Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has been the way to communicate what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, and what you’re eating to the world. It’s true; with more than 100 million people logging on every month to tweet their pet pictures, share upcoming local events, and the latest and greatest events in their day, Twitter users share every thought and whim in real-time with their followers.
However, for SEOs and link builders specifically (we use Twitter to identify link building opportunities at the SEO company I work for all the time) Twitter offers more than a simple opportunity to share what pub you’re at or what movie you just caught. Twitter offers much in the way of link building targeting—meaning high ranking, highly followed sites that you can approach for guest post opportunities in exchange for a back link.
As far as making your online presence known to high ranking, relevant sites, Twitter is the place to be…or rather Tweet. This social media platform offers the perfect foundation for you to follow, retweet, and connect with the sites and readers you are targeting just by re-tweeting and replying to their tweets to making your presence obvious. This way, when you approach them with a guest post, they will be more likely to respond and accept it.
Here are three ways you can use Twitter to find guest post opportunities…
1. Key Influencers
One really quick way to identify high ranking blogs with lots of visitors within your target niche is with key influencer tools. A tool like Twiping exports the data on any Twitter account—including important measuring data like number of follows and URLs, which indicates a strong blog and strong back link potential. These are the sites you want to approach for back links.
2. Twitter Lists
Twitter Lists is another tool that can tell you exactly which blogs and websites on the platform are in your niche or relevant to your site. Make your own custom Twitter list by scanning some of the key lists and using a tool like Tweet Deck to monitor those sites in your target niche. This way you can quickly retweet and reply to their tweets to build up a connection and identify potential guest post opportunities that arise from the relationship.
3. Established Connections
I get new followers all the time on Twitter and I had zero idea who they were. Obviously they were interested in what I was Tweeting about so I assumed they would be interested in reading my blog (and bookmarking it) as well, right? And if they would be interested in bookmarking my site, they might be interested in linking to it too, right? That’s when I decided to find out exactly who my followers were. I did this by:
- First, exporting my Twitter profile information using the Twiping tool (same as above)
- Then I got my list of followers and cut their URLs into a list
- Low and behold, I had a list of my follower’s sites
- I used this list to reach out for guest posting opportunities—with mention that they already followed me on Twitter
By Guest Author –Caeden M MacGregor is a staff writer for Prestige Marketing, a Vancouver SEO company specializing in organic and paid search marketing. Caeden has written for numerous blogs on a variety of topics ranging from guest blogging to landing page optimization.
