USING TWITTER TO DRAW TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEB SITE
. Make sure your link works. Use TinyURL (www.tinyurl.com) or bit.ly (www.bit.ly) to shrink the URL into something that fits easily into a Twitter
message, if you use TweetDeck to send tweets, your URL is automatically shortened. Always go the extra mile, though, and copy and paste the
shortened URL into a browser to ensure that it’s functional and leads followers to the right page. If you use bit.ly to shorten your URL, you can track the
number of click-throughs.
TRACKING WEB SITE REFERRALS
You must have Google Analytics enabled on the web site you’re tracking. Google Analytics is a service that enables you to track the amount of traffic your web site is getting. Where the traffic is coming from, and referring sites.
To see how much traffic comes to your web site from Twitter, follow these steps:
1. Log into Google Analytics.
2. Select from the View Reports drop-down menu the web site you want to monitor.
3. Click Traffic Sources. The page refreshes and shows a graph of visits to your web site.
4. Click All Traffic Sources. The page refreshes and shows a list of sources that generated visits to your web site.
5. Enter Twitter in the filter source/medium text box using the default containing parameter. The page refreshes and shows you the number of visits
that resulted from Twitter.
TRACKING LINKS
You can track links from Twitter back to your web site if you use bit.ly at http://bit.ly to shorten your URLs.
Other services that shorten URLs don’t offer this capability. If you want to track your short URLs, you must use bit.ly.
Paste the short URL into your favorite web browser followed by the plus sign (+). You see exactly how many hits the short URL received, which lets you know whether the link was useful to your followers.
LOGGING VISITS PER FOLLOWER
If your web site or blog has statistics you can access, you can track which Twitter followers are visiting your web site or blog. To do this, open your web site control panel. If you’re not sure how, check with the technical support team of your web hosting service.
To track visits per follower, follow these steps:
1. Navigate to your web site control panel and log in.
2. Click the link or icon to view the site stats. Many web hosting services make the Webalizer software available for this task.
3. Click on the month you want to analyze. Most web statistics software programs give you, at the top of the page, a graph showing visits per month.
4. Scroll to the Referrers section of the page.
5. Look for any referrers that start with Twitter. The Twitter web site is followed by the username.
6. If you’re not sure who the follower is. Click the link. The follower’s Twitter page opens in another browser window.
7. Analyze the rest of the results to find other Twitter followers who are visiting your site.