10 ways to get traffic from Twitter

With over 320 million monthly visitors, Twitter is one of the biggest social media platforms, it’s known as a micro-blogging site and despite its limited capabilities, it still continues to grow.

With so many active users, it’s a huge source of potential traffic and leads for your website and business.

Lots of people are still mystified by twitters purpose, they see no use for a platform that wants you to convey your message in less than 140 characters.

Twitter is made for mobile and hence the reason the majority of tweeting activity is done via smartphones. This also makes it really easy to use, so if you are not on twitter, go ahead and make an account and then come back to this guide.

However, because of its 140-character limit, it can be difficult to get your point across and get people to take action, like visiting your site or subscribing to your email list.

There are ways to make this an advantage, you can tease your followers with short clickbaity headlines, make more use of hashtags and use images and videos for more engagement.

Here are 10 methods to get more engagement with your tweets that will lead to more traffic to your site.

1.Tweet regularly

The twitter timeline is fast moving, do you know how many tweets there are per day? 500 million!! tweeting just a couple of times will not be enough. Many of your followers will miss it.

I tweet nearly every hour, yes it may seem like overkill but twitter brings the most traffic to my blog out of all other social media.

There are apps that make this less time consuming, HootSuite and buffer are probably the most popular in this area, but there are other quality apps that will make posting to your twitter account much more efficient.

2.Keep it short

Yup, I know what you’re thinking, how much shorter can we make a tweet with its 140 character limit, well according to this study, tweets with 100 or fewer characters get 21% more engagement.

So, the shorter the tweet, the more likely it will get engagement

So how do we do this?

Keep it short and simple, get creative, tease your followers, make them want to know more.

Tweet questions that your article will answer, use clickbait like headlines (notice I said ‘clickbait like headlines ‘you don’t want to lose your audience by tweeting headlines that have nothing to do with your article or blog post.)

3.Use visuals

Just like writing a blog post with images will get your audience more engaged with your content, using images in your tweets will sky rocket your engagement and click through rates.

According to this study, tweets with images are likely to get twice the more engagement than those without images.

Just like your tweets, you will need to produce compelling images that will make people notice.

Does your image have to have a connection with your article? Not necessarily, as long as it’s not completely off the mark and you have text within the image that gives an idea of what you are linking to, your followers will not mind.

4.Use stats

Stats make people notice, amazing stats will make people want to know more.

I love sports, if I see a tweet with some amazing sporting stats and a link I will definitely be clicking to find out more

Reel of a couple of interesting stats in your niche and then link to your article. Put the stats in an image and tweet it.

5.Pin a tweet

Pinned tweets are a brilliant way to get people to visit your best content. Pinned tweets remain at the top of your profile page, so whenever someone looks through your timeline, they see that tweet first.

Make this tweet the most compelling, use images, short descriptions with a clear call to action or a link to your latest article.

This study by buffer shows that pinning a tweet can get you 3-5 times more engagement than regular tweets.

Update your pinned tweets regularly, see which one gets the most engagement and pin those ones for a little longer.

Test different types of media, like videos, gifs and images, mix it up and see what drives more traffic.

6.Find out when you get more engagement

As with everything on the web, you will get times when your twitter engagement is at its peak.

There are ways to find this out and tweet your best content during this period and get more traffic to your site.

You can find out how many clicks and impressions you get from twitter analytics, this is a great place to see what tweets are getting the most engagement and analyse the demographics of your followers.

You can also analyse the time of day your tweets are getting the most impressions, go to your Twitter profile and on the right, there should be a small graph which shows the number of impressions you got for the past 24 hours.

Check this data for a few days and you should get an idea of when you are getting the most impressions.

You can then plan your tweets around the times you will get the most engagement.

This is useful if you ever run twitter ads.

7.Use hashtags

Twitter has become synonymous with hashtags, hashtags give your followers an idea what your article covers.

According to this article, tweets with hashtags are more likely to get retweeted than those without.

There are various ways you can determine which hashtags to use.

1.You can start by typing in your keywords for your article with the hashtag before it and see if twitter autofill’s its.

2.Research what hashtags others in your niche have used for similar articles

3.Use hastag.org to analyse which hashtags are the most popular.

Limit your hashtags to less than four, don’t overdo hashtags as this can make your tweets seem untidy and not easily readable.

Also be consistent in your choice of hashtags, let your followers know what subjects you are covering so they start identifying you with your niche.

8.Include your website on your bio

Yes, twitter gives you is a specific place where you can link to your website, but you can also drop a link on your bio.

When people click on your profile, they will naturally read your bio, drop a link to your landing page or latest blog post with a clear call to action.

Obviously, this will reduce what you can say about yourself, but this is twitter, even in your bio you are limited, so you might as well drop in a link instead of useless personal info.

9.Mention others in your tweet.

Mentioning others in your tweets can also bring in some traffic to your site.

If you have written a blog post that has utilised or mentioned the works of other people, mention them in your tweet.

They will most definitely appreciate it and you may even get a retweet or a mention and if they have a large following, more people will see your tweets, check your profile and visit your website.

Also, mention people who may tweet your content, not only does this show appreciation but they will be inclined to tweet your stuff more often and it builds a good relationship that you can help build your brand.

I tried this with Ana Hoffman from traffic generation café, not only did I get a retweet, I also got a mention.

10.Ask industry influencers questions

To get more views of your tweets, twitter profile and hopefully your website link, start a conversation with industry influencers.

Ask them a question, those with over 100k following will not respond, but their followers will see your question and most likely view your profile and tweets.

They may even start following you.

However, there are influencers who may not have over 100k following but still command a sizable audience, getting a response from them is more than possible.

Conclusion

Promoting your website through twitter can bring in huge amounts of targeted traffic, it can help you spread the word about your company and build your brand.

Are you utilising the immense social networking power of twitter to increase traffic? If you are, how are you driving traffic (if it’s different from those mentioned in this list), please share your tips and tricks.

I would like to hear your feedback on these methods and if you would do things differently.