A Guest Post by www.lewishowes.com on driving traffic to your blog with LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is the most powerful, yet under-utilised social networking platform on the web.
Whether you just created your first blog, or you are considered one of the top bloggers in the world like Darren Rowse, Chris Brogan, or Tim Ferriss, you are always looking for ways to generate more traffic to your site. Even more so, you are looking for qualified traffic to your site, (i.e people who are interested in the content you produce).
LinkedIn is a great way to generate free, organic, traffic to your blog.
“But Lewis, isn’t LinkedIn just a site to post my resume when I am looking for a job?”
No, wake up people! Although LinkedIn has been great for job seekers during the most recent economic cycle, it is much much more than that. Individuals and companies are achieving more professional goals than imaginable on LinkedIn. For example, LinkedIn can help you:
- Sell products
- Find new clients or employees
- Generate leads
- Receive funding for your company
- Obtain sponsorships
- Sell hundreds of tickets to your professional event
- Get national and local press coverage
- And last but not least, drive massive traffic to your blog
Achieving these goals on LinkedIn don’t come naturally. You’ve gotta work the system on LinkedIn and experiment with different methods. I’ve come up with the best ways to achieve those goals. Here are my top 10 ways to drive traffic to your blog using LinkedIn:
1. Complete Your Profile:
Numerous individuals have told me LinkedIn doesn’t work for them. I always ask them how much time they have put into using LinkedIn, their response – very little. If your profile is weak people will lose interest quickly and may never click on your website links.
If you want people to read your profile and click on your websites then make your profile concise, compelling and value driven throughout. Complete your profile 100%, add a great picture of yourself, and take the entire process very seriously. The more complete and compelling your profile is, the more people will read and visit links you have posted.
This advice goes beyond driving traffic to your blog. If someone were to Google your name (which most people do when they are researching you) your LinkedIn profile is one of the first things that pop up. Personally, my LinkedIn profile is the third result, and for Darren Rowse it comes up seventh (before Facebook or Twitter). Google your own name and check out what position your LinkedIn profile shows up. You must make your profile compelling.
2. Increase Your Connections:
The more connections you have, the more people will have access to your profile. Every time you take an action on LinkedIn (i.e. update your profile, join a group, recommend someone, RSVP to an event, etc… this shows up on the home page of your 1st degree connections). If you only have 100 connections, this limits the amount of potential clicks on your profile and website links per day. Constantly be updating and adding new connections.
3. Customize Your Website Links:
When you first create your profile your website links will look like this:
However this is not a “call to action” and you are missing potential traffic because of it. No one actually cares what your blog is unless it is relevant to them or solves a problem. Instead, customize your website links to attract more clicks and drive more traffic to your blog. If I were Darren, I would insert this:
The second image is more compelling and explains exactly what the viewer will see on the next page when they click on each link. In order to change your websites with a custom headline, click on the “edit” button next to one of the websites. View the image below for further details:
4. Answer Questions:
This is a great way to drive traffic to your blog. The more questions you answer, the better the chances are of that person asking the question to click on your blog to learn more about you. Not only will that one person be more interested in learning more about you, but also others answering that question. Additionally, when someone rates your answer as “The Best” of the mix, it will improve your thought leadership status. It moves you up the rankings as a “featured expert” in the category you answered in. When you are a featured expert people become more aware of your profile, and the chance they will click on your link to learn more about what you have to offer improves.
5. Update Status:
For you Twitter lovers out there, this should be an easy step to take. LinkedIn also has a status update feature that is a lot like Twitter, only it gives you 148 characters to work with instead of 140. Why is it so important to constantly update your status? Because it is the first thing that pops up the home profile for all of your connections. Check out your home page on LinkedIn and you will see a few status updates of those your are connected to. If they are smart, they will include some compelling copy with a call to action and a link back to their blog (something I do that drives traffic to mine).
6. Join Niche Groups:
Whatever your blog is about, there is an audience of people on LinkedIn that share interest with. To make it easy to find these people click on the “Group Search” tab and type in some key words that relate to your blog. I have a sports industry blog that focuses mostly on social media with an audience of professionals who work in the sports. I joined all of the professional sports groups I could find:
Some of these niche groups have thousands of members who are actively involved in connect with other members. If you are not in the groups where your audience for your blog is hanging out, then you are missing out on the opportunity for new readers, and organic traffic to your site. Join as many groups as you can after doing a key word search that relates to your blog.
For starters – check out the Professional Bloggers Group.
7. Post Comments In Groups:
Some larger groups are receiving hundreds of new discussion topics every few days (think of it as a forum). People are sharing points of discussion, commenting and giving further feedback and suggestions on those comments. Every time someone creates a new discussion topic, it shows up on the home profile of everyone in that group. If there are 100,000 people in the group, then you are potentially getting the attention of 100,000 other individuals for your comment.
8. Add RSS Feed to Groups:
Each group has a section that allows you to add a link to a website with the latest news you think is relevant to that group. It also allows you to add your own RSS feed or website link so it will automatically update the group every time you post a new article on your blog. This creates an automated flow of organic traffic that will show up on the home profile of everyone connected in the group. Again, this gives you more opportunities for people to view your blog.
9. Create a Group:
This may be one of the most powerful things you can do on LinkedIn. I won’t go into all of the amazing details on how this has helped me, but I will tell you that owning a group drives a lot of traffic to your site. I own several niche related groups on LinkedIn. For example, I created the Sports Industry Network group on LinkedIn and there are currently over 19,500 members. When a new person joins the group, they see a brief description of the group, my name as the owner of the group, plus my website url www.sportsnetworker.com. Since my group gets over 100 new members each week, that’s additional traffic from new members alone. That’s not even including the close to 20,000 members who are actively engaging in the group, and clicking on my blog links.
10. Add the Blog Application to Your Profile:
This might be the most obvious suggestion, but I still see some of the top pro bloggers leaving this feature out. This application posts the title and first paragraph for your most recent articles you have published on your LinkedIn profile. It is a way to give viewers of your profile a sneak peak of what they will read on your blog.
Go to “applications” and download either the WordPress or Blog Link application and add your URL for your blog.
LinkedIn continues to be one of the top sites that drives traffic to my blog, thanks to these 10 examples, but the power of LinkedIn doesn’t stop here. What other tips have you found through using LinkedIn to increase traffic to your blog?
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Lewis Howes is the co-author of the LinkedIn book, LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website. He founded the Sports Executives Association and SportsNetworker.com, which provides daily social media and marketing tips for sports professionals. You can connect with him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/lewishowes or on his site at www.lewishowes.com.
Very useful, thanks! Wish I’d read the comments earlier before I spent 20 mins working out why I couldn’t add a news feed to a group:)
@Nick Thanks for you thoughtful points about the value LinkedIn brings compared to Twitter and Facebook and the point that Chris Brogan made in his article about deleting his LinkedIn account.
I did a video follow up post with 8 reasons Chris Brogan (and you) should continue to stay on LinkedIn… and how it is better than some of the other sites:
http://www.lewishowes.com/featured-articles/chris-brogan-should-stay-on-linkedin/
I think it may change your mind once you take a look.
Hope this helps, and thank you for your comments.
@ Annabel – my thoughts exactly! Thanks Sean Smith for explaining #8.
I didn’t know you could customize link titles #3 – just updated mine! Thanks for these tips.
And last but not least, drive massive traffic to your blog
it’s much easier said than done, don’t you think so?
Hi guys
i have never really understood the big deal with linkedin but after reading this post i have opened an account and i am following the ideas so i will give you a run through of how it goes.
kind regards
sam
X
Another interesting and potentially lucrative feature of LinkedIn is it’s discussion opt-in feature. This is something I’ve experienced first hand; if you start and/or follow a discussion (or follow all discussions in a Group), LinkedIn will notify you via e-mail every single time there is an update or new comment made to that post. Talk about an amazing way of keeping your blog or website front and center in the minds of those interested in your area of expertise!
-Marie Prentice @affinityclick
http://www.affinityclick.com
@sam
Glad you decided to open an account after reading this article… let me know how it turns out for you :)
@Marie
Another way to drive traffic is by posting discussions in the groups like I mention in the #7. However, every group sends out an email of the weekly updates to all of its members. So if you post a discussion and the group has over 100,000 members, then LinkedIn sends your discussion to 100,000 emails (for people who have not opted out of it anyways) and that is free marketing for you to a targeted list of people.
Hope that inspires you even more :)
I googled Darren Rowse and the first hit was at problogger, wikipedia was next, twiiter came in at 6th, facebook came in at 13th and linkedin was 19th. Which google location were you using when you complied your results?
Personally I have never found that googling my name finds me in the first 5 pages (I know I have a lower profile than Darren) because I share my surname with a large city and it always dominates results. If you want to find a person you have to use a person focused tool
I love LinkedIn. As a freelance writer, I have received more business from LinkedIn than any other social media that I use. To me, it is the most professional of the platforms.
The Groups are the most helpful although some take over the group with a bombardment of “infomercials.” It really depends on how the owner of the group controls the postings.
It’s a great place to share ideas and information and provides you with an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge. I just hope it keeps that professional appeal.
Hi, thanks. But I noticed with point 3 on Linked in that if you change the websites name from anything but “my website” then it inserts a “no follow” tag and the value of the link is somewhat lost….
Hi Lewis,
Congrats for the great post. I never thought that Linkedin can be Traffic Gush, but you have explained beautifully. Great information I should apply it right away.
Thanks a Ton.
Rajnesh
http://www.youarelookingfor.info
LinkedIn is a great way to generate free, organic, traffic to your blog.LinkedIn experience started the next day LinkedIn was created and I am doing all the things mentioned in this.The article is good & helpful as well.I like the article and hope to see more of such articles.
Linkedin is also a good social media site for connect with people and promote our service. I am also using linkedin.
Wow … Thanks dude. I need it to optimize my public profile.
never thought of LinkedIn actually. I just read on another forum how to receive traffic. a poster mentioned this site as well. all these free tools at our fingertips!
Good recommendations in the post in all things except suggestion #2 – connecting.
If you don’t want to be able to reach people through your connections, then by all means connect willy-nilly.
If however, you want to get introductions to VIPs of the VIPs you know, then you have to connect only to people you know and trust,
It’s a fundamental difference of opinion between two different camps on LinkedIn. The open connectors seem to say that it works for them, but when I talk to regular people, they talk about how this strategy backfires on them.
Your mileage may vary;-)
steve
—
Steven Tylock
The LinkedIn Personal Trainer
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
@Steven,
Thanks for your suggestion, but I have to agree on this one with you.
You said:
“If you don’t want to be able to reach people through your connections, then by all means connect willy-nilly.”
However, this is contradicting yourself. If you connect with more VIP’s willingly and openly then they will connect you with more of their VIP’s, it will allow your to be found by more people (right now you have less than 400 direct connection, and this means you limit yourself on the number of VIP’s that can 1. Find you on a LinkedIn search, 2. Reach out to you to connect and 3. Hire you for your services… because they can’t find or connect with you.)
You limit other possibilities by only connecting with those that you do know.
Think about it, if we only connect with those few close friends we interact with in the “real world” on a daily basis, then we already know about all of the possible opportunities through that network.
However, if you start to branch out and connect with people you somewhat know, or other VIP’s that you may not know at all… then you are opening your brand and company to an entirely new network… and more importantly you are opening it up to potentially millions more through their 2nd 3rd degree network on LinkedIn.
I have yet to see connecting with everyone for me and the thousands I have trained online and offline “backfire” for any of them. It has only helped get more business, get more leads, generate more opportunities for those who do this. Feel free to check out some of the recommendations on my profile with the feedback from people who do this… it’s pretty amazing.
@Lewis,
Thanks for the response.
Since you’re in Columbus, let’s suppose for a moment that you know Jay Schottenstein, the CEO of Retail Ventures, Inc (RVI) – you’ve played golf together, and are invited over.
Let’s also suppose that you connect to Jay on LinkedIn, and also connect to ten thousand other people.
How likely is it that you’re actually going to refer people you have no trust for when they ask to reach Jay?
I mean – you’ve been to the house… If you offend Jay, you may lose that friendship.
Yes – you’ll refer people you don’t know through to other people you don’t know, but real connections – where the other guy expects you to be a gate-keeper. How often will you introduce strangers to them?
As a marketing practice, I’m completely visible to everyone on LinkedIn – even people outside my network.
If someone finds my LinkedIn profile and can’t find a way to reach me, I didn’t want them to – because they must have no clue.
I have counseled people that _have_ had significant close relationships damaged because of complications after they connected to someone they didn’t know.
So yes – if maintaining close relationships where you would positively endorse friends of friends is of no help, an indiscriminate connection policy works fine.
But I maintain that there are plenty of other ways to accomplish that. There are dreadfully few to get introduced to the close friends of your close friends. And those are the introductions that really matter.
I’d like to refer to this article from December:
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com/archives/connect-to-people-you-know-and-trust-network-with-everyone/
I am absolutely open about networking with anyone – but there’s no LinkedIn connection until after I know the other person well enough to know that they won’t embarrass me in front of my other VIP connections. (and to me, everyone is a VIP)
[btw – you said you have to agree with me and then argued the other case – was that a Freudian slip – do you really want to agree with me?-]
steve
–
Steven Tylock
The LinkedIn Personal Trainer
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
I’ve made many connections through LinkedIn and thought my profile was up-to-date. I implemented all these recommendations and it’s made my profile much better for connections to understand that I have a WAHM advice niche!
@Steve,
Thanks again for your comment… and yes, that was a slip and meant to write “disagree” with you :)
Here is my reply to your comment….
I know the Schottenstein family (although I have not played golf with them yet ;)…
You are saying that you won’t connect with anyone you don’t know because you don’t feel comfortable forwarding along an introduction to one of your VIP’s. And I completely understand your point of view, and agree with that.
However, you can still connect with that person you don’t know that well, and you don’t have to forward along an introduction if they try to connect through you to one of your VIP’s….
This has happened to me probably about 10 times in the last 2 years where I have had people I don’t know (or even friends) who asked for an introduction to someone who was an influencer in my industry. I did not feel comfortable forwarding along the introduction and therefore I emailed them back telling them why. No harm, no fowl… and I have yet to have an issue with that.
Because I’ve connected with those people I still:
1. Am able to be found and contacted by millions more people on LinkedIn
2. Am able to drive more traffic to my site because my status updates, and profile updates show up on more people’s LinkedIn home page
3. Am able to generate a TON more leads than with only a few hundred connection (of people I already know)
4. Am building my email list/database (one of the most important things for anyone doing business online these days, just ask Darren, Chris Brogan, or any other successful blogger/marketer).
5. Am opening up so many more opportunities that normally wouldn’t come my way because I’m on the “top of mind” for people who might not know me that well (as opposed to my close network of people I already know).
6. Allowing myself to influence, inspire, and help those that might not know about my services that well… therefore evoking more recommendations and increasing my thought leadership, and social proof on my profile.
Do you need more reasons?
Again, if you are worried about connecting someone you don’t know to one of your VIP’s… then worry no more, because you don’t have to forward the introduction… simply tell them why you don’t want to in a professional manner, and move on.
Thanks again for your comment.
Thanks for this wake-up call about LinkedIn, Lewis! I didn’t know that this can become such a powerful traffic tool. Sounds like this is one we simply have to make time for.
Great post…one question: to add an RSS feed to the groups, don’t you have to own the group? I’m not seeing this news manage option anywhere but on my own group.
I consider Lewis my LinkedIn Expert. I use many of his tips above and after attending a teleseminar he cosponsored a few months ago, I was able to increase my traffic to my blog and website.
Great tips and 100% doable.
If each of us just posted 3 blogs per week, and responded to at least 1 LinkedIn Group Discussion a day.(what 30 minutes?)
What a difference we’d see in our online business.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/carleneann
I have already been doing some of the things mentioned in this article. I will implement the ones I haven’t used yet. It really requires a great deal of persistence and consistency to keep up with this social media work.
The question is: how long till we see results?
Driving traffic to website is really very important to make your site visible and to do this I suggest you do all the techniques listed in this post because we cannot succeed if we do just 1 or 2 strategies, I have an idea to add to this post because there are millions of people going online each day to play game. I used YourKidsClub games as it has wide variety of games that are related to my niche and can help generate more traffic.
@Lewis,
Good discussion – perhaps we should have a matching blog posts just on this debate;-)
You say you have avoided introductions when you don’t know the requester but you do know the recipient… I’ll go one further – I know users that will not connect because they don’t even want to be in the pool of connections of an open connector.
It’s a choice – maintain weak connections, or maintain strong. I don’t see the middle path working well. You have to hide your connections because you can’t trust them, and you can’t really offer introductions when they would count for anything.
And – how would you respond when Schottenstein Sr. calls you up and says “Lewis, I just took a call from Slim Smith – he said we both have you in common and that you suggested he call…”
Why yes, you never made that suggestion, and it is _awful_ networking – but it happens – and it leaves you with a problem to deal with. If you can’t trust the person you connect with, you can’t be sure that they won’t do something like this – and if you connect to 500+ people, you’re likely to have found at least a handful of people that would consider doing this…
And on the points:
1. Am able to be found
I am no less able to be found on LinkedIn – really.
2. Updates drive traffic to my site
Ok – I’ll give you that – but why not get them on twitter or signup for the blog directly? If a person already knows you well enough to connect, won’t they signup anyways?
3. Am able to generate a TON more leads
Perhaps if you have a consumer product to market – but I think other advertising methods work just as well. And when you do this, you give up the deep and strong connections.
4. Am building my email list/database
I’m sure people who use LinkedIn love the fact that you mine them into your email database…
5. Opening opportunities because I’m on the “top of mind”
Instead of opening opportunities with people that already know and trust you. Which is more likely to result in a significant deal?
6. Allowing myself to influence, inspire, and help those that might not know about my services that well…
That’s just grandiose flattery of yourself – a LinkedIn connection to people you don’t know is not likely to inspire them. (IMHO)
6b) more recommendations and increasing my thought leadership, and social proof on my profile.
And this is just plain awkward – it’s not a sales letter – having more than 20 recommendations _does not_ help prove that you’re great.
“Tom’s a great guy and answers his email”
“I’ve had good success connecting to other people that freely connect after connecting to Tom”
…
“All my dreams came true after I connected to Tom!”
Ok – that last one is more than I ever see, but you don’t need 486 recommendations to “prove” that you’re good at what you do;-)
steve
–
Steven Tylock
The LinkedIn Personal Trainer
http://www.linkedinpersonaltrainer.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetylock
@Steve,
I’m one step ahead of you and created a video post about 6 main reasons you should connect with everyone on LinkedIn back on my site: http://www.lewishowes.com/featured-articles/6-reasons-to-connect-with-everyone-on-linkedin/
Each one of your points made me laugh actually as you are pretty close minded and think that your way is the only way to use LinkedIn.
I could go through each one of your points and show you why you are missing a huge opportunity, also give you case studies from people who have implemented my suggestions and seen great results.
But to be honest, I would rather focus on helping more people like the 100+ who commented on this article and found it useful, as opposed to try and convince 1 person who is too close minded about any new ideas, and won’t find the value in what I say.
Fact is, connecting with everyone has more benefits then connecting with a very limited amount of people like you have done… just read the blog comments on here from people, and the testimonials of others that have massive success from doing so, or feel free to check out my site as I have a number of videos about LinkedIn and the value it has by growing your database.
In fact, you should start listening to other LinkedIn Experts like Carlene above who sees the value in what I’m sharing… thanks Carlene :)
Thanks!!!
This is really very informative and helped as about traffic. I will follw these rules and let’s see what will be the results.
Thank’s
Anat Kumar
Just added my website details into my linkedin. Good recommendations. Thanks!
Hi,
Thanks for the tips, I have been a member at LinkedIn for a while, but never noticed how many different things we could do with it, specially adding an RSS feed to a group, that’s really great.
And since Alexa ranks LinkedIn as the 17th site in the United States, I would say it should not be ignored.
Thanks,
Jamie
Thanks, Lewis! A very informative post that gives your readers some new, useful tips as well as helpful reminders. I appreciate your willingness to share your experience and insights.
I’d signed up with linkedin ages ago and not given it another thought. I think I’ll revisit it after reading this. Thanks
Just landed on this post via Google research. I love it. This situation change my perceptual experience and I am obtaining the RSS feeds. Cheers.
I get so many invitations to join LinkedIn from friends but never felt like actually joining it…is it this good to get traffic? I think I will join to see it myself now.
This is just another one of the many great social networking tools that are great are driving traffic and interested readers to your site. I have had great success using LinkedIn with my business.
Thnx understanding LinkedIn better. Here in Austria there’s only Facebook (private) and Xing (business network). ;)
I hope LinkedIn is coming soon…
I’m glad to see that I’m doing most of these. I saw the RSS feed option on my own groups but didn’t know I could add it to other groups! For some reason I just thought it was an admin feature.
That 1 tip is golden! I can’t wait to add my RSS feed to a few select groups.
Thanks!
I’ve not really tried doing anything with LinkedIn, I’ve made a profile and got involved with groups a little bit but that’s about it.
This article was just what I needed to make me realise how useful using LinkedIn could be, I’ll definitely be testing these tips out!
Thanks!
Some really good tips here. I get a lot of traffic from linkedin, so I’ve tweaked the profile per your suggestions.
Thanks very much for sharing.
I have reservations on adding people to my linkedin profile (just active) since I think it should be conformed not of people you just know but of people you have worked with or you are working with at the time…
But I guess that way you might be loosing a lot of opportunities for networking?
Early stages, so many questions, and your post helped! Thx:)
I think my profile is done up to 60% but after reading this I will find some time to finish it.
But the only thing I feel uncomfortable in inviting people that I do not personally know, I’d rather be added (kinda online shyness thing… lol)
Pricelessly priceless article. It is the most useful article I have come across on LinkedIn.No doubt it will enable me make the most of my LinkedIn presence
Keep on writing such articles,
Kofi Hagan
These are all very solid tips. I like to use article marketing as a traffic producer, especially for my sales pages. It seems like it is a lot harder to get traffic from forums lately as they have increased the standards for being allowed a signature. Also, blogging seems to be on the downslope. If you are creative and can think “outside the box”, then you can always come up with new ways to drive traffic. Great article.
I never would have thought of using linkedin like this…. Will have to try it and let see what kind of traffic will i get for my blog..thanks Lewis :)
This was a really inspiring article. I found it full of great info. The only problem i encountered was #8, adding my RSS feed. Maybe, it has changed since you wrote it…
Thanks for the great information about how to get traffic cause you answered the exact question i was looking for but still don’t know how to make a good manage for the Rss feed in diffrent places.
http://www.farmvilleguide.webeden.co.uk
Thanks for the post. I joined up on linkedin a while ago now but didnt realy get much out of it. Im going to take on your tips and give it another try.
I delight in what you possess done here. I like the factor where you announce ‘ you are doing this to come apart without hope but I would assume through all the comments that this is working also in behalf of you as well.