted to surface the most critical news as quickly as it happens … @dannysullivan, @randfish, @portentint and @cyrussheppard are just a few examples. I don’t follow a huge number of people, but these and a few others enable me to keep up with the things that matter.

Just as important, is the way in which Twitter has allowed me to form friendships with others in the SEO world, despite the fact that I live on a small island south of continental Australia! I am not naturally a terribly gregarious person, so the thought of fronting up as part of a 750 strong crowd for Mozcon earlier this year might otherwise have been completely overwhelming. Instead, I found myself looking forward to meeting some of those Twitter friends I had talked to almost every day for a long while. Even better, the joy of being recognized, and included as “one of the SEO crowd” made the whole experience even more addictive!

If anyone had told me that someone I respect as much as @wilreynolds would one day recognize me in a crowd and call out to me by name I would have laughed at them. Twitter made it possible for that to happen to me and I personally can’t think of a better reason to be Tweeting!

Cyrus Shepard

Twitter: @CyrusShepard

Serious inbound marketers and SEOs take advantage of Twitter in 3 ways.

  1. Education and content discovery. By following 75 super savvy sharers, I’m able to stay on top of the latest updates in the SEO world. If Google changes it’s algorithm in any public way, it’s usually in my twitter stream within minutes. If I miss an update, the new and improved Discover feature keeps me up to date.
  2. Promoting Content – It can take 2-3 years to build up a good follower base by sharing useful and engaging content, but the payoff is worth it. A single tweet from an influencer can make or break the virality of your content.
  3. Fun – I’ll admit, I’m addicted.

Steve Webb

Twitter: @SteveWebb

As an SEO professional, I use Twitter primarily for 2 reasons: (1) to stay current on the most popular SEO articles and (2) to interact with other SEO professionals.

I follow a lot of SEO-related blogs, and my RSS reader is pretty ridiculous.  But I still find interesting articles every day on Twitter that I haven’t already found.

Overall, the SEO community is extremely helpful, and Twitter is an excellent way to participate in that community.  Whether it’s brainstorming ideas, sharing each other’s work, or just talking about weekend plans: Twitter is an excellent tool for information sharing and relationship building.

Dana Lookadoo

Twitter: @lookadoo

SEOs who use Twitter as a personal account vs. a business account have opportunities to:

  • Network and build friendships, lasting relationships;
  • Grow their careers and establish themselves as thought leaders;
  • Connect with media and the press. They may get the opportunity to be interviewed by Kumail Hemani for this article! 😉

Business Twitter accounts are seen differently, more as brands representing a company. People want to know more about the SEOs, how they think and interact, what they know and share. They want to connect with the person, not so much the business.

Mike Essex

Twitter: @Koozai_Mike

“In our case every one of our employees has company branded twitter accounts (e.g. I’m @Koozai_Mike). This means when our team tweet during the business day we are building awareness of the company simply through our Twitter names. We encourage people to express their own personality and talk about topics that interest them. Being attached to the company helps our new employees gain followers and traction quickly, and gives them a fanbase of people with whom to engage. Employees can keep their accounts when they leave, so the improved industry awareness and friendships they have formed stay with them.”

Aleyda Solis

Twitter: @aleyda

In general I would say that a personal Twitter account can be especially interesting for SEOs since it’s a great way to:

  • To keep updated: Learn about the latest SEO news, resources and trends with a minimum effort. Twitter is for me the best way to learn about the latest SEO information and any other type of news I could be interested in.
  • To connect with others: It’s excellent to be able to interact directly in real time with other SEO consultants that can be at any place in the world, something which was much more difficult before. With twitter communication barriers have been lowered.
  • To promote and gain visibility: To earn visibility at a professional level. It´s a great channel to promote your own information to a highly targeted, interested audience that you wouldn´t earn in another way.

Bas van den Beld

Twitter: @basvandenbeld

OK, quick, why I think Twitter is important for SEO’s is for 3 reasons:

  1. It is the ‘new RSS’, which means you can find a lot of information about SEO through Twitter because SEOs tend to share a lot of their content. Which also means if you follow the right people it is filtered for you by the experts so your chances of getting good content are bigger.
  2. It is a perfect way to make the first connections to people in the industry. Get noticed and then when you get to meet people in real life it is a lot easier to connect with them, the conversation after all has already started online.
  3. Twitter is a very good way to show yourself. By connecting with the right people and sharing the right content you can build up a profile with credibility and with that also you can show your own content without being too much of a ‘push’.

Please let me know, what you think after reading this post in the comments below 🙂

Kumail Hemani

Kumail Hemani is an SEO Consultant and a full-time SEO Manager at a well reputed SEO Agency. He is a passionate blogger and loves content marketing. He also helps businesses increase search and online visibility through online media. You can read more about him HERE or get in touch with him on Twitter or Google+

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7 thoughts on “How Twitter Can Make You A Better SEO!

  1. Katherine Stott at

    Great article and I totally share your sentiments. Whenever I need information, Twitter is the place to go. I almost don’t want people to know about the treasure trove of ideas and advances we find there 😉

  2. Heather Stone at

    Hi Kumail,

    I’m wondering if you think Twitter is more effective for SEO than Facebook, and if so why. Considering Facebook’s larger size, do you think it has to do with level of noise on one platform versus the other?

    1. Kumail Hemani at

      Hi Heather,

      Thanks for your comment.

      Yes, I believe Twitter is more effective for SEO career than Facebook but I hadn’t compared that. There is no doubt with the Facebook’s larger size but, for me, it is a big distraction of work.

      People usually visit Twitter for news updates, interesting articles, building relationships and more… this is what required for SEO (that is all what I do on Twitter)

      Facebook is very much social – people go there mostly for fun, to interact with friends/relatives and to spend the time faster when they are getting bore 😉

      Hope it helps.

      – Kumail

  3. Sita Gabriel at

    I think Twitter is the best tool to promote your content, because the followers clicks your tweet link and can easily access your content. I’m using Twitter since 2011 and it has a good effect on my traffic. Thanks for the nice read.

  4. Kate at

    Interesting article.

    I don’t know about you, but I think people find that once they engage with Twitter, Facebook is just too boring.
    My favorite Twitter quote. “Facebook:talking to a people I knew from high school that I didn’t want to talk to then. Twitter:talking to people I don’t know who I want to be friends with now.” The tide is changing.

  5. Pingback: How Do I Write Blog Posts? | Kumail Hemani

  6. Arindam Dutta at

    I think Twitter is the best tool to promote your content, because the followers clicks your tweet link and can easily access your content. Twitter has a great system there people can follow you. I’ve been looking for more ideas to improve or develop my marketing business in twitter. I think these ideas are good for me. Thanks a lot for sharing.

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