Twitter is one of the latest and greatest Web 2.0 apps and it gets tons of traffic. However, from the point of view of a SEO expert, it is more important that Twitter can get you tons of traffic as well. So, if you still don't have an account with Twitter, you'd better open one.

Twitter is simple to use and this is what made it so popular. Twitter is fashionable right now, so enjoy the moment. Even the creators of Twitter admit that as with MySpace and other Web 2.0 sensations, Twitter will inevitably go out of fashion some day, so hurry up and get some traffic for free now, when it is still all the rage of the season.

Twitter is simple to use, yet it is really powerful. You might need a couple of hours to get familiar with the basic functionality of Twitter and of some of the extras it has but you can harness its power, even if you don't know it very well.

Unlike most of the other places you can get traffic for free, Twitter is a microblogging platform, which means that there are restrictions on the number of characters in a message. Therefore, you need to be concise in your Tweets and use your space wisely. In addition to being concise, here are some more tips to help you get traffic from Twitter:

1Make your Twitter profile interesting

Your profile and your username are the first two things your visitors will see when they go to your Twitter page. If your profile looks boring, people won't bother to read your tweets, not to mention visit the links you post in them. You can't write a very long bio of yours, but you can enter a few words about you – i.e. your occupation, your interests, etc. You can also include a couple of keywords in your bio.

2 Pick a niche-targeted username

Your username is also very important. You need to pick a username that is targeted at your niche. For instance, if you are promoting your SEO services and want to drive traffic to your SEO site, you can choose something like SEOmaster, SEOguru, SEOservices, etc. Your username will show in searches other users make and this is why you must pay attention to what you choose.

3 Put your site/blog URL in your profile

According to some statistics, 80% of tweeters don't provide an URL in their bio! Well, maybe these people are not SEO experts/Internet marketers and they don't need this traffic but you as a SEO expert can't afford to miss it. So, don't forget to include your URL in your profile!

4 Send the link to your profile to your friends, coworkers, and acquaintances

Your friends, coworkers, and acquaintances will be your most loyal audience, so if they don't know about your Twitter page, make them aware of what they are missing. If you have their emails, or know their accounts on other networks, you can send a mass invite.

5Search for Twitter users with similar interests

You might have millions of friends, but more followers are always welcome. That is why you can use the search functions on Twitter and find people with similar interests. Find as many as you can and invite them all. These people might not be as loyal as your friends, coworkers, and acquaintances but still you will get hits from them as well. Some Twitter users report that about 1-2% of their followers visit their site a day, which means that if you have 1,000 followers, you might expect to get at least 10 or 20 visits a day to your site. This response rate might seem low but there are ways to increase it.

6 Socialize on Twitter as much as you can

When you are active in Twitter, respond to the posts of your followers and visit their links, this seriously increases your chances that you will get the same in return. In a word, actively follow those that follow you.

7 Tweet regularly

As with all other kinds of media, if you want to keep your audience, you need to feed it regularly. Writing a short tweet takes just seconds, but it is enough in order to keep your followers happy. It goes without saying, that you should tweet about useful things, so if you don't have something meaningful to post about you or your sites, it is quite OK to post a link to an article, a video, a blog, etc. you found on the Net and you like.

7Don't spam

You might feel that every single user on Twitter is interested in you and your blog/site but this is not exactly so. You might be tempted to make as many users as you can aware of your Twitter page and your latest tweets but you'd better refrain from doing this, unless you want to see if you can get a ban or not.

8Take advantage of Twitterfeed

Twitterfeed is one more useful service you can take advantage of in order to increase your reach. Go to twitterfeed.com and configure your feeds.

9Make Twitter Search love you

Twitter has a great search function and its main advantage is that it offers real-time results. Google might be fast in indexing pages but its indexing is not real-time. Users are hungry for hot news and nothing beats a real-time search. Many bloggers report that they are getting more traffic from Twitter than from Google and partially this is due to the fact that their tweets are popular and users find them with ease.

10Add Twitter gadgets to your site

There are tons of Twitter gadgets and new ones are being released every day. The cool thing about Twitter gadgets is that your blog visitors can become your Twitter followers. If your Twitter followers have many followers, chances are that some of these followers will notice you and will join your network. As we already mentioned, building a large and targeted network is key to getting more Twitter traffic to your site.

These are some of the main ways in which you can get traffic from Twitter. If you are creative and if you monitor what's going on on Twitter and what new Twitter gadgets are released, you will certainly find more ways to drive traffic from Twitter to your site.