Last week Google announced it would start placing greater emphasis on social results in a search, based on their relevancy. If that sounds like a brand’s social strategy can be used to boost SEO, that is correct: at least SEO bloggers are coming to that conclusion.

Janet Aronica at One Forty notes that while Google won’t treat Tweeted links quite the same as web-based links, it will consider Tweets and Facebook mentions that are visible on public Facebook accounts in page ranking. She gives a quick refresher on boosting a Twitter profile, with such advice as creating great content, using Listorious and Follower Wonk to find people listed by subject matter to follow, running a Twtpoll and using Rowfeeder to identify influencers and Crowdbooster and Timely to identify when your Tweets get the most click-throughs and when your audience is most receptive to your content.

An "Unexpected Case Study"

For SEO marketers dubious about social media’s incursion into their space, Jen Lopez, Community Manager at SEOmoz, tells of one "unexpected case study" on the value of a tweet on a page's ranking and traffic.

One recent day Lopez saw a number of Tweets about the site's Beginner's Guide to SEO. The source? Smashing Magazine had tweeted about it and its followers were retweeting it. Suddenly, she wrote, "we were actually ranking on the first page for the term "Beginner's Guide" without SEOmoz or SEO…Now, previously we weren't tracking that keyword as we hadn't really thought about trying to rank for such a general term… and most of the traffic to the Beginner's Guide usually comes from keywords like seo guide, seomoz beginners guide, what is seo, beginners guide seo, seo keyword research, etc. which are all directly related to SEO and the guide."

Lopez at first thought the ranking would was a fluke but over the next week it fluctuated between the first and the second page for "Beginner's Guide".

Organic traffic also received a boost, she says.