Twitter Helps You Build Blog Traffic

If you read Biz Tips Blog, then you know I've written about Twitter quite a bit in the past.  One thing I want to make sure you know is that you can drive a lot of traffic to your blog with Twitter and get even more online visibilty.

After you set up your Twitter account, you need to set up a free account on Twitterfeed.com. This application allows you to push out your blog posts to your Twitter followers. (I wrote a bit about Twitterfeed here.)

You simply connect your Twitter account and add the RSS feed for your blog. Then, choose how often you want Twitterfeed to "look" for new content. I have 5 blog feeds connected to my account so whenever I or Patsi posts new content, it gets pushed out to our followers.  I'm finding that about 30% of our blog traffic is coming from people who click through from Twitter! And they are more likely to comment, either on the blog post or on twitter.

CAUTION: While it's important to push out your blog posts, it's even more important to engage with your followers on Twitter. If you don't, then you defeat the purpose of the tool to build relationships and eventually people will stop following you if all you do is push content.

Comments

[Patsi aka The Blog Squad]

I just want to second what Denise is writing about here. I am running a contest to give away a few top marketing books and needed more people to participate (www.writingontheweb.com).

After Denise "tweeted" about it, I got many new visits and comments. The key is to have thousands of followers and that takes time to build up. You can't build a list without taking time to nurture relationships.

[Nancy]

Denise:

I thought RSS is something you set up on your website. I understand it can also come into your email. Can you explain how you set up a RSS feed to come into your email?

Thanks.

[Cassandra Truax]

Could you do a blog post on appropriate ways to engage people on Twitter? I always feel like I'm intruding somehow.

[Maggie Anderson Words That Work]

Thanks Denise, great post! I went right away to twitterfeed and it was easy to link my blog once I figured out that the RSS address twitterfeed needs is different than the URL of my blog. I heard your Webinar with Andy Wibbels (love Typepad!) and really appreciate how clear you are in explaining the technical stuff.

[Robin Tramble Empowerment Diva]

Hello Denise,

Great post as usual.
I'm learning quite a bit from you
about blogging. I had problems at
first with the RSS, however,they
eventually took it.

Thanks

[carrie]

Thanks for this, have found Twitterfeed very useful since I set it up about a year ago. Recently set up Facebook FAN page, and was wondering if it's possible to set up a feed to that as well, or does it have to be just through your regular Facebook page. In other words, how do you find the feed for your FAN page? Thanks!