This is part of my 30 Days To More Traffic Series
There has been a lot of buzz about the growth of twitter and many people are looking to use twitter to get traffic to their website.
Here are 10 simple ways to get more traffic from twitter.
1. Tweet about new posts to your blog
Whenever you post something new to your blog or website you should Tweet about it. For me this results in instant traffic to my website.
2. Use great titles to get more clicks
Having a great title will result in more of your followers clicking on your link.
One of the simplest ways to make a good title is to have it start with a number. For example:
3 Ways To…
5 Reasons Why…
7 Strategies For…
Numbered headlines get your attention and give you a preview of the content.
It is also a good idea to have your title promise to solve a problem that the reader has. If it promises real benefit to the reader they are far more likely to click on the link.
For example the title of this blog post promised to show you how to get traffic to your website using twitter. Getting traffic to your website is a difficult task and a common problem that people have. The title promise real value.
Putting these two concepts together (using numbered headlines and solving readers problems) you can create great titles that will get more clicks on twitter.
3. Only tweet about things of value
We live in a age of information overload and one of the ways of coping with this is to ignore stuff. In fact we ignore most of the information out there.
So if you don’t want your tweets should be ignored by your followers and make sure they have real value.
And don’t try to sell something via twitter. A lot of people have lost their followers because they tried to make a quick buck.
Remember that people follow you because of the value you provide to them. The minute you stop doing this is the minute that you lose followers.
4. Tweet about old blog posts
There will be some days when you don’t have any new blog posts to tweet about.
When this happens simply find an old blog post with good value and tweet about that. Chances are that many of your followers have never seen it.
5. Use Google Analytics to track the best days & times to tweet
Some days a week and sometimes the day are better than others for tweeting about your new blog posts and getting traffic.
I recommend trying different times to see what works best. I use Google analytics to help me determine how much traffic I get from different tweets.
Gary McCaffrey has gathered data that suggests that 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time) are the best times to tweet and get traffic.
This is probably a good place to start. But you need to test and discover what works best for you.
6. Make it easy for visitors to tweet about your site
If you use WordPress there is a simple plug-in that puts a “ReTweet This” button on every blog post. It allows visitors to retweet your post with a click of button. It also displays how many people have tweeted about it.
It’s called the Tweetcount Plugin and you can download it here for free:
http://www.backtype.com/plugins/tweetcount
7. Use url shorteners
On twitter you only have 140 characters and it would be a shame to waste it with some long and ugly URL. So I recommend using a URL shortening or like tinyurl.com.
This allows you to devote more characters to an eye-catching title and description and fewer characters to your URL.
8. Keep your Tweets less than 120 characters
I want people to be able to easily retweet my stuff and so I try to have all of my tweets be 120 characters or less. Then when someone retweets something of mine there is plenty of room for the “RT @NicksTraffic” which is placed at the front of the retweet.
And having more retweets results in more traffic for me.
9. Get more followers
Obviously if you have more followers then each tweet get more attention and result in more traffic to your website. Here are a couple ways to get more followers:
- Place an invitation to follow you on twitter on your homepage. I recommend putting it above the fold where people can see it without having to scroll down.
- After your main content block on every page post a link to your twitter account that says something like “Follow @NicksTraffic on twitter and great tips on X”
10. If you tweet with a link to a video or audio make sure you mention it in your tweet
Sometimes I’ll find a great YouTube video that I want to share with my followers. I know that some of them are at work and may not appreciate having a video come onto their screen alerting their boss that they are watching videos and not working.
So whenever I tweet a link to a YouTube video I always begin the tweet with the word Video so that my followers know it’s a video and can choose whether to watch it at that time.
For example: “Video: 11 ways to get more traffic for free”
Doing this builds a level of trust with my followers. They trust that if I tweet about a video they will know before hand and not be caught off guard. And this results in more traffic for me.
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
That is some great advice. Tip #3 rings true to me. There are a lot of wasted tweets out there.
That’s very true.
Hey Nick,
Thanks for the post… right now I’m working on building my knowledge of Twitter, so I’m reading as much as possible… to be honest some time I’ve resisted exploring Twitter, thinking the whole idea was kind of lame… I mean TWEETS!
But I eat my words… I’m seeing a lot of value, best of all, it’s not over complicated – good for me!
I like your tip, using numbers and offering benefits/solutions in titles, and looking at your site I see you use this tip often… I think I will also, strange how the numbers get that extra bit of attention… every little helps…
Thanks.
Glad to help.
Nick, thanks for the comprehensive post.
I know twitter and have only recently started to use it. This really helps.
Nick,
I have referenced to your site many times to learn new tips and tricks. I should leave more comments, but most of the time I’m in the flow of buffering my brain from information overload by pressing onward, storing the information, and re-viewing it later.
This time I have to stop and say thanks a million, because of all the things you put up for me to learn. I just followed you as I should have at the start, but as I said information overload prevention steps sometimes means I skip something I shouldn’t have.
I’ve RTweeted this info, because it is vital to those seeking to build a good list and really want to connect to their followers. The tip on alerting your followers that the link is a video or sound clip is simple, but genius! I have not been doing that and now I will definitely add that to my means of treating my followers well.
(BTW, do you mind if I tweet about this article every other week or so? I would like to make sure any new followers can learn this info.)
Thanks, thanks, thanks!
Keith
Thank you for the kind words. I’m glad you find my blog useful. Feel free to retweet any blog post as often as you like.
Hi Nick,
I’ve just twitted this article of yours to say thanks for your great info and tips
Sad to say I’m only getting few visits from twitter even though my followers are already 6000
Thanks,
Vins
Sounds like your followers are very interested in what you’re tweeting about.
I use sumbleupon’s URL shortener: http://su.pr/. This shows you how many clicks you get and also suggests when to post based on previous click-throughs.
I have been using that too and it works really well.