The (Quickly) Changing Role of Twitter in SEO

Todd Bailey

Todd Bailey is Vice President of Digital Strategy at WebiMax, a leading SEO company with 500+ clients and 150+ employees as well as Lead Contributor at SEOservices.com

Todd Bailey has written 21 articles for WebKnowHow.

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As Google goes forward with the changes to their search functioning making results more personalized by incorporating Google+ and other features, ripples continue to be sent out through the internet and search communities. Twitter has now released a strong statement opposing the changes because as they see it, twitter content will not appear on Google SERPs with as high a ranking as before. This, they argue is a tragedy for all web searchers, consumers, and publishers who rely on the real-time information that is posted on Twitter for everything from news and  status updates to retail information.

The changes made by Google directly impact search engine optimization and the localization of search queries. Searches will be influenced by the content posted within the user's network of friends on Google+, thus delivering results that are more personalized. To Google, more personalized results mean more relevant results, giving the user more of what they conceivably want. Further, there will be options for users to go back and forth between searches that include results from within their social network and those representing the web at large.

A Changing SEO Strategy

For SEO purposes, campaigns can be tailored to each type of search. Traditional SEO practices of optimizing content will still be as relevant as ever, but what changes is the SEO used for the searching that includes Google+ results. Campaigns for this search need to maximize company presence on Google+, engage with customers, and optimize content.

Twitter thus finds itself largely on the outside looking in for the latter type of searches as it appears Google+  results rank higher than Twitter or other social platforms. Depending on the number of people utilizing the more personalized search, Twitter content may become harder to come across and may ultimately be less important real estate to optimize in SEO campaigns.

This remains to be seen of course, but given the changes in this past week, this could become an eventuality at some point in the future. These developments with Google and their implications for all platforms and search underscore the importance for SEO firms to stay abreast of the latest industry trends so they can quickly make informed decisions on how the changes impact campaigns going forward. Specifically regarding Twitter's future though, the book is still to be written.