I was introduced to LinkedIn in August of 2009. I’ve been using it almost obsessively since then and it’s been my third highest source of traffic for my blog since I started using it.
Why Linkedin?
LinkedIn is a smaller version of Facebook specifically for business owners and for people in career transition. LinkedIn currently has over 65,000,000 professionals, but here’s what’s really interesting.
According to Quantcast, the average household income for over 38% of Linkedin Users is over $100k per year. That means that a big chunk of LinkedIn Users have money to spend. That’s great news for your online business.
If you’re new to LinkedIn, it’s pretty easy to get up and going. Here are 5 ways you can take to start using Linkedin and Drive Traffic to Your Blog:
Method #1: Create Your Profile
This should be your top priority. You want to make your profile as compelling as possible so that people want to click on your links and find out more about you.
There are two specific places where you can add links to your blog inside your LinkedIn Profile.
The first spot is under “Websites.” This is a place where you can add live links to your blog. When creating these links, you want to make sure that you have a compelling call to action that gets people to go to your blog. As an example, instead of using the default setting of “My Blog,” I’ve used “Coaches: Get Clients” Much more compelling and it shows because I get a lot of click-throughs from my profile.
See the video below for a more detailed description on how to do this.
The second spot to add a link is under your Profile Summary. Here the links are not clickable, but it’s still an opportunity to add links to your Newsletter and squeeze pages. I’ve had a lot of people send me messages on LinkedIn to thank me for the resources under my summary. This is a good place to add additional links so that your connections can find out more about you.
Method #2: Post An Update
This is similar to posting an update on Facebook. When you post an update on LinkedIn every one of your connections will see it on their profile. I try to post a new update about 2 times per week to get a flood of new people coming to my blog.
When posting an update your focus should always be on adding value. Once you’ve got the value the next most important step is to use language in your update that is compelling. That way your connections will want to click through.
Method #3: Add the WordPress Application
This is a great application to use on LinkedIn. What happens is that your latest blog posts will automatically be added to your LinkedIn profile. That way users can see your latest content and posts so they can click through if they want to learn more.
Method #4: Get More Eye Balls on Your Profile
There are a few ways to do this. The first way is to join LinkedIn Groups. This is similar to online forums. Once you join a group, you want to participate in the Group Discussions. Each time you comment in a group, a link to your profile pops up so that other users can click back to your profile and check you out. Participating in groups is a great way to network and get more eyeballs on your profile.
The second way to get more eyeballs on your profile is to answer questions on LinkedIn. There is a section on LinkedIn called Answers. One of the best ways to get more eye balls on your profile and a steady stream of traffic to your blog is by answering other peoples questions.
The trick to getting noticed is to not only provide value, but to also aim to be in the top spot. The more often you answer questions in the top spot, the more likely users will see your name and check out your profile.
Method #5. Start Your Own Group
This is the most recent way I’ve used LinkedIn. What’s great about having your own group is that you can post a link to your blog right in the group profile. That means everyone in the group can click through to your blog to check you out.
That’s the first way to get traffic to your blog with groups. The second way is a lot more exciting. A great feature with LinkedIn Groups is that you can personally email all the members in the group. LinkedIn allows you to broadcast up to one message per week to your members.
And here’s the magic in this method. When you broadcast a message using Groups, your message is received by your members twice: once to their regular email account and a second time to their LinkedIn Inbox.
This is not only a great way to get more traffic to your blog, but you can message members anytime you have a free offering or training that you want your members to know about. Watch the video below to see how you can setup your first Group on LinkedIn.
These are just a few ways to drive traffic to your blog with LinkedIn, but there are many others? Are you using LinkedIn? How has it helped your blog?
Steve and Hani are the creators of Blogging for Coaches. Discover 5 Tools that will Rapidly Build Your Coaching Business and Create a Waiting List of Clients Faster Than Ever Before… STARTING RIGHT NOW.