10 Easy Steps to Generate Traffic to your Web Site with Twitter

I run a number of blogs and web sites, some for business and some as hobbies. Sometimes I blog because I am trying to generate discussion or a buzz about something I'm working on, or I just have something on my mind, sort of like now. I often use Twitter to get additional targeted traffic to my web sites and especially my blogs. Here are 10 tips on how to make the most of Twitter harness its traffic.

1. Sign up for an account at Twitter. You can customize your profile with your screen name and share personal information that you choose. You can also add a link to your web site, obviously this is important. There are background image generators you can make use of to create a fully customized background, or you can simply upload an image, or even use one of the standard templates offered within the Twitter interface.

2. Good Twitter etiquette is important. Much like other social networking web sites, people like to feel welcomed by you and you want to feel welcomed by them, however responding to every follower can be a huge daily undertaking. Try using Tweet Later. This tool allows you to set up an automated greeting to all your new followers. You can create a custom message like, "Thanks for the follow, read about tiddlywinks on my blog: http://www.tiddlywinksfreak.com!" Make sure to have the http:// in there to make the link clickable. You can also select an option that will automatically follow any new followers that follow you. Tweeps love that too, when you show them the same love they showed you.

3. This is the step that takes some time, but you only have to work on it once or twice a week to be effective. Use Twitter's "Find People" feature to search for other Tweeps that have similar interests. Since my blog is about tiddlywinks, I may search for simply "tiddlywinks". Then follow all the Tweeps that show up, plus follow all of their followers. You can follow up to 2000 Tweeps before you will get told you can't follow anymore. As you gain followers yourself, you will be allowed to follow more and so on.

4. Once you have maxed out your follows, spend some time getting to know your Twitter account and your followers. Respond to as many, if not all, @replys so that your followers know you are paying attention to them. Send out @replys to those who say something interesting and try to make interesting comments yourself to try to spark up conversation. Do this for about a week before proceeding to tip #5.

5. When you follow people on Twitter more often than not they will follow you back, however sometimes people don't. This is why it is now time to login to refollow. Sign in using your Twitter login and password, and you can browse through your followers, viewing them by following me, not following me, i'm following, i'm not following, etc. Start by viewing I'm not following. Select all and click "Follow". This will ensure that you are following everyone who is following you, good karma. Next view, not following me, select all, and click "unfollow. This will unfollow all Tweeps who didn't show you the love that you showed them. The reason we wait a week before doing this, is because we want to give them a good chance to follow you back before cutting them loose. Once this is complete, and assuming you had Tweeps to unfollow, you can repeat step 3 until maxed out again.

6. If you're like me and use Digg, then sign up for Twiggit. This will automatically post your Diggs to your Twitter account, saving you time and spreading the word faster.

7. Another helpful way to spread the word is through Ping.fm. With this little beauty, you can simultaneously post to Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Identi, and many other social networking and bookmarking web sites. While this tool isn't specifically for Twitter, it can really save a lot of time for you and make Tweeting that much easier.

8. If you really want to kick up the Tweeting process, then this step is more of a part 1 to step 9, but a very important one none the less. Using our Google account, log into Feedburner. Make sure your blog, or web site that uses a feed of some sort is pointing to your Feedburner account and burn your feeds there. Trust me, not only can you take advantage of many great features, this will be very worth while in the next step.

9. It's like the heavens have opened up and shone upon the word wide web! Setup Twitter Feed and your life will never be the same. With Twitter Feed you can use your rss feeds, previously hot rodded with Feedburner, and have them automatically post to your Twitter account. You can customize your setting so it's as frequent or infrequent as you wish. You can now simply post to your blog as you normally would, and voila! Twitter is now on autopilot!

10. Don't ignore your Twitter account at this point, login and reply to your @replys, keep using refollow and continue to add more followers. Do this for a few weeks and watch the traffic flow to your web site. Eventually the followers will just come to you, and your web site.

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By John Simmonds @ 9:16 PM