What can you do if your company website has little traffic and search engines don't give it the time of day? How do you promote your company and drive traffic to your website? How do you attract new customers online without spending more money on online marketing? How can you affordably attract search engine bots and get them to index your website?

Until recently these questions would be much more challenging to answer, but thanks to Twitter the answer is easy. If you didn't catch that we said TWITTER. Yes, that is right Twitter can be your company's most affordable and best SEO Tool!

So how does Twitter help the average small business owner with SEO and website traffic? Simple, by leveraging the millions of daily users and taking advantage of the real-time indexing by major search engines. Below are 5 Twitter tips for SEO Success.

5 Small Business Twitter SEO Tips

#1 - Be a Follower and Get Followed

The key to the Twitter Marketing is followers and their influence on their followers -- especially followers that could use your product or service or are located near your business. Seek followers by geographic location, tweet history, number of followers, and interests. Set-up searches for your product or service and follow anyone that tweets about your company or product. The key is "Quality over Quantity" when discussing Twitter followers - more about this later.

You will usually have to follow others to get followed - at least initially.

#2 - Be an Active Tweeter

The tweeter that fails to tweet is also the tweeter that fails to gain followers and influence. The key to twitter is gaining influence over other tweeters and trying to get your tweets re-tweeted. Yes it is a very good thing if your tweets are re-tweeted - so try to have this happen a lot! The more retweets the better because it helps build your Twitter network, in turn attracting more interest to your company and website. This is why it is so important to try and locate followers that share your interest and are also active tweeters themselves. High influence tweeters can prove to be your best Twitter marketing strategy.

Do not spam your followers with constant updates only about your company and services. Contribute to the community by appropriately and relevantly retweeting, mentioning, and direct messages other users. Don't be afraid to give some link love to other users.

Include a link to your website periodically to promote a new product or service. If you are a recognized tweeter Google and other search engine bots will jump on your link almost instantly and index your new content!

#3 - Tweet with Relevant Keywords

If your tweets lack relevant keywords than your hard work will most likely go unnoticed. Be sure to use all 140 characters carefully. Plan out each tweet and think about the potential for broad Twitter appeal. Failing to include keyword rich tweets will make it more challenging to gain new followers, maintain current followers, and attract new website traffic. Think of each tweet as a way to sell a new potential customer on your product, service, or content.

Your one tweet could be tweeted all over the world if other Twitter users find it useful or interesting!

#4 - Create a Strong Profile

You have 160 characters so make it count! Really think about your company's Twitter profile description and provide information that will interest other users while also informing them of your company and mission. Provide important information about your company or just have fun and write about something interesting. Think of your profile description as your first impression to gain a new follower.

Adding a link to your company website also boosts your Twitter Profile. Don't forget to do this because this is what people will click when they find you interesting and want to learn more about your company.

#5 - Give the Twitterverse New Content

Just because you are on Twitter and you have a website does not mean you are guaranteed better search engine placement. Your best bet is to update your website frequently and tell Twitter about it. Every time you add a page or write a blog entry, be sure to tweet the URL of the new content. Tweeting the URL of your new content will help drive new traffic to your website, increase exposure, build a better online presence, and encourage search engines to crawl your site. If the content is really good, you may even get a few powerful retweets! In other words, Twitter can help spread the word of any website updates much quicker and to a much larger audience.