How to Use Technical SEO to Optimize for Twitter Cards

What are Twitter Cards?

Twitter cards refer to a media-rich snippet, including visual cues for viewers. This is an improved version of a standard tweet. These snippets include images, videos, links, product information, or app download options. 

Importance of Twitter Cards in SEO

Contents with images and interactive features get more interaction in social media. Tweets containing images received 41% retweets and a 55% increase in leads. 

As you know, Search engines and social media algorithms value engagement and interaction. Twitter has a tie-up with Google. This is why whenever you search for an entity. Search query or individual, you see relevant tweets in the search results. 

If your tweeter cards get more Twitter visibility, it increases site traffic. More traffic equals more interactions. This means more chances to rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP).

How do Twitter Cards Help in Social Media and Search Engine Optimization?

Twitter cards are extremely valuable to increase sales and brand awareness. Most importantly, they can serve as a ranking factor in search engines. 

There are different types of Twitter cards available on the platform. Some are for enhancing user experience, while others are solely for generating revenue. 

To integrate your URL into Twitter cards, you need to add a card meta tag to it. Then you tweet the URL like any regular tweet. In the next step, Twitter will crawl the code and fetch the content from the site. 

Twitter cards also help users to see more posts about the brand in their timelines. This increases the chance of more engagement. 

Technical SEO Tips to Optimize Twitter Cards

Setup the Twitter Card Code in the Header

You need to have some technical knowledge to use Twitter cards. 

To set up Twitter cards on your site, you must upload a specific meta tag code to the HTML markup in your site's header section.

Choose a content card and add the meta tag below to your HTML header. 

Add <meta name=”twitter:card” content=”summary” /> before </header>tag. 

Note − You can only use one card type per page.

There are plugins and extensions to add a meta tag to Twitter tags. However, for business, it's recommended to upload the code manually

Now it's time for validation. Run the URL through the Twitter validator test tool.

Use Social Signals to Rank in Search Engines

Search engines index tweets to feature them in search results. When they index tweets, the contents from tweeter cards also get indexed. However, the links used in tweet cards are nofollowed by default. As a result, PageRank will not follow the link. 

However, nofollow doesn't apply to social signals. Social signals are human interactions and engagements you see on social media. They include comments, likes, and shares. On Twitter, they come in retweets, quotes, and conversations.

 Social sharing has increased exponentially over the years, so social signals can play a significant role. Time on page, content quality, and editorial linking are some factors to focus on. 

Businesses looking to rank their pages in social media may look for a comprehensive social media strategy and SEO tactics. In other words, strategies designed for social media optimization can work for social media optimization.

Undoubtedly developing solid and unique content is critical. Contents offering value, entertainment, and information garners more positive interactions. 

Some tips to increase social signals include −

• Post content daily with your brand on top of social media news feeds.

• Use high-quality images that look appealing to the eyes.

• Check the comment sections to understand what your audiences want from you.

• Monitor your social shares, retweets, likes, and keywords using free social media marketing apps.

• Try content and giveaways to grab the attention of people.

• Share links and produce unique content with other people's brands.

• Have your presence on all top social media sites.

Use Local Citations in Twitter Cards to Optimize SEO

Local businesses can use local citations in Twitter cards to increase their chance of ranking in search engines. The local citation refers to any online mention of a brand or company. It includes the local business's partial or complete name, address, and phone number. This is also known as NAP data. 

Citations allow users to discover your business, which impacts your local search engine rankings. Having a high-quality citation helps your site rank higher in Google's local search interfaces. 

When a user searches for a product or service nearby, google displays the best local business on the search engine results page. It is decided based on the business's relevance, credibility, and local citations.

Citations are a way for Google to verify if your business is located in the place mentioned on your website. When Google crawls the internet to check for legitimate companies, it will view your business as legitimate if it has local citations. 

The more your business gets mentioned and cited online, the more chances you have that Google will display your site in local search results.

Conclusion

Site owners and SEO experts must understand the power of optimizing Twitter Cards on social media. These Twitter cards effectively promote brand exposure and drive massive traffic to sites. Just make sure to optimize them with best possible course of action for a rewarding traffic in future.