Using Twitter For Marketing And Driving Traffic

Well it seems these days you can't go anywhere without hearing something about Twitter. It would seem as if everyone and their mothers are on Twitter including celebrities, athletes, companies and even politicians. Just like with the other websites I have shown you on this site you can generate plenty of traffic and or sales from Twitter with a little hard work.

It's not the easiest site to gain a million followers on, but with some dedication you can grow your followers quite easily. First thing you need to do though is sign up, which you can do here. Just pick a username and fill out your profile included a link to the website that you want to drive the most traffic to. Once you do this you can beginning your tweets. It could be anything that runs across your mind, or you can link to one of your sites or blog posts with some clever saying. Don't concentrate on this too much in the beginning though, because if no one is following you then no one will ever see any of your clever tweets.

So what you need to do is start following people. Twitter has a link up at the top called "Find People" which will automatically go into your e-mail and find out your contacts that are already on Twitter. This is under "Find on other networks". Twitter also has a "Find on Twitter" option where you can simply type in the name or username of anyone on Twitter and find people this way. Go nuts and follow all the people you want at this point. After you have added in all your contacts it is time to take it to the next level. You need to think about what your website is about and some possible keywords that are relevant to your site. Take these keywords and enter them into the search on Twitters homepage on the left side. For example, if your site is all about Fish you can typing in fishing or aquarium or an individual fish even to see if anyone is Twittering about that particular topic. Now you have located the people that are interested in your websites topics enough to Tweet about them, so make start following them, or even send them a reply to their tweet giving them some insight about what they said, or just say hello. Rinse and repeat until you are following about 2,000 people.

At this point Twitter makes is so you can only follow 200 more people than are following you. For example if you are following 2,000 people you need to have at least 1,800 followers. This prevents spammers from completely taking over Twitter. What I do at this point is go back into the people that are following you by clicking on the "Following" under your profile picture. Now under each profile picture that you see it will either say "Direct Message", or it will be blank. The ones that are blank you need to remove, because this means that even though you are following them, they are not following you. No sense following them if they aren't going to follow you because of this ratio that Twitter puts into place. Of course there are exception if you really like the person and don't care if they follow you. Continue to build your followers and Tweet your websites out along the way and you will start to see traffic coming in from Twitter. Everytime you make an update to your site or post a new blog post, tell people by giving out a short Tweet about what you did. If your followers are interested in the topics on your website and in your Tweets they will respond.

Twitter can be particularly effective in selling individual products too, like the ICUcopyclip for example. This is a rear view mirror/note holder that attaches to your computer monitor. So knowing that people would use this at work and especially in their cubicle, I can target people that are Tweeting about their cubicles and even ones that are looking for cubicle decorations just by searching for "cubicle" or "cubicle decorations" on the Twitter search. Then you can follow them or even send them a Tweet about the ICUcopyclip. I am sure you can begin to see just how effective Twitter can be for marketing products and websites.

If you liked this article or you just want to check out my profile on Twitter just click here, if you follow me I will be sure to return the favor : ) You can even leave your twitter URL in the comments below and I will be sure to follow you!

Bring It All Together With Blog Catalog

A site that seems to be gaining popularity and users everyday is Blog Catalog. Like most other blog directories you can submit your blogs and have them commented on and rated. Much like MyBlogLog this site also keeps track of recent visitors and people who subscribe to your site. The real difference is that Blog Catalog breaks down ever site into two categories that you get to choose. This makes it so readers can easily find the exact kind of subjects that your site covers. You can also check out similar blogs to see how they compare to your own.

Blog Catalog is also a place where people can keep track of your activity on sites like Digg, Flickr, Stumbled Upon, Delicious, Reddit, Technorati, Magnolia and MyBlogLog through an "Activity Feed". This is a great way for all your fans to keep track of your activity on multiple sites! Just add in your user names into your profile and Blog Catalog takes care of the rest.

Unlike MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog is completely independent, MyBlogLog is now owned by Yahoo. This tends to make the site a bit more community oriented with a lot less spam. Personally, I like it a lot more than MyBlogLog, but that is just my personal opinion. Not too mention, I have seen a lot more traffic in Google Analytics coming in through Blog Catalog!



Blog Catalog also has widgets that you can embed on your website to keep track of recent visitors, new members of your neighborhood (website), and even a recent discussions widget which will help you keep track of all that is going on in the Blog Catalog community. You can see an example on the sidebar of this page under "Blog Catalog Fans".

So if you are looking for more traffic to your site and a feeling of community look no further that Blog Catalog! You can sign up here or check out my profile here, don't forget to sign up for all my communities when you get a chance. I know there is a lot, but what can I say : )

Looking for more ways to Promote Your Site? First thing is first, you need to submit your websites to all the major search engines, click here to learn how!

Is Mixx A Digg In The Making?

Mixx is a relatively new site, but has been growing like gang busters of late. This site has a format much like Digg and Netscape (propeller) were you vote stories up or down, but also has the added bonus of groups. This makes it possible for you to not only submit your work to different categories inside Mixx, but also to different groups and therefore gain more exposure to your work.

Another great aspect of Mixx is that you get to select who, or what is on your homepage. That's right if you like sports, it will be sports, if you like a certain person's posts you can have them displayed right on your homepage so you don't miss a submission!

Is Mixx going to get you the kind of traffic that you could receive from Digg, Netscape or even Reddit... well no, but it is always good to get in early on a site like this and build your fan base. Plus, they just signed up with CNN, which should certainly bring a few more users in!

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and sign up here or check out my profile here!

Want more ways to Promote Your Site? Check out this post on Technorati or this one on Stumbled Upon!

The Importance Of Tags

A simple, but sometimes overlooked way to promote your site is to use tags. Most blogs like blogger let you add tags to each of your posts. Tags are general terms that help describe your post. For instance, if you have a post all about photography you could have tags like photos, photography, pictures, tips, ect.

When you use these tags over and over again you can click on the tag, and it will bring up every post that had that particular tag in it. This can also be useful if you want to submit multiple posts to a place like digg, netscape and corank.

Plus, all kinds of other sites let you add tags to your submissions. Tags not only allow people and search engines to find your content easier, but they can also help you organize your site. I don't know how many times I have been looking for a certain post and had to click on a tag to even find it!

This is one of the basics, but it is very, very important if you are looking to drive more traffic to your site. So don't forget to add your tags to all your posts...

Sorry for the big delay in between posting... I have been quite busy with my other sites!

Leave Your Mark In This World With Trailfire

A great way to promote your site and organize your favorite websites is to use the site Trailfire. Basically, this site allows you to leave comments on any webpage out there in cyberspace. It also lets you see what other Trailfire users thought of that page by viewing their marks on the page. You can create as many trails as you like, but the idea is to try and keep your trails relevant to a certain subject like photography, videos, politics, games, current events or whatever else you can think of!



You can also use Trailfire as a way to show the world all of your favorite sites or blogs. This way when an individual discovers your trail they can follow your marks from one to the next. As you can imagine this is a great way to not only promote your sites, but it can also be another way to get feedback from other users. An added bonus is that it keeps people on your network of sites longer as they follow your trail.

Trailfire allows you to install a toolbar so you can easily add marks to any page with just one click. So go check it out today and start discovering new trails and marks on your favorite pages that you never even knew existed. You can check out my trails here. Don't forget to add me as a contact if you like and let me know if you have any questions...

Discover Amazing Photos And Get Traffic At The Same Time!

I just started up a site called PhotoRater where you can submit, vote and comment on photos from your websites or blogs. Although the site is just getting started, it is still yet another way to get a bit of traffic to your site and check out some amazing photos at the same time. There are several different categories of photos to choose from including black & white, nature, plants, sun, water, amateur, people, buildings, professional and vanishing points!
It runs through the site corank which if you are not aware of is a lot like digg only you can design and create your own pages to vote on... very cool! You can even build your own site like mine as well and share it if you like.

You can check out PhotoRater and the following address...

http://photorater.corank.com

Feel free to sign up if you like and start submitting your photos! Let me know if you have any questions or problems signing up...

How To Have Users Subscribe To Your Site

Another tip for all you die-hard bloggers is to make it possible for your readers to subscribe to your blog through a RSS feed. Now if you are using blogger you already have an RSS feed, you just need to make it more accessible for your readers. It should be at the bottom of you last post and say something like "Subscribe to: Posts (atom)" The "Posts (atom)" is a link, just right click on this link and hit "copy link location".

Now go to you blogger layout and add a page element like you normally would. Select a text page element and simply type in what you want to call your subscription. For instance "Subscribe To Promoting Your Site Here!" you can see mine at the top right hand corner of this blog. Then you just make the text a link and bamm your users can now subscribe to your posts!

This way not only do you keep more users, but it allows all your subscribers to know when you have updated your page! Let me know if you have any questions or problems...