We wrote a couple of months ago about the value of social networking sites like Twitter. If you’re reading this column, it’s likely you know Twitter, whether you use it or not. Today, let’s consider the SEO value of Twitter.

We have a client in Dublin, and a site developed through our Dublin office, and the site is Dublin Vouchers.  It serves as the on-line component of Dublin Local Business Directory, a business that has as its off-line component a coupon booklet distribution to tens of thousands of households. The site has a blog, and posts to a regular monthly schedule.  An excerpt feed pulls the first few lines to the home page, thus helping refresh the content there.

The business also has a Twitter account, and our client keeps active through his account.  He’s acquired many followers in just his first few months, and his readership continues to grow.

We took it one step further, though, and added a Twitter feed to the home page of the site.  You’ll see it on the left, below the business voucher search engine.  Every time a new “Tweet” is posted to the Twitter account, it feeds to the home page of the site.  By including a keyword in the “Tweet,” valuable copy is added to the site, and the home page content is refreshed.

Now, to the value part.  One of the keywords our client wanted to be ranked well for on Google, Yahoo and Bing was:  “vouchers for dublin businesses.”  We helped him include this keyword on both his Twitter page and his home page, and counseled him to include it in his blog posts and home page content, generally.

When you search, for instance that keyword on Google, you will find his web site ranked #1 and #1 for it.  If you look just a little more, though, you will see that his Twitter page is ranked #5 for the same keyword.  Not only does that make his site easier for someone to find in a search, it also means some competitor has been bumped over to the second page of search results.

Twitter is a micro-blogging site.  Each “Tweet” is limited to 140 characters, and that includes letters, punctuation and spaces.  But, it’s all content, and as we continually report, content remains king.  Twitter is another online tool for content generation, and its value depends on how you use it.

In the case of Dublin Vouchers, he is using it wisely and well, and the proof is in the results.  #5 on Google for the keyword of his choice.  Social Networking sites have great value in introducing people to each other, and as you can see on Dublin Vouchers, they can have great value in search engine optimization benefit.