Twitter Traffic Magic - How To Use Twitter To Boost Your Blog Traffic

Twitter and blogging go hand in hand. It has totally changed the way that people communicate online and it should be an indispensable part of your overall marketing plan for your blog. Twitter is free to join and you can get set up with an account in a matter of just a few minutes.

Articles can drive a considerable amount of traffic to your site and improve your web sites search engine ranking. Informative or entertaining articles will keep the readers interest and improve the chances that they'll return. After getting a general idea of what topic you want to write about the next thing to do is keyword research. Use the main keyword you are targeting in the article title and a couple more times in the article body.

The quickest way to write an original article is to follow a routine, having a system for researching and writing articles will save a lot of time. Generate four key points with the keywords based around the following:-

• Attention- The article title and first paragraph need to get the readers attention, often something controversial will suck them in for example a title like "Has Your iPod Exploded Recently" will get the attention of iPod users. Ensure the article is closely related to the title or no-one will read past the first paragraph if they feel they've been baited.
• Interest- The second paragraph needs to keep the reader interested, if we stick with "exploding iPods" then this paragraph would explain what could possibly cause an iPod to explode.
• Desire- Again staying with the iPod theme by using the third paragraph to cover the solutions to the exploding problem.
• Action - If you've managed to keep the readers attention this far then they are likely to follow your call-to-action, direct them to a solution.

The following tools and methods are how I am currently using Twitter:-

• TwitterFeed & Ping.fm -- TwitterFeed will tweet your RSS feeds, however it can also send the feeds to Ping.fm which is how i use it. Ping.fm will post to other sites as well as Twitter. Both TwitterFeed and Ping.fm will cloak the URL to save space. By using this method anything I post to the sites I'm promoting will also be added to Twitter and a few other sites.
• TweetLater -- Can be used to auto follow people that have followed you and also tweets can be scheduled. I've only used it for the auto follow feature so far and it is a real time saver.
• Yoono -- Is just one of countless applications to keep track of tweets, I use it because it is a collapasble Firefox plugin that also keeps track of RSS feeds like Google Alerts for me. It can also connect to other social networks like Facebook.
• TwittyTunes -- Is another Firefox plugin that hooks into the FoxyTunes Firefox plugin. I use it to post tweets showing what music I'm listening to and web pages I'm browsing.
• Tweeter Getter -- This is a viral way of building your followers. It hasn't been very successful for me yet but I haven't promoted the link too much either.
• Twitter Grader -- Will give you a rating of your Twitter account. I think some of my followers have come from following grader although I could be wrong...
• Twitter Counter -- Twitter Counter shows stats about your Twitter account and also has widgets for promoting your Twitter page.
• Twitoria -- Find who amongst your followers is active.