As one of the most popular public web forums of our time, Twitter is an excellent way to share information and start conversations. It can also be used to substantially increase organic traffic to a website, if you know what you’re doing. Here are five methods for boosting web traffic with Twitter that are easy to carry out.

Know Your Audience, and Follow Them

Having a million readers who are following you just because you followed them doesn’t really help you out in the long run. 1,000 dedicated fans who actively look for your posts in their Twitter stream are better than 100 times that amount of followers who ignore you. Zero in on a core demographic that’s actually interested in what you have to say, and gear your posts towards them.

Ditch The Spam

While we’re all probably sick of hearing it, content is still king. Quality content is the type of information you should be sharing with your readers. Spamming them with links to your business site or an affiliate sales landing page isn’t really quality. Post links to helpful resources that will benefit your users. In other words, give without expecting something in return.

Pick A Sensible Username

If you’re using your Twitter account to drive traffic to your website, using your given name may not be the best route to take. Let’s say you run a small, local plumbing service. Rather than using, say, “JohnSmith72”, try “DrainMaster” or something else related to your actual business. If you’re a private consultant and your name is your brand identity, a given name is fine.

Find A Good Profile Picture

A little visual color can go a long way towards drawing people in and getting them to pay attention to your post. A generic logo doesn’t really do it for most people. They see business logos all the time on the web. Use your real picture for your profile avatar.

Leverage Twitter Search

Posting relevant information on a hot trending topic is a surefire way to increase your following and boost traffic. You can use Twitter Search to see what’s popular at the moment and use the results to draw in more page views by posting on current topics that people are interested in.

Parting Shot

The nice thing about using Twitter to raise your website’s profile online is that it doesn’t need a large input of time or effort. Work smarter rather than harder when using your Twitter influence to redirect traffic to your blog or website. It’s not rocket science, it just requires that you employ a consistent approach day in and day out when it comes to increasing page views with your tweets.

About the author:
Paul uses twitter to raise awareness about his established business. An automotive company that purchases cars and trucks.

Selecting the right profile picture would certainly do you a world of good. If done the right way, it instantly creates a connection. And as they say, ‘First impression is the last impression,’ you’d want to make it count.

Here are 10 tips to improve your choice:

1. Use your-own picture. Photo’s with your spouse/pet/best friend can be shared separately for Pete’s sake!
2. Use close-up shots, so even small thumbnails can be easily recognizable.
3. Try as much to use bright colors like white in your picture, as they seem pleasant. However take care not to use too many loud colors.
4. Try to put up an image in which your face is as pleasant can be. There’s the instant connection for you.
5. Yes, you may Photoshop your picture to remove the odd pimple or scar. Just don’t overdo it.
6. Don’t add ridiculous effects on your picture (like cartoonized, magazine cover.) Those are intended for passing time, and let it be that way.
7. If you are cropping an image having many members, crop it in a way so that any other person in the original image won’t be visible.
8. Keep updating your image. Don’t use one that was taken years back!
9. Try to keep away negative objects (like a beer bottle) away from your display picture.
10. Finally before uploading an image, please ask some close to you, ‘Do I look good in this pic?’

Here’s a presentation from Social Media Hive for your reference:

Two Firefox add-ons that did capture my eye were TwitBin and Yoono.

Twitbin

Twitbin is a firefox extension that allows you to keep up with all of your Twitter conversations right from your browser sidebar. Send messages, receive messages, share links, and more from Twitbin, the best twitter addon for firefox out there.

Yoono

Yoono is an easy to use sidebar for your browser that allows you to connect to all your social networks and instant messaging services – in one place. Get all your friend updates, update your own status, and easily share stuff with your friends.

While Twitbin is totally Twitter-devoted add-on for Firefox ie. it supports only twitter Yoono has an add-on as well as a desktop application and it supports multiple social networking sites. Some among them being Twitter, Facebook, Gtalk etc.

The Twitbin Dashboard

Although I found both of them competitive in their own rights, I felt Twitbin was better because it gets done the work, ie. manage your twitter account with minimum fuss. That would be unfair to Yoono which was created as all-in-one social network client.

The Yoono Dashboard

Go on and have a look.

Download: Twitbin | Yoono

Also you might want to try out the Yoono Desktop Client by going here.