My site apparantly feel out of favor in the past several months, being left off its main keyphrase search (must now enter =‘.www’) but G also picked up on the linked Twitter account that was started early Oct.
Could this be due to lack up updates, lack of backlinks, a combination thereof or possibly even visitors not spending enough time per visit?
It used to come up #5 to #7 for the search before the last six months or so, then looking back further, it would even come up #1 or #2.
Personally I beleive G will be adding more weight to sites having established/engaging FB | Twit accounts. But not going too far — otherwise they’ll dilute their own strength/branding via their indirect endorsing of.
If your Twitter account is more relevant for the search term it will outrank your site. It’s not common as most people have some level of optimization for their site not to mention links including from social channels versus far less for their social channels but ranking rules apply just the same.
Google’s algorithms have reduced the weighting of backlinks, especially those from blogfarms and other completely artificially sources, in favour of content and relevance. If creating backlinks was an important part of your seo, that will be the mains reason why your site has lost ranking.
Yet many sites that are seasoned over the course of years, with little or no FB/Twitter, still maintain a discernably wide margin in the results. That’s the crux.
Try getting a retweet service using your main keyword orginating from your twitter account. Do you make links continously? Or is it a kind of set it and forget it?
My personal take would be to not bother about which of your properties are ranking so long as you are ranking. If it’s your Twitter account that is getting ranked, then it’s good. How about using that platform to get you more traffic. At the end of the day, it’s the number of targeted visitors you can reach that matters - not if you got that from search engine, referral or word of mouth.
I have to be concerned about site numbers, since that is where transactions occur. - But their point of origin does matter, each bringing a difference/variation of intent. Even given that social keyphrasing should mimic site phrasing.
I think we are on the same page here. As I said, it’s the number of “targeted” audience that matters, not where they originate from. Of course ranking for “buy red widgets online” could get you the most targeted customers for a site about red widgets. But if I get the same number of a targeted audience by distributing flyers outside a red widgets store across the street, it’s the same result.
Traditionally search visitors convert better. But if I am getting a good number of referrals from a ‘red widget online store directory’ that should convert as good. It’s the intent of the audience that matter no matter where they come from.
Just because your goal is a conversion does not mean the path to it is the same across all channels or that it should be the only result you consider positive. Social offers a tremendous opportunity but in a very different mindset than say a search visitor and if you can cater to that shift you’ll end up with a much better outcome than trying to force people down a single road.
I don’t see why goal-conversion should not be a sole metric we chase. Even if you have a 100,000 followers on Twitter, your resources and efforts into building that list would be considered futile if you cannot get good conversion from here. You may pick any form of audience building - search engines, PPC, email marketing, social media,etc. But if your ROI from the efforts put in does not result in conversions (and subsequently money), you are going to stop putting more time and money on that channel.