How To Get More of the Right Website Traffic with Twitter

Jo Lynn Deal

Want to drive more of the right traffic to your website? You can use Twitter for that.

To get the most out of your business Twitter account, begin by strategically growing your following. I’ve been growing my following by 50 to 100 (of the right) followers a day for the past two weeks using a few strategic tactics and tools.

1. Follow people who are most likely to share your content.

Follow your existing clients. You’ve worked hard to establish a long-term relationship with them. Use Twitter to stay in touch and share helpful content. Because they know you and trust you, they are likely to share your content, and you will be top-of-mind when they are asked for a referral.

Follow your industry colleagues (Yes, your competition). Who else is likely to share your content? Those who do the same work as you. Unless your industry colleagues are creating several forms of content every day or have a huge library of existing content, they are on the look out for high quality content that will be relevant to their audience. Follow them and send yours their way.

Search for users via popular hashtags. Want to find out who is distributing content like yours? Conduct a hashtag search. For my business, a quick search on hashtagify.me tells me to search for #socialmediamarketing, #smallbiz, #smallbusinessmarketing and #entrepreneur.

When looking for who to follow via the hashtag search, remember to look for people who:

• Tweet frequently
  
• Have a good ratio of Retweets
  
• Have a large list of followers, and large list of who they follow
  
• Produce the same high quality content you do

Use Twitter’s Trending Hashtag list to connect with your industry.

I search Twitter’s own list of trending hashtags to join in on discussions and Q&As and connect with colleagues and like-minded professionals.

Search for users via profession or industry keywords.

I use and recommend ManageFlitter because of its completely affordable rates and the broad search functionality. Using ManageFlitter, I conduct detailed searches to help connect with my ideal audience. I also screen out inactive users because if they aren’t actively using Twitter, they aren’t right for this marketing tactic.

Using ManageFlitter, I also search for people who:

• Have shared content I have shared. I can enter a URL into the search field and then follow those who have shared that content. They are likely to share my content too.
  
• Are local to my area, if I want to grow my local connections.
  
• Have a businesses that will complement my own. In my case, this would be small business coaches, graphic designers, freelance writers and bloggers, etc. These people are likely to share my content because it is content that will be helpful to their target audience too.
  
• People who have just shared about a trending or new topic.

Search for influencers in your industry and follow the people who are following them.

I use Feedly to curate high quality content that will be helpful for my clients and audience. I can find these influential bloggers on Twitter and then use my ManageFlitter account to follow the people who are following them, because their followers are my ideal audience too.

I’m able to filter the results and exclude spam accounts, inactive accounts, and other irrelevant accounts.

Now, that you’ve grown your audience, send them to your website with these tactics.

2. Optimize your Twitter profile to drive traffic to your website.

Many people will simply click the follow button once they see you have followed them. But you can grab their attention with an eye-catching cover photo and optimized profile.

• Create a cover photo that also serves as a mini landing page. Include your company website and a clear call-to-action, description of your services, or an irresistible offer. I change my cover photo regularly and test the results. Make sure your cover photo design is polished and professional. For help creating a Twitter cover image, use a free tool like Canva or Picmonkey.
  
• Pin a call-to-action tweet at the top of your Twitter page. The discriminating Twitter users will look at your profile to determine if you will be a good contact. Create a tweet that speaks to this audience and pin it to the top of your profile page.
  
• Create a profile description that communicates the benefits of connecting with you. Answer the question, “What can I expect in your Twitter feed?”

3. Share and Engage The Right Way.

I spend time curating content that will be truly helpful to my audience. I also spend a lot of time creating content that is high quality and shareable.

• Use lists to segment your followers and share their content when it’s relevant to your audience. Use lists to keep an eye on prospects and look for opportunities to connect and comment.
  
• Share your own content – blog posts, landing pages, downloads – to drive the audience to your website.
  
• When sharing any content, create tweets that grab their attention, like the headlines of your favorite newspaper. Touch their emotions, share the benefits of the content, or scare them to death if they don’t read the content. Use a site like Portent or Headline Analyzer for help writing catchy headlines, titles and tweets.

Is Twitter driving business to your website? What tips can you share to add to our list? Please add them to the comments and I’ll share them with our audience too.

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