Boost Site Traffic with Twitter Hashtags

Welcome back!

A couple days ago I blogged about the top 18 take-aways from IZEAFest.  That post had more than three times my average traffic from the previous 7 days, including several other posts about IZEAFest.  Now why do you think this one post had so much more traffic than my previous posts, especially those posts about IZEAFest?

One might say it was the title and the fact that I set it up as a “top” whatever post.  People like lists.  Lists are easy to read, quick, to the point, and attention grabbers.  So, that might have had something to do with it.

Really, what made the difference was the use of a hashtag in the title (a trending hashtag didn’t hurt, either).  People set up searches for hashtags and searches for trending hashtags.  Here you can see my own search that I set up in my Tweetdeck panel:

..and right there, in the Twitter stream, you see my blog post pop up in the search for #izeafest because I added the # before izeafest in my blog title.  This “pushes” that Tweet into the Twitter stream for anyone that’s set up this search, which is most of the people tracking or watching this trending topic on Twitter.

Now, I don’t just have my own Twiter followers checking out my blog post (well, at least those that are interested), but I also have a whole separate group of people that may or may not (likely, not) follow me that get exposed to that blog post.  The best part, they’re all interested in the topic or they wouldn’t be following the hashtag!  You’re just gaining tons of new site visitors, without cost, for doing a post you were going to do, anyway!

Little tricks like this can separate you from the herd.  What other methods do you use to boost traffic to your blog with Twitter or otherwise?

Tweet This Post