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Using Twitter For Link Building

Eric Ward illustrates

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By · April 21, 2009 · 116 Comments

Links on Twitter are already nofollowed and most are shortened anyway by a shortener. What use can Twiitter be for link building? Link building Eric Ward says the site is perfect for finding niche experts.

It’s not about huge amounts of followers or traffic spikes. You can get that kind of traffic from Digg. But the advantage of Twitter, says Ward, is that people specific to an industry are out there, findable on Twitter.

So if you specialize in little plastic doohickeys they put on shoestrings, irrelevant traffic is not what you’re after. At Search Engine Land, Ward explains how a message that begins as a tweet ends up as a link from a highly trusted website:

 

A few weeks ago I announced a new site via URLwire, and whenever I do this I set up several alerts/trackers to see where mentions/links show up.  I also set up a Twitter search for that new URL….the new site I announced has been tweeted or re-tweeted by seven people…I discovered all of them were health experts in one form or another.  Also, all of them had several hundred followers (one had 780), and a quick check of a few dozen of those showed some overlap (expected) as well as frequent health URL tweets.  In other words, I’d found a loose community of several thousand collective Twitterer’s who had shared news about a new web site URL.

 

One of those re-tweets came from a librarian at a med school web site, who did one more thing with that URL. She added a link to it from the med school web site she’s in charge of editing.  What started to her as a tweet ended as a permanent link from her high trust web page.

 

What’s even better about that is that earned link was a free, organic one, the best kind. No manipulation, no buying, no trading. And that one very trusted link is likely to outweigh many links (however they’re gotten) from not-so-trusted websites.

 

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There are 116 Comments. Add Yours.

  1. Interesting stuff, although it’s just like any other social thing online. You could probably get those same results from Facebook, a blog, Digg, or any other social media site for that matter.

  4. About mobile cell phones. Reviews and specifications, manuals. New games reviews. Codes and other services

  5. As a microbloggoing tool, I see twitter plays a good role for social interaction so you can have new visitors; i.e. more readership thank linking which came after that from your visitors if they are interested

  6. Interesting….. well site like tweetmeme is awsome thing. Let’s tweet some hot stories.

  7. abby
    Reply

    very interesting information!
    here I have another good share:
    tradestead
    there are many kinds of beautiful and lovely consumer electronics that I like it very much!

  8. Great article!
    Don’t you think that it is one in a millions thing that someone gets an organic backlink from twitter?

  9. Just say something interesting and you can have loads of people and companies in your niche following you, and consequently the possibility to generate loads of links to your site. Visit http://www.twitter.com/paulmoran

  10. If the links on twitter are nofollowed and you don’t get a lot of traffic from twitter, then why are some many companies using it then. They have to be getting enough traffic to keep using it.

  11. I have read some stuff lately that the search engines do look at no follow links and add them into the mix – several people have tried experiments with nofollow links and seeing if you can get traffic – same with PR0 websites – are 50 or 100 PR0 links better than 5 PR7 links etc.

    The general commentary is that the engines (Google) does find those links but does not count them as a backlink explicitly because they are nofollow – its more of a measure of general interest in a site and gets worked into the mix somehow. I cannot confirm this, just throwing out there what I have read from others trying and it could be totally off base.

    • Actually after posting that comment, it could be the experiments others have done are a result of the same thing seen with twitter – you post a bunch of no follows but people read them, go to the site and some DO put a link somewhere as a result – so its a backend way to get links and that is what actually causes a pickup in regular traffic – just a thought.

  12. Kalai
    Reply

    It really worked for my site. I have a blog for which features Computer, Internet & Technology Tips( http://thepicky.com)

  13. Jason great job pointing out what Eric said. Building links via a social community is a secondary benefit but a VERY good one. You just never know who will post it somewhere else.

  15. I mainly use Twitter to socially market my safety and security web site http://officialsafetyandsecurity.com and raise awareness for my products as well as safety in general. I like to let people know when I’ve posted an article on my forum or when I have a product on sale. I’m following everyone who is following me but I need to find my niche to get the attention I’m looking for.

  16. The tinyurl thing pretty much kills twitter as a solid link source IMHO (unless your URL is small and you are twitting with a link to the home page as opposed to deep linking). Is it worth twittering with links to stuff on the off chance that somebody gives you a link based on the tweet? The odds are long of that happening. But the opportunity cost is low. How much time must one invest to pop a tweet with a link? Guess it can’t hurt.

  17. I have also received a fair few high quality links through Twitter.

    I have built a following of around 750 people so far, mainly in relation to guitars..my main website. By interacting with these followers I have have had many nice links added from other guitar related sites and blogs, as well as driving targeted traffic to my site.

    It may be a slow organic process, but it is definitely a valuable thing to continue with..

  18. Twitter is great for building links~ I have sites on MySpace & YouTube & regularly get new subscribers that found my link on Twitter~ so I invented a new Twitter Word ‘Treality’ which means Reality in Twitterland GO Twitter LOL!

  19. In fact, as Cristian said before, it’s just the usual advantage you get from social media, nothing else. Maybe it’s just the buzz around twitter that makes it today’s topic.

  20. It’s been hard to measure, but I do believe I’m getting some PR off of no follow links. My assumption is that if I do a search of a particular domain name in quotes and if no follow links show up in a Google SERP, then I believe their must be some benefit, though it my be mitigated.

    I Really Appreciated Everyone Elses Comments, Great Article,
    Glen Woodfin
    http://Twitter.com/GlenWoodfin

  21. I hear and read constantly that only sites that don’t have nofollow will only count as a backlink in google’s eyes. Of course I don’t totally agree with this but I do want to know your input about that?

    Is it worth it even though its nofollow? Will it affect ranking? Again, I totally agree with you I’m just confused because of what my supervisors at work keep telling me.

  25. I had try that for a time for http://twitter.com/dsl_flatrate dont think that it brings very much! Sometimes a PR7Site is not better as 50PROLinks because that is not nice links. It is not realistic a Link from a PR7 Site for my little Webpage! So i don not think what Trade X means.

  26. If you aren’t Twittering to provide value to your followers, then what are you doing it for?

    Shallow purposes generate shallow results.

    I would be extremely happy to get even one trusted link for my efforts, because for me it is more about sharing innovation and conversational marketing information that people will find useful.

    If you would like to receive useful innovation and conversational marketing tweets, then please follow twitter.com/innovate”>@innovate

    Braden Kelley

  27. that’s good

  28. We are still working on it. Bloging works well, now it’s time for the next step, but we don’t want to trip.

  29. Twitter is a great way to express yourself and mostly connect with potential customers without showboating or advertising

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