Search engine optimization no longer simply involves publishing content on your website and building backlinks. Now both Microsoft and Google have announced that they will offer real-time search results to include social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook!
Twitter and Facebook users have the ability to create a free account and post updates. These two forms of social media have been a boon for small business in their promotional efforts. By collecting followers on Twitter and fans on Facebook, a business can keep in touch with customers by sending out promotional updates, offering special deals, or just stating what’s happening at the company lately.
Social media updates are usually only seen by the people who follow a business account. However, now with the announcement from the two online giants, updates posted to Twitter accounts can have an impact on a small business’s SEO efforts.
SEO is the optimization of a website, using keywords, descriptions and links to make it easier for a search engine to rank it higher for search results. A website can obtain a higher ranking if it updates frequently with blog posts and articles, uses keywords strategically throughout the site and in articles, and contains links to and from other pertinent websites. A high search engine ranking can help a website get free traffic from specific keyword search results.
Now small businesses can use frequent Twitter updates as a means to improve SEO rankings. In addition, Microsoft said its search engine product, Bing, has an exclusive partnership with Facebook to feature information from Facebook user status updates. This means a small business with active efforts in social media may have a better handle on online marketing and search engine results.
If your small business is not connected into social media, now is the time to get started. Create a free account. Collect followers and fans. And post frequent updates. It could soon earn your website more traffic and more business.
