It’s taken a little time to understand, but I’ve finally started to use Twitter effectively. Well, as effectively as being myself can be. Twitter can be terribly time consuming and just a little bit overwhelming at first blush. So why do so many A list bloggers, regular old bloggers, and industry leaders use the service? Well, because it’s appealing.

The Twitter folks have created a platform where you can write 140 characters and then update your followers with your activity. Those who follow you will see your updates in their Twitter dashboard or through their standalone Twitter application. It’s micro-blogging to some, a new chatroom to others, or simply a place to promote. It really can be used for any number of things. Many bloggers have written posts about effectively marketing yourself through Twitter.

Through fear of breaking unwritten rules, in the beginning I simply sat back in the Twitterosphere to watch others’ activities. I followed a few people, began to follow some of those they talked to regularly (using the @ function), and then I started to interact.

At first, I marketed the posts on my blog, but then I realized Twitter occupies more space than simple link exchange. It’s an open dialog with multiple followers. By participating we can gain more than a small influx of readers, we can begin to network.

I’ve never been one to undervalue networking. The practice leads to business, success, and, well, traffic. Twitter differs from other networking sites I’ve joined. For instance, Entrecard has forums and a message system where I can interact with users. I’m not one for forums because I have to keep track of the different threads and I’m usually too busy to check back often enough to see who’s responded. Twitter allows me to catch up in one place, and use multiple tools to keep updated.

Everytime I log into Twitter I can see who’s messaged me directly – who’s writing about what – and I can choose to update everyone on my current thoughts or simply browse the messages of users I’m following. It’s made the act of networking so much more simple than following multiple threads in a forum or accumulating friends in a social network. It’s started a conversation.

I follow quite a few outspoken individuals. I enjoy reading their rants and their debates on branding, blog etiquette, and media networks. It’s also been a place where I can talk about other issues I enjoy, like politics, gaming, movies, and everyday stuff. But I’m still a newbie with the service.  

What do you think of Twitter? Do you think its valuable a valuable tool for developing your brand? Do you use it for fun? Or have you not succumbed to the Twitter bug…yet?

My Twitter Account

In the last installment, I researched a few sites and made claims to the areas that stopped traffic. I think this type of discussion contains value for any blogger. I almost considered adding green lights and nailing a few sites, but I’ll keep to the current motif and only add stop signs to my case studies today. Be wary, though — green lights may be coming soon!

The idea of keeping traffic contained on our site should not be new to anyone who’s been blogging or site building for a while. At times, traffic can seem like the proverbial chicken with its head cut off — running around vapidly, then silently departing our world. How can we rein in traffic? We need visitors to dig deeper into our site, write comments, subscribe to feeds, and interact with our community.

Case Study #3

The Viral King website still has the new blog shine to it. The site features content related to viral marketing, and does so with, well, with coolness. I love the look of it, the curved angles of the sidebar boxes, the over-sized RSS feed and Technorati favorite icons in the header, and, of course, the Viral King character. It all ties together well, and I’m sure new visitors to the site would give it more than a second look.

The site has a lot of stop signs in place. Remember stop signs keep the visitor from bailing out on the content — they force readers to look deeper into the site and idle a while longer. I already mentioned the two icons in the header as well as the character, but I think the header navigation may be a critical stop sign in the design.

The navigation separates itself from the blog in that it stretches the width of the window, while the content maxes out at 973 pixels wide. This makes a difference, not for its incongruence, but for its statement. It’s telling a visitor that its anchoring the page. The search form also appears in the navigation bar. If you need something, it’s there to show you. I would say this is a terrific stop sign.

The Viral King also offers a free Viral Resource Report, which adds another crucial stop sign. Offering free information in the form of downloadable content places your site onto a reader’s hard drive. When they open the ebook days, weeks, or months later, they will likely make a return trip to your site and opine on blog posts. It’s a great stop sign technique.

Lessons Learned from Viral King

The Viral King displays the site navigation in a way that doesn’t detract from the site’s balance, but does illuminate the content. Having over-sized RSS and Technorati icons ensures readers subscribe to your content in order to find you later. Once again, it pays to have a clean site with well thought out placement of graphics. And the Viral King character, definitely shines.

A site should have stop signs in place to direct the traffic coming from various sources. An effective stop sign can lower bounce rates, increase visibility of monetization efforts, encourage RSS subscription, and ultimately provide more value to readers. I have noticed on my blog that my bounce rate increases from certain sources of traffic. This article does not illuminate strategies for one particular source of traffic but for all sources.

Site Visitors and Their Needs

Every site visitor has a need, whether its to educate themselves on a topic or simply to entertain themselves during their off hours. Every blog should likewise have a purpose. Affiliate marketing blogs would obviously be focusing content on marketing strategies, while SEO blogs would be helping their readers optimize their sites. But what happens if the reader comes in to the blog through a stale link and finds a post concerning a contest? Will they care to stop to read about the contest, and even further into the archives to determine what the blog represents? Can you entice them further into the site?

I think its best to work with examples, so I’ve traveled around to my favorite blogs and placed stop signs where I think visitors might be sucked in a little further to that site’s content. Let’s start out with Tyler Cruz.

Case Study #1

Tyler has a very unique and colorful site, where he describes his adventures as an Internet Entrepreneur. A site visitor would stop after seeing his logo for sure. They would also check out the Get Noticed area due to the nice finger graphic and its placement on the page. I also think his post titles do a good job of illuminating content in a bold, yet not overpowering, way.

Keep in mind I’m not looking at Advertising spots, but areas of design that encourage readers to stick around, read content, subscribe to a feed, etc. I think his RSS Feed area doesn’t attract my attention as much as it should. It could be muted by the over-sized ad banner or the pull of character graphics on the left side of the screen. It’s not terrible, by any means, but I think you have to look for it rather than have it pop out at you.

Lessons Learned from Tyler Cruz

It pays to have a unique logo and template for your site. The placement of certain graphics can weight one side of a blog too heavily and attract attention away from important activities like site subscription, but may also encourage advertiser activity on the site. In Tyler’s case, an advertiser would gain prime real estate and attention across the main ad banner, or along the side, as the eyes tend to be pulled in that direction.

Case Study #2

Ben’s site focuses on providing readers with blogging and website tips without the jargon. He’s mindful of usability standards when creating his blog archives, which include a separate Tutorials section. The site is based on Majestic, not WordPress. You may notice his template doesn’t look like some of the standard designs you see around the Blogosphere. Like Tyler’s site, he pulls readers into various parts of his blog through his graphics and design.

His site header seems to shrink every time I return. I think the header design does a good job of attracting the eyes towards the weighted right sidebar, with the tiny arrows directing you right. Above the sidebar, a visitor would stop to read the navigations as Ben has separated out various parts of his blog. It makes it quite simple for someone to visit the Tutorials section when they find his site looking to learn something.

His most discussed blog entries widget on the sidebar may also attract readers to dig deeper into his site content. It’s placement lower on the page also makes it appear after reading an entire article on his site. It’s positioned at the level where you would naturally look after reading. This works well to draw readers in and stop them from leaving the site.

Lesson Learned from Ben Barden dot com

Ben’s site teaches that subtle graphics can draw attention to different areas of a site. A breadcrumb trail can also place valuable links in front of readers, giving them the option to dig deeper into the content. His site also shows how the placement of certain items, like popular posts or recent comments widgets can be lower on the sidebar to encourage further exploration after a visitor reads the day’s article. Again, I think the only thing lacking would be more attraction to the RSS subscription service, although he does offer a helpful guide to RSS. I know I’ve pointed a few of my offline friends to his description just to save the hassle of IMing a dissertation on the subject.

Stop Signs and Traffic

Of course having great content, like the two of these sites, encourages readers to stay. Even with great content, a flawed design may let visitors off the hook sooner than you like.

These two case studies should have at least peeked your interest. How many stop signs do you have on your site?

This is a new series for Jason Boom dot com. These mini reviews take a look at what attracts readers to certain areas of your site. If you would like to be included in this short run series, please use the contact form to request your site’s inclusion in the upcoming case studies.

This week has showed me the power of social media sites like StumbleUpon. Sure I knew my site could receive tremendous exposure through stumbling, but I didn’t realize how quickly it could happen, and just how quickly it could dissipate. My recent article Ten Reasons to Write Well Not Good received a lot of exposure on StumbleUpon in a short amount of time. It was like one of those summer rains — soaking the site, then soon the sun was back out drying up the traffic.

I’m not complaining about StumbleUpon traffic. I received quality stats during that flash flood. My bouncerate was extremely low. I’m happy with the overall effect. I want to know how to sustain it. Does StumbleUpon traffic stop by a thumbs down? Does anyone have an article?

Happenings this Week

This week I wrote the previously mentioned article, which received the most hits of the week. I also wrote the two part series on How to Podcast with Audacity and Wordpress. I tried to name this article with a more SEO friendly title to see if it brought more organic traffic. So far its brought three visitors, who stayed over ten minutes a piece on the site. I’d say it pays to target your titles with specific keywords.

New Milestone! I’m not a RSS jockey, but I’ve been riding a fairly strong horse upward these past few weeks. I’ve surpassed 70 subscribers. If you haven’t subscribed, now’s your chance. It’s free.

Site Tweaks: I did add an ad above the Spottt widget. I think this ad relates to what a lot of my surfers have interest — making money with their blog. It’s Darren Rowse’s Six Figure Blogging course. You might want to check it out.

I’ve also added a Digg This button to each individual post page, below the article itself. I hope this encourages everyone to Digg their favorite Jason Boom posts from the past and in the future.

Guest Post I have been writing a guest post for a neighboring blog. I’ll update everyone next week when I’ve finished that post. It’s taking longer than expected.

Upcoming Explosions

This week should see the second episode of the Boombox podcast early in the week. I’ll also be writing about site traffic, nurturing killer ideas, and another top ten list. I’ll have a Powder Keg review thrown in there too, for those who enjoy the series.

Other’s Explosions

I’m really enjoying Stephan Miller’s blog of the same name. He discusses his adventures in making money online, his blog, and other ideas for productivity. He has a clear, distinct voice that carries his articles along swiftly. His recent article entitled Spread Your Feed details some finer details of an RSS feed, which I hadn’t even considered. This is why I love his blog. It’s taking things I know, and showing me them from a different angle. Good work, Stephan.

Andrew Pavelski is back this week with a new successful blogging article. His look at John Chow seems like a natural step for this new series. I can’t wait to see what next week brings. Andrew also had extremely well thought out posts during this week. Everyone should be reading his blog.

I also enjoyed The Blog Entrepeneur’s posts this week. His writing has definitely made me want to elevate my own posting style. Just take a look at this rant on Make Money Online blogs or this one about developing blogs that stand apart from the masses.