Which is more important, your Ranking on Google or your Target Audience Following on Twitter?

Without question you want to be seen online and many companies spend a great deal of their marketing budgets exploring ways to increase the chances of potential customers visiting their website or other capture pages in order to sell their products and services. I thought it time to explore the question of “Which is more important, your Ranking on Google or your Target Audience Following on Twitter?“.

I believe that this comparison is won by Twitter because the value that a target audience that follows you on social media outweighs the key benefits and ROI from achieving a high ranking on Google. Reasons for this are:

  • If you have an active target audience following you on a social media platform, in this case Twitter, then they are far more responsive than those going to Google doing a search for keywords. On Twitter your audience could be either searching for keywords or simply using the channel to socialise / network and on each occasion can come past a post from you that sells them your product / service.
  • Twitter has it’s own search facility so just like Google, you will appear on a list of most relevant. You can appear as not only an account, but by Tweet, image, news and more… Correct keyword / hashtagging allows you to be seen just as keywords and phrases, titled images etc gives you presence on Google.
  • You can promote your account and Tweets which is the same as sponsored placements  for keywords on Google.
  • If you grow a sizeable target audience on Twitter you could achieve more engagement with your Tweets over the amount of times your keyword / phrase is searched for on Google.
  • Google is all about waiting for people to use their platform to search for keywords, you can not affect who will be using the search engine and when. On Twitter, with a target audience following, you can market to each individual person when you want to and on many occasions, with push notifications etc, your followers will be notified when they are mentioned. Clever and non-spam style marketing with this in mind, can deliver far better results over Google.
  • If you have a large and active target audience on a social media platform, then you have a whole marketing channel in the palm of your hand that outweighs advertising in the local paper, industry magazines, Google ranking, leaflet dropping and more… Just imagine that the town you have your estate agency in has 25,000 residents and that those 25,000 followed you on Twitter – Each and every tweet you send has the chance to be seen by all of them at some point another over a period of say 2 weeks to 1 month and you can message them with your promotions, listings, news whenever you decide with whatever keyword and content you wish ~ surely that is an incredibly valuable tool to have?

I am not suggesting that we simply ignore Google or do not put into place actions that help with ranking us on their search engine, we’d be foolish to do that – But I do believe that to see a better ROI, especially during 2015 and the next few years until we are presented with another marketing style / trend, we should look to spend our marketing budgets / time more towards social media over than our placements on Google.

No doubt that the likes of house for sale or property auction are great search terms to be found with on Google, but the costs of these are growing and at present, the likes of your search term being presented to an interested party on their news feed is currently free, the mathematics tell me that so long as your target audience is growing, then the better ROI you’ll see from Twitter over Google.

Christopher Walkey

Founder of Estate Agent Networking. Internationally invited speaker on how to build online target audiences using Social Media. Writes about UK property prices, housing, politics and affordable homes.

You May Also Enjoy

what is happening to house prices
Letting Agent Talk

Smart Upgrades: Boosting Rental Property Value Without Breaking the Bank

Most landlords don’t have a vault of gold stashed away for renovations. If you do, good for you (and maybe hide it better?). But for the rest of us, improving a rental property usually means walking a tightrope between cost and ROI. So what can you actually do that won’t drain your savings, and still…
Read More
Home and Living

Creating the Perfect Rental: Balancing Aesthetics, Functionality, and ROI

Let’s get this out of the way: “perfect” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that title. Because, really, no rental is perfect. Not for everyone. Not forever. But if you’re aiming to create a rental that looks good, works well, and pays you back in more than just stress headaches? You’re in the…
Read More
Letting Agent Talk

The Landlord’s Guide to Hassle-Free Maintenance and Long-Term Tenant Satisfaction

Do you own rental property? If yes, you already know that you are being put on a test: keeping things running smoothly while somehow managing not to lose your mind (or your best tenants). Maintenance. It’s not fun. But neglect it, and your rental becomes a revolving door of disappointed tenants and mounting repair bills.…
Read More
Breaking News

Inheritance Tax Receipts raise £0.8 billion in one month

Inheritance tax receipts hit £0.8 billion in April 2025 according to data released by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) this morning. This is £97 million higher than in April of the previous tax year, and continues an upward trend over the last two decades. With such a strong start to the new tax year, predictions that Inheritance tax…
Read More
Breaking News

Zoopla research reveals homeownership outranks marriage as top priority for UK adults

A new survey from Zoopla reveals that 48 per cent of UK renters in a relationship are prioritising saving for a home over a wedding, with this figure rising to 59 per cent amongst Gen Z The financial pressures of saving for a home have resulted in a fifth considering postponing marriage in favour of…
Read More
Breaking News

London rental market rebalances amid rising supply

Foxtons data shows There was a 5% increase in market supply in April, and a 9%, increase in market supply of new instructions year to date The average rent in April 2025 increased by 3% to stand at £589 per week April saw a 3% month-on-month reduction in applicant registrations, which goes against the trend…
Read More