As previously discussed, Twitter is a fantastic way to get some free targeted traffic to your websites, but manually sending tweets on a regular basis is a time consuming and boring task!

All new tweets have an average lifespan of 10 minutes – that means your well thought out tweet will only be visible in other user’s timelines for a very short space of time.

After that, they get lost in the Twhite noise of Twitter!

It is therefore important to tweet regularly.

Also, if you tweet nothing but links to your websites, squeeze pages, products and affiliate campaigns you’re quickly going to get a reputation as a spammer which will result in you losing followers and almost definitely get your account suspended by Twitter.

So is there a way to automate some of your tweets and provide good content to keep your followers interested, all without getting Twitter slapped?!

There certainly is!

I’ve been looking into various ways to automate my Tweets and I think I’ve found a corker!

Now before we start, I would strongly advise that you don’t use this method alone…

Your followers need to know you are a real person and not a robot, so make sure you use Twitter as the social tool it was intended for… in other words, still use it to personally interact with your followers or they’ll soon lose interest in you.

Ok, here we go…

A great way to feed your twitter accounts with a constant stream of valuable, free content, is to use an automation service such as Twitterfeed.

Twitterfeed is a FREE automation tool that allows you to send your favourite RSS feeds directly to your Twitter account so that your tweets are regularly renewed without you having to manually type them out.

You don’t even have to load them into a tweet scheduler like Social Oomph…

Just choose some RSS feeds that you think will interest your followers, set them in Twitterfeed and forget!

Here’s a summary of how I use this method :-

1. Find an RSS feed for articles relating to my niche. ie Internet Marketing.
2. Load it into Twitterfeed and add my url shortener details. (bit.ly)
3. Let it go to work tweeting interesting, article titles with shortended links to the full articles.
4. Occasionally intersperse my automated tweets with more personal ones, retweets replies etc.

Believe me, this really works and I can see from my bit.ly account that my tweets are getting a lot of clicks.

Some pros and cons…

Pros -

1. You have a constant stream of tweets which include keywords your potential followers are looking for, so you’ll grow your following organically. (So no need to mass follow hundreds of people in the hope they’ll follow you back.)
2. You are providing good, niche content to your followers, thereby keeping them interested in your tweets and clicking on your links. (Ready for when you do want to send them to your squeeze page or blog.)
3. You can spend much less time trawling the net for quotes, news stories and articles to interest your followers. (And spend more time doing the things that actually make you money online.)
4. If you choose RSS feeds that are relevant to your niche and that benefit your followers in some way, you’ll be loved for it. (They’ll be more likely to trust you, be more willing to do business with you and buy from you in future)

Cons -

1. Although the content will be interesting to your followers, the links within your tweets are directing your traffic to websites other than yours so your RSS Tweets won’t directly send traffic your way. (However, having tested this method for a few weeks, I find it does keep my followers responsive to clicking on my links)
2. Some followers may find your Twitterfeed tweets impersonal and some may even consider them spam. (You can’t please everyone on twitter. Everyone has their own opinions on how you should use it and what is considered spam – in my opinion, relevant, free content is NOT spam!)

In summary, I think this is a great method for keeping your followers interested in you and it means you don’t have to spend hours finding useful content.

Most people will understand the reasons behind using automation tools and will accept it, however they still want to know there is a person behind the tweets – talk about what you’re doing and engage discussion with people – Remember… this is Social Media, so be sociable!

Give it a try and let me know how you get on by leaving a comment below.

I was so scared of appearing on video, but I’ve already had some positive feedback from Alex….

hey steve,

what a FAB video mate,

serious – had me watching close till the end,

in video just be YOU

and that video was YOU and it was great

ive just sent it to Tom Beal – over at MikeFilsaime.com
to watch – as he taught me what it says on your white board

dont get it right just get it going

talk soon steve

alex

And Tom Beal ( http://tombeal.com/ ) has commented on it too, so I’m a very happy man – The hangover I have after going to the Mathew Street Festival yesterday just became much more bearable!

Now, it’s never going to win any awards for artistic or cinematic merit, but something in it must have captured peoples attention, because my blog traffic has doubled over night!

Needless to say, I’m going to be using video a lot more in the future to help drive traffic.

You can check it out here :-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFHoQc_kU0Y

I’d love to hear what you think as well

Speak soon,

I’ve spent most of today learning about Twitter from my mentor, Alex Jeffreys who created a free video series on the subject

http://www.tweetingwithyou.com/

I’ve got to say… I’m absolutely blown away by what Alex has been teaching me and more importantly, I’m having fun putting his techniques into practice!

If you are looking for a way to drive free, targeted traffic, to any of your websites, then you MUST get to grips with Twitter, right away…

I’m only sorry I’ve put it off for so long, but not any more.

From what I’ve learnt so far and heard from my other marketers and fellow coaching students, it’s fast becoming most people’s number one source of traffic.

Over the next few days, I’m going to dedicate a large proportion of my time to Twitter so see what effect it has on my blog traffic, so watch this space for updates on my progress.

At the time of writing, I have 53 people following me on twitter, so check out my twitter page to watch it grow -

http://twitter.com/Steve_Wakefield

If you want to check out Alex’s free video series, all you need to do is enter your Twitter username and password to get full access, so if you haven’t already signed up, do it now!

Step 1 – Sign Up to Twitter.

http://twitter.com/

Step 2 – Enter your Twitter username and password at the following site to get instant access and you’ll soon be on your way to masses of free traffic!

http://www.tweetingwithyou.com/

Good luck,

Steve

P.S. Don’t forget to follow me and I’ll do the same for you!

http://twitter.com/Steve_Wakefield

P.P.S. Download Your FREE TWITTER TEMPLATES here to personalise your Twitter page.  Have fun!

Ok, so it’s not a massive increase in traffic yet, but this is a method that will keep getting traffic organically and the more (interesting) comments you leave, the more traffic you’ll get.  I only left a handful of comments on sunday and yesterday and it’s already resulted in 12 more visitors that might never have found my blog!  That’s powerful stuff!

Here’s the new screen shot from Google Analytics (click on the image to enlarge)

I’ve also added a quick post to my facebook status to let people know my blog has recently been updated, so I’ll let you know if that has any significant effect on traffic in the coming days.

Until then, “see yer later la,” (as we say in Liverpool!)

Alex calls it “Oil Rig Hopping,” and the idea is to get your blog linked to from external sites, by leaving comments on other peoples blogs.

Each time you comment on someone elses blog post, you’ll have the option of adding your blog URL, therefore, people can click on your link and be directed to your blog.

The key to this method’s success, is that the comments you leave have to provide some extra value or point of interest.  That way, anyone reading your comment will see you as someone with credibility and hopefully decide to visit your blog.

If you leave the same comment on each blog you visit without even reading the post, then there’s a good chance your comment will be classed as spam and you’ll be blocked from leaving further comments.

After spending just one afternoon using this method, it’s easy to pick out the marketers who are blatantly just pimping their own websites without providing any value.  They leave comments like, “Great post, I’ve always wondered about this issue, thanks, will definitely be back!”

So, how do you choose the best blogs to comment on?

Well, this method is going to be most effective if you choose blogs that are in the same niche, or a similar niche to yours.  In the internet marketing and related niches, a great resource to check out is http://www.winningtheweb.com/im-top-blogs/ as it lists the blogs that rank highest in the search engines.

I would also encourage you to comment on blogs of marketers that you regularly read and look up to as this is also a great way to become known to them.  If they know who you are and know you provide extra value to their posts, they’ll be much more willing to work with you in the future.

Hope this was useful and as always I’d love to hear your comments!

1.  Used eBay About Me Page To link to my blog.

eBay allows you to link to your websites from your about me page as long as you aren’t blatently trying to take business away from them and make sales outside of eBay.  This means you have to be a bit careful what websites you link to and what you write to invite users to visit your site.  For example…

Say you sell “Wonder Widgets” on eBay (not sure if thats a real product but it’s the first thing that popped into my noggin!) and you also sell the same “Wonder Widgets” from your website – If you provided a link to your website from your about me page, and wrote,

“Visit my website to buy Wonder Widgets cheaper than on eBay,”…. then you’d be very likely to upset eBay and get your account suspended!

However, if you had a section called, “My Favourite Websites” and provided a link to your website, you wouldn’t be breaking any of eBay’s rules and could benefit from some free traffic!

In the case of a blog, you probably aren’t trying to sell the same products that you sell on eBay, so you can therefore be a bit more direct and write something like, “Check Out My Blog Where I Provide Free Advice on How To Make Money Online!” – then provide your link.  (As a sidenote, you can also add an aweber opt in form to your about me page and use the free traffic to build a mailing list, but I’ll cover that in more detail another time!)

2.  Using the products I sell on eBay to drive traffic.

I’m in the process of setting up an eBay business that sells resell rights products and public domain materials.  As eBay no longer allows the sale of digital items, I put these products on CDs and ship them to my customers.  The beauty is that they include an easy to use menu system that I can edit to whatever I want, so I always include links to my websites within the menu system.  See the picture below to give you a better idea what I mean (Click it to view full size image)

If you are interested in using this method to sell eBooks as physical items, then I highly recommend Digital Media Solution to do it, as that’s what I use.  It’s really easy to use and comes with full instructional videos.  Here’s the link:-

http://steve-wakefield.com/recommends/digital_media_solution

No matter what products you sell on eBay, another easy way to drive traffic to your websites is to include your URL somewhere on the packing slip.  You could even put it on the outside of the packaging because all the Post Office staff that see it are potential customers!

3.  Listed a product on www.download.com

This is a method I recently learned from Socrates Socratous at Resell Rights Fortune.  It is actually a method to build a mailing list, but it also sends lots of free traffic to your blog if you do it right.

Here’s the basic principle:-

• You take a PLR product from Resell Rights Fortune website and brand it with your name and blog URL
• You upload a “locked” version of your product via www.upload.cnet.com. Once approved, it shows up on www.download.com
• Someone downloads your product, but has to join your mailing list to get an “unlock code” before they can view the product.
• Once they enter the unlock code, they can view your product and will hopefully click on the blog link you’ve provided within the eBook!

I intend to create a video to outline this method in more detail as soon as I get a chance, but if you join up with Resell Rights Fortune, you’ll get access to Socrate’s in depth training videos and all the resources you need.  Here’s the link:-

http://steve-wakefield.com/recommends/ResellRightsFortune

So folks, that’s what I’ve done so far to increase traffic to my blog.  I’ll keep you posted on how it goes and will get a new google analytics screenshot on here in the next couple of days.

Hope you’ve found this useful and as always, I’d love to hear your feedback so feel free to leave comments below!

Make sure you check back here soon, because I’m going to be making very regular posts over the next 2 weeks and there’s going to be loads more great ideas on driving traffic and other cool stuff.

Speak soon,

The second step is… Start driving traffic to it.

A blog is the perfect platform to start building an online income because it’s relatively easy to set up and as soon as you start adding content to it the search engines will pick it up and start sending traffic your way.  You can then monitize your blog by adding affiliate links and adds and as long as you provide some great free content and real value along the way, people will start to know who you are, like you and finally trust you… and once they trust you, they’re more likely to buy from you.

My mentor Alex Jeffreys has been drilling this into us since the start of his coaching program, but this week he’s really stepped it up a notch.

He’s been showing us the methods he uses to drive bucketloads of traffic to his blog and I’m now buzzing with ideas and can’t wait to get started and share my ideas and progress with you.

To motivate us further, Alex is running a competition for his students to see who can drive the most traffic to their blog by 14th August using the methods he’s taught us and also any of our own methods.

The rules are as follows:-

1. We have to show proof of our blog traffic using the Google Analytics tool.
2. We have to use our blog to write about how we are driving the traffic!

The benefit of writing about how to drive traffic to a blog, is that those posts will automatically begin to show up in the search engines for keywords, such as “driving blog traffic.”  So the effect is that traffic will end up on our blogs naturally.  (Nearly confused myself then so hope you still follow! )

The benefit to my readers, will be that as I implement each traffic driving step, I’m going to tell you what I did it and what the results are.

So here’s where I am right now…

I have never really done anything to drive traffic to my blog.  Most people who land here, do so by chance after searching for something in Google.

The only way I currently send anyone here is through my eBay “About Me” page, therefore my traffic is pretty low as you can see from the Google Analytics Screenshot below.

(click to enlarge)

Google Analytics Screenshot for www.steve-wakefield.com 31st July 2009

Over the next few days I’m going to use various methods to try to drive traffic and I’ll outline the steps I take each time, then share the results with you as soon as I have them, so check back regularly.

Hopefully, I will start seeing some big traffic increases and also teach my readers some new techniques along the way!

So, if you don’t already have a blog, then get one set up asap and you’ll also benefit from this exercise.  If you are unsure where to start, check out http://www.blogsetuptutorials.com/free/ which was created by Tommy Mclaughlin – a former student of Alex and another of his success stories!

Best of luck and will speak to you again soon,