Chris Crum at WebProNews had an interesting blog about real-time search and how Google is incorporating Tweets into their search results. Depending on how popular you are and your activity-level on Twitter, you may or may not have some of your tweets featured in certain search results. There are many factors like how many followers you have, whether or not you use hash (#) marks in tweets, and the quality of the content you link to.

As Twitter’s popularity and relevancy grows, so does it’s relationship with Google. Whether you do or don’t think Twitter is a valid SEO Tool no longer matters, all that matters for your business is what Google thinks. Check out what Chris has to say about including Twitter in your search marketing strategy below.

It’s ok to say “no” to Twitter if that’s your thing. There’s a chance that it just doesn’t fit into your SEO strategy or help you achieve your goals. That’s cool. However, if it is your thing, you may be interested in how Google ranks tweets. That is if search marketing is your thing.

Google and Microsoft almost simultaneously announced deals with Twitter a few months back, that would give the companies access to tweets in real-time to fuel their respective search engines’ real-time results. Microsoft immediately launched their version, but it was separate from the regular Bing search engine. Google waited a while, but eventually started incorporating real-time results right into regular Google SERPs (including not only tweets, but various other sources).

After the Twitter deals were announced, Bing came out and said, “If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher. If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower.”

Google was not as vocal about how it would rank tweets and other real-time results, but the company has now shed a bit of light on that via an interview with MIT’s Technology Review. David Talbot interviewed Google “Fellow” Amit Singhal, who has led development of real-time search at the company. According to him, Google also ranks tweets by followers to an extent, but it’s not just about how many followers you get. It’s about how reputable those followers are.

Singhal likens the system to the well-known Google system of link popularity. Getting good links from reputable sources helps your content in Google, so having followers with some kind of authority theoretically helps your tweets rank in Google’s real-time search.

“One user following another in social media is analogous to one page linking to another on the Web. Both are a form of recommendation,” Singhal says. “As high-quality pages link to another page on the Web, the quality of the linked-to page goes up. Likewise, in social media, as established users follow another user, the quality of the followed user goes up as well.”

But that’s only one factor.

Do you commonly use hashtags in your tweets? If your goal is to rank in Google’s real-time search index, you may want to cut down on that practice, because according to Singhal, that is a big red flag for a lower quality tweet. This seems to be part of Google’s spam control strategy.

Another noteworthy excerpt from the interview:

Another problem: how, if someone is searching for “Obama,” to sift through White House press tweets and thousands of others to find the most timely and topical information. Google scans tweets to find the “signal in the noise,” he says. Such a “signal” might include a new onslaught of tweets and other blogs that mention “Cambridge police” or “Harry Reid” near mentions of “Obama.” By looking out for such signals, Google is able to furnish real-time hits that contain the freshest subject matter even for very common search terms.

Well, we certainly know more about Google’s strategy for tweet ranking now, but there are still plenty of questions about it. What is Google’s stance is on Ghost Tweeting? Are Google’s ranking factors a good reason to create and follow more Twitter lists in hopes for gaining more reputable industry followers?

The factors mentioned aren’t the only ones Google employs. It’s not like Google is going to tell us everything. It also helps to keep in mind that real-time search spans far beyond just tweets. Still, Twitter is clearly a big part of it, and even the significance of tweets themselves will evolve in time.

Google says it hopes to factor in geo-location data (with regards to tweets) into the real-time search results at some point. Google and Twitter engineers frequently collaborate on real-time search, which Google itself says is evolving.

By the way, it stands to reason that Google’s strategy for ranking tweets probably shares similarities for how it ranks content from other sources drawn from for real-time search.

by Jonathan Marshall

Janine Popick, President, CEO and Founder of VerticalResponse, had a post discussing blogging, making it a top priority and changing how business-owners view the practice. Today, many people struggle to find time to blog, and since it is a relatively-new marketing tool, some people are still not totally convinced of it’s ability to gain sales and customers.

Some business-owners might think that blogging is only important to companies like JTCG because we are a San Diego web design agency. And since we also specialize in managing and executing SEO campaigns – of course we think it’s important… Right? Wrong. The bottom line is this – whether your company adopts blogging as a marketing responsibility, or you just have SEO Professionals like us handle it for you – Blogging has to be a priority this year.

Since I couldn’t say it better myself, I have included the blog post from Janine Popick in today’s post. Check out what she has to say about sharing, gaining online presence and getting feedback from readers in her blog below.

Yes it’s true, if you are considering a blog for your business, or revisiting one you haven’t posted to in a while, there is a time commitment…but DON’T RUN AWAY FROM READING THIS! First and foremost you got to this blog didn’t you? I blog about 2 times per week and I try to make it relevant to helping small businesses grow using email marketing and some pretty cool marketing tools & techniques. But that’s what this blog is all about.

So you’re asking yourself, “Why do I need to spend time I don’t have writing about god-knows-what?” Well there are a bunch of reasons that I’ve outlined below. And what do you write about? I’ve given some ideas in the blog post Writing Your Email Newsletter, What Do You Have to Say? Even though it’s geared towards email marketing, the ideas translate nicely into ideas for your blog. So here are 10 reasons it makes sense to start blogging for your business:

1. Get Shared – People will retweet you and post your blog content to their Facebook pages if they think it’s worthy. This could potentially give you access to new readers and new customers. You can track how many people have retweeted your blog content by going to Backtweets.com, entering your blog post URL and paging through all of your retweets.

2. Gain a Website Presence – If you don’t have a website yet, it’s easy to set up a blog quickly. San Francisco retailer Timeless Treasures does a great job at this. Then you can post about new products you might have or new services with your address and phone number so that folks know where to find you.

3. Build Your List – You can get new readers/prospects by adding an opt-in form to your blog so new readers can be included on your email marketing list. Then you can send them newsletters with the hopes of converting them to customers. VerticalResponse allows you to easily publish an opt-in form to your TypePad blog.

4. Search Engine Rankings – You can host your blog on your domain to get more traffic. This could give you higher rankings in the search engines with your specific keywords. For instance in each blog post we do we link the term “email marketing” back to our domain verticalresponse.com. As a result for that particular keyword, we’re pretty high in the natural rankings for that phrase.

5. Get Closer to Your Readers – So many customers want to know there are human beings behind the companies they do business with these days. Blogging is a perfect platform for you to easily do this. Your posts don’t have to be long and they should be easy-to-read. One thing that works great for me is that I pretty much write the blog like I would speak, conversational and friendly. Cathedral Ridge Winery has a great blog called the Barrel Room Buzz and they talk about everything from harvest to recipes that go well with their wines. This makes readers feel closer to the companies they are doing business with.

6. Send Your Email Recipients to Your Blog – You can include your links and excerpts of your blog posts right in your email marketing campaigns. This spreads out your message to all of your recipients who could then forward your email to their friends.

7. Quick Change - You can change your content and update your blog in seconds. Use your website as either a brochure site or a retail store, use your blog as the voice of your company and let your readers in the front door of your company.

8. More than 140 Characters Allowed! – You can have more content on the blog than you can on Twitter, or that you’d want to on Facebook. Use these social media outlets to send people to your blog and build up your own traffic to your domain, not theirs.

9. Analyze – You can tell what type of content you write attracts the most people. You can either use Google Analytics or most blogging software will tell you what is causing your traffic to spike. Then you can write posts that readers want to read more.

10. Get Feedback – As opposed to many static websites, you can ask your readers to comment on your articles. For instance at VerticalResponse we have 3 different blogs. One is specific to product changes that are going to be happening. We can solicit feedback from customers before we release the new features to gauge how they feel about it.

So if you think you’re wasting your time on blogging, think again! There are tremendous benefits to committing some of your busy time to communicating via a blog. Start today!

by Jonathan Marshall

iPhone applications need one characteristic to be successful and appreciated by consumers: they need to be useful and more than anything else- worth talking about.

When I read that Tide came out with an iPhone app I was quite doubtful that the company actually knew what they were doing and assumed that another enormous brand had just jumped on the social media bandwagon like everyone else.

After checking out their website and seeing how detailed their instructions were, as well as seeing how many people had already used their advice and made comments on it- I had to admit that I was wrong (not my favorite thing to do, even when it is only to myself).

The rational they use and the service they want to provide is pretty legitimate, and it’s clear that they contracted a social media expert to guide the campaign and make sure everything was being executed appropriately. Their overall goal is pretty simple and straightforward: an informative guide to stain removal, and an application that helps consumers find and share solutions for stains.

A pleasantly-surprised Thumbs up goes to Tide! Glad to see you didn’t miss the entire point and overall appeal of social media…

by Jonathan Marshall

Today the JTCG Blog features Manoj Jasra, current director of Internet Marketing Strategies at Shaw Communications Inc. Jasra discusses the importance of incorporating Google analytics into not only your search engine marketing campaign, but your entire website development strategy from the start. It’s VERY important to understand the correct way to use the statistics from your analytics reports to make decisions about your website. In today’s heavy digital lifestyle, these decisions will have a direct impact on your business. Check out what this seasoned SEO Professional has to say in the video below.