Wednesday 11 May 2016

How to Increase Website Traffic With Twitter

Despite sluggish growth in recent past years, Twitter is still one of the most effective social media sites to drive traffic to your website. If you want to increase traffic to your website with Twitter, in this article you will learn several tips and tricks.

With over 316 million active users as of November 2015, Twitter stands at number 8th position in terms of leading global social media networks with active users. Twitter is one of the fastest and easiest social media platforms to bring more readers to your website. Unlike other platforms, Twitter takes less time to increase followers as users in this platform are very active. 34% of the twitter account holders log onto their account more than once a day. 

Here is the list of top social media sites and how twitter is performing relative to other sites.


Twitter active users
                                                                            Source
The number of active users on Twitter has increased by over 250 million in the past five years. You can significantly improve traffic to your website if you know how to get more readers to your website or blog using Twitter.

As of January 2016, @katyperry with over 84 million followers stands at #1 position in terms of accounts with the largest number of followers worldwide followed by @justinbieber, @taylorswift13, and @barackobama.

However, interestingly the average number of followers per user is far less. Can you guess? It's only 208. So unless you are a celebrity or a big brand, it's not easy to get a huge following on twitter. You will have to work out ways to increase your followers and bring more traffic to your website.

Why is twitter so important in terms of increasing blog traffic? Have a look at the number of monthly active twitter users. 


                                                                               Source
When I started using this platform I never thought it could be such a great source of driving traffic to my blog within a short span of time (6 months). I used to believe twitter is much noisier than any other social media network. However, over the course of time I learned several things and now I find myself in a better position to use this platform effectively. 


Tips to get more website traffic with Twitter


Create a short profile: a profile is the first thing users look at when they want to follow you. A profile provides users idea about the content of your tweets. When it comes to a decision related to following someone on twitter, a majority of the users first check your profile, your niche, quality of your content and number of followers in your account. I have personally experienced an increase of 10% in the number of followers the day I created my profile.

Add your picture or logo: if you are a business entity you must include your company logo in your profile. A logo indicates that you are seriously following your business and it also helps in branding. If you are an individual you must include a picture in your profile. Users are most likely to remember a picture than a name. A picture in your profile helps users to recognize you and it also increases the familiar with other users. 

Post quality content: you are most likely to gain more followers if you post quality content. You can judge the quality of your content on the basis of its performance on other social media sites. 

Your image will build on the basis of the content you share with other users. So make sure to share content that enhances user experience and engages them with not just new information but also contextualized stories. 

Create a posting schedule: the best way to increase followers on twitter is to post your content regularly and frequently. Twitter allows you to Tweet frequently. If you have a large number of posts in your blog you can post as many as 20 Tweets per day. 

You must create a posting schedule and post your content according to a predefined marketing strategy. Never make the mistake of posting all of your content at the same time. It is always a better idea to post your content at an interval of two to three hour depending on the amount of content your want to share and the performance of your content on other social media sites. 

I have included a list of some of the social media tools at the end of this post that you can use to schedule your tweets, gain more followers and improve the visibility of your tweets.

Make use of #tag: hashtags enable you to reach out to target audience. Use of hashtag is one of the most effective methods of increasing followers, traffic, likes and reshares on Twitter. The day I started using #tag on my Tweets, the number of followers increased at much faster pace. I have personally experienced an increase of 25% in readership and 15% increase in likes. Here is a screenshot of one of my tweets that show how effective are hashtags if used correctly.




Write attention-grabbing headlines: Since twitter allows you to use only 140 characters to share your content, therefore it is important to write tweets that can help you stands out from the crowd. Your tweets should be long enough to cover the topic and short enough to create curiosity. Rephrase your tweets if you are not able to bring traffic to your website. Your tweets must be able to generate adequate interest to make readers click on your link.

Unlike, search engines where the ranking of the website depends on many factors, twitter provides all the users equal opportunity. Therefore, the title of your Tweets can make a huge difference and can help you driving tons of traffic to your website. However, make sure your content is great and tweets are relevant to your post content. Make sure to never misguide your audience. 

Use visuals to drive more traffic: Images, infographics, video, statistics, GIFs are the great sources of attracting the target audience and bringing them to your blog. An image speaks louder than words and if you can use a right image you can bring tons of traffic to your blog. 

According to Bufferapp.com, content with visuals gets 94% more total views and 40x more likely to be shared on social media networks. If you include video in your content, it would become 50x easier for you to rank on the first page of the search engine results. Video content is increasingly gaining popularity and this is why video content is the future of blogging

Make sure to read and like the tweets of fellow users: one of the strategies that most of the users adopt on twitter is that they frequently like the tweets of other users. When you like the tweets of other users on this platform the sender of the tweet is notified. This increases familiarity and helps you win more followers.

Build a list of target followers: Although a large number of followers are useful to increases readership, however, it does not guarantee increased engagement and conversion. You cannot drive more traffic to your website if you have untargeted followers in your account. Your followers are most likely to read your content if it satisfies their needs. 

For example, if your content is related to a local business, you are unlikely to get traffic from other geographical regions. Therefore, it’s no use targeting audience in Australia if your business operates only in the US. This is why a large number of users fail to drive traffic to their site despite many followers. Twitter allows you to set a geographical preference so that you can reach out to your ideal audience.

Employ time management practices: make sure to allot time for each activity on twitter. Whether it is sharing your content or reading the content of your followers. Allow a fixed time for each activity depending on your other commitments. Don’t be under the impression that if you will spend more time, you will get more success. Ideal 20 to 30 minutes would be more than enough in the beginning. You can gradually increase the time depending on the performance of your tweets and increase in the number of followers. On an average, twitter users spend 170 minutes per month on Twitter. 

Create an effective follow and unfollow strategy: Don't worry if you don't have a large number of followers. According to the Telegraph, the average twitter followers per user on twitter is 208 as mentioned above. So if you have more than 200 followers you should be more than happy. 

However, make sure to follow your target audience. When following or unfollowing other users keep these things in mind:


  • Do not follow and unfollow the same account over and over again (twitter might ban your account)
  • Do not unfollow a large number of accounts in a single day (20 is the limit)
  • Unfollow accounts that offer little in terms of content quality
  • Unfollow untargeted accounts
  • Do not unfollow accounts that offer you a lot in terms of content quality
  • Unfollow spammers
  • Unfollow accounts that follow you just with the intention of making you follow them back and then unfollow you
  • Follow only active accounts. 44% of the twitter accounts are inactive.

When it comes to deciding who to follow on twitter you should look at these parameters: -


  1. Look at the number of accounts the user is following: you stand little chance of following back if the user is following a handful of accounts.
  2. Look at the frequency of tweet : do not follow an account that fills your stream with a large number of tweets. You are most likely to miss important tweets if you have several accounts that spam your feed. Similarly do not follow inactive users. 
  3. Look at the content of the tweet: a great content helps you learn and grow whereas reading low-quality content is the wastage of time.


Actively participate in conversation: If someone likes your post or mention you in a tweet make sure to like the tweet or reply directly to the person. Communication allows you to increase familiarity and which in turn strengthens the bond between the audience and the account holder. 


Communication is the key to success on social media platforms. If you like a tweet, make sure to like it or reshare it with your followers. 

Influence the influencers: building a relationship with key influencers is the key to success on social media sites. You can do several things to attract the attention of key influencers in your industry such as mentioned them in your tweets, link back to their sites, quote interesting things or simply comment on their blog. The more an influencer gets familiar with you, the more successful will be your digital marketing strategy. 


Tools to drive traffic to your website


Use social media tools wisely to your advantage. There are several tools that you can use to improve your performance on twitter. For example:

Bufferapp: you can use this tool for scheduling tweets. You can schedule 10 posts in advance and set the time as per your requirements. 

Socialoomph: you can use this tool for repeating queues of tweets. This is a great tool for advanced users as it can automate almost anything. However, this tool offers limited functionality in a free version. 

ManageFiltter: you can use this tool for following and unfollowing accounts on day to day basis. This app also has functionality to target accounts based on location, keywords and account activity

Crowdfire: it is an application that helps you increase your followers. It provides you information about the number of new followers you have gained in a week. Basically, it is a self-promotion app that tweets on your behalf and lets other know about your performance on twitter.

However, keep in mind that these tools have been designed to help you improve penetration of your content and gain more followers on this platform. So make sure to use your own discretion while using these tools.

If you misuse these tools, they could also become the cause of your account suspension. Therefore, use these tools wisely and never use them for spamming or following or unfollowing a large number of accounts in a single day. 

Is there anything else you would like to suggest to drive more traffic to a website using twitter? Please leave your comments. If you liked this article, please share it with others too.

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