Use Twitter To Jump Start Your Traffic In 5 Easy Steps
A lot of people are asking the question how to get more traffic to your blog. And a lot of people are giving the same answers, “build up all traffic streams” “target keywords” “comment on blogs” etc. This works well for the established blogger but it’s a long and painful road for the new guy. Good thing the game is changing. There are now easier ways to compete with the big players.
The Shortcut
Normally traffic is built up by compounding returns. Each traffic source adds on the previous. Once you target enough keywords and have enough backlinks your site will build up significant traffic. The only problem is it all takes work, and the more competitive your topic the harder it is to get traffic. This means that for weeks or even months you may not get beyond 30 hits a day. I have one site that is nearly 2 months old and is only getting 10-20 visitors a day outside of Twitter. Including Twitter it gets around 400 a day.
How Does It Work
Social sites give the small guy a mouth. No longer does it depend on your SEO experience or your established domain names, now you can get quality traffic just by producing quality content. With social sites once you write a quality post (with a catchy title, see How To Write Article Titles For Traffic) you will naturally generate traffic even if it’s your first post ever.
There are many social sites you can use to build social traffic but I’m going to focus on Twitter.
How To Leverage Twitter
Using Twitter to get jump start your traffic still requires a little bit of effort but you will see quick results even if you are in a competitive industry. Here’s how:
1) Set up a Twitter account (best if the name is related to your blog).
2) Add followers who are interested in your niche.
Either find them through search.twitter.com or follow those who follow of other tweeters in your niche. Read 3 Ways To Get Target Followers (For Free) or use Twitter Snipe to do it automatically.
3) Add followers who are on other social sites (digg, stumble upon, reddit etc). Find them with search.twitter.com.
4) Tweet about your new posts.
5) After a few days tweet to remind people and ask them to retweet and submit to social sites.
You will get visitors to your site straight away (the more targeted Twitter followers the better). The traffic from the following retweets/bookmarks is also very powerful. For example I made the Digg front page a few weeks ago and had nearly 2000 views in about 15 minutes (resulting in server crash.. make sure your hosting is prepared). For more on social bookmarking see Social Bookmarking 101 and Getting Popular on Social Bookmarking Sites.
Long Term
By following this strategy and building your Twitter following you will see a constant growth in your traffic. As a bonus you will be improving your search engine ranking as your site naturally builds up backlinks. Remember to target keywords along the way as eventually you’ll have substantial search engine traffic to support your social traffic.
All the best!
Hi Tim,
I saw a comment you left on John Chow's post about Hummingbird asking about the ability to follow by keyword. While Hummingbird does not offer this feature, we've just released a product called Bird Feeder that supports this any many other advanced features, and at a much lower price. Bird Feeder is free to try, unlike Hummingbird, so check it out, and feel free to blog your thoughts. (link on my name)
Reply
Josh, I saw your comment and decided to check out the product you mentioned. Very cool! thanks for the tip
Reply
Hi Tim,
Just a thank you note. I've recently waded through oceans of cryptic stuff about using Twitter to grow traffic and your article is the first (and I mean the FIRST) one to make logical sense and to present a comprehensible plan of action. Most of what I've read make Twitter sound like some sort of arcane secret society that mere mortals will never likely get the hang of. The other problem with getting a handle on all of this is that too many writers throw a few half-baked bones out to newbies and save their real firepower for cyber-insiders. Thanks for writing as if we're just new at this, not stupid.
Well, I'm off to follow your lead, wish me luck and thanks, again. Cheers, lad – Frumpzilla
Reply
I'm a newbie on the blog world. Your post on twitter has urged me to try twitter. Until now I had just heard about it and seen on other websites. Thanks again!
Reply
Good take. :-)
Reply
Don't neglect the valuable Tweet that does not link to anything. If your followers only see Tweets that point to your blog or biz deal, they will unfollow or ignore you. Twitter is more of a party than a business meeting. Don't be boring.
Reply
Tim Scullin Reply:
June 9th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
Good point
Reply
Tim, I have learned so much from your blog over the past few days. I am 100% newbie to the world of blogs and Twitter, but within two days I have 500 followers on Twitter and think I have a handle on how to provide valuable tweets. I've bookmarked your site because I still have a lot to learn.
Reply
My biggest mistake, when I first joined Twitter was to follow lots of people indiscriminately. I've spent a lot of time un-following people since then. If you follow too many people, who don't share your interests, it becomes pointless because most of the content you see is irrelevant to you.
Reply
Leave your response!
Follow Tim Scullin dot Com
Most Popular
Sponsors
Categories
Recent Comments
Recent Posts
Most Commented
Most Viewed