5 Creative Ways to Drive More Traffic from LinkedIn

Do you want more visitors to your website or blog? Have you finally realized the potential of social networking sites in online marketing? A lot of business owners often ignore one of the most important social media networks for increasing exposure and traffic. If you are one of them, you certainly wouldn't want to make the mistake again because LinkedIn is the ultimate platform for your professional dealings. LinkedIn is an important platform to obtain more online exposure.

Your LinkedIn account can be one of the best referral platforms for your online site. If you think that a considerable amount of online traffic can be driven from your LinkedIn account, it is the high time to work to enhance view on your profile. Luckily, that is something that can be ascertained. LinkedIn shows how many times your account has been visited. Ensure that you track your profile on a weekly basis and through the five ways discussed below, you will watch as this number begin to increase consistently.

• Incorporate Account Links

Your personal LinkedIn profile provides you with a platform to help visitors to know you better, when they visit your profile, the members will naturally want to click on the links you have provides. For that reason, you should be creative when wring your description in order to capture the attention of the visitors.

Displaying attractive and expressive links will motivate readers to click on those particular links. You may direct them, straight to your site home page or to certain pages where they can read more about your products or services. In either case, ensure that your links are compelling.

• Create Connections to Increase Profile Views

When you need to enhance your exposure on LinkedIn, make sure that you establish connection with individuals who have a realistic reason for networking. As you establish more connections, you will attract more people from the updates that you make on LinkedIn. In addition, make sure that you are continuously noticeable and relevant. This will allow other members to click on your profile and know you and your business better.

• Be Active and Busy To Generate Blog Traffic

You don’t have to spend a lot of time on LinkedIn to make an impact. You just need to take your time to update your status, post some relevant content., take part on a discussion, make comment on members posts and some members questions, especially those that are directed at you company.

• Utilize LinkedIn While on the Run 

Cell phones now make up more than 20 percent of traffic from LinkedIn. There are powerful LinkedIn apps that you can use to make it easy for you to network while on the run.

• Post Articles From Your Blog As Your Status Update. 

Needless to say, you need to share your blog with your network members to enhance traffic flow from linked. So make the most of the LinkedIn share button on your blog.

So, are you making use of these tips? If not, it is high time to make them work for you.

Small Business SEO Checklist: 11 Ways to Improve Rankings Today

SEO isn’t easy for any company.

But SEO is especially complicated when you have limited time, money, and other resources.

For small businesses, it boils down to one question:

What can we do today to help improve our rankings?

Great organic rankings don’t happen overnight.

However, there are at least 11 things you can focus on to start moving the needle for your small businesses.

The following SEO checklist for small businesses will help you prioritize SEO tasks.

It includes:

• What to address.
• Why it’s important.
• The tools to use.
• The time commitment involved.

1. Nail Down What Problems You Solve For Customers

Before jumping into SEO, you must first understand the nature of what your small business provides to your customers, according to Chris Luttjohann with Digital Current.

For example:

• How, when, and where do customers determine they need your product or service?
• Is it away from home, using their cell phone? Is it at home using a desktop computer or tablet?
• Is it driven by a personal desire, like good food to eat or a great place to spend some time?
• Or is it caused by a disruptive event like a home or personal issue?

These questions color the language your customers will use to find your business.

This information will drive your keyword research and content creation, among other tasks.

Tools to use: Whiteboard

Time involvement: Medium

2. Fix Your Technical SEO Issues

Your small business website might look fine on the outside – with great graphics, colors, and fonts.

But if there are technical problems “under the hood,” it will likely impact your rankings and traffic.

Before embarking on a content or link campaign, spend time fixing the foundation.

You need a solid website structure so search engines can properly crawl and index your webpages.

Some of the most common technical SEO problems have to do with:

• Speed.
• Duplicate content.
• Broken links.
• Improper use of canonical link elements.
• Un-optimized pages.

For more information on how to audit a website, read this article: The Ultimate SEO Audit Checklist.

Tools to use: SEMRush, Google Search Console, GT Metrix, Siteliner and Screaming Frog

Time involvement: High

3. Optimize Your Pages

On-page optimization is more than just putting keywords on the page.

You must develop quality content that is properly structured using natural characteristics for the targeted keywords.

Use every reasonable (i.e., non-spammy) opportunity to add your targeted keywords appropriately on your website.

Otherwise, you’re missing important ranking signals.

In other words, you must optimize your:

• Titles.
• Meta descriptions.
• Body content.

Kevin Chow with Digital Current takes it a step further. When you’re optimizing and building your content, you should think about terms or locale to speak to your audience.

For example, in Washington State you would use “Tri-Cities” instead of Kennewick, Richland, and Pasco.

For more information about on-page optimization, read this article: Why Keywords Are Still So Very Important for SEO.

Tools to use: SEMRush, SpyFu, Google Search Console, Keywords Everywhere

Time involvement: High

4. Optimize Google My Business

Google My Business should be a focal point for any small business. It’s free, easy to update, and can make a big impact.

The first step toward optimizing your Google My Business listing is claiming and verifying it: https://www.google.com/business.

Be sure to fill out as many fields as you can and include photos and videos to enhance your listing.

Your category selection is super important. Be sure to choose the correct categories for your business.

If you want to get more advanced with Google My Business, take the time to create questions and answers.

What does that mean?

In local search results, there is now a section where people can ask questions and get answers.

As a small business, it is important that you stay on top of these questions. Create your own questions and provide the answers.

Mike Blumenthal wrote a great guide about these Q&As, which is worth the read: The Big Guide to Google Questions And Answers (Q & A).

Tools to use: Google My Business

Time involvement: Low

5. Find Out What Competitors Are Doing & Do It Better

Competitors online might be different than the competitors within your local area.

For SEO purposes, we are the most concerned with the websites that are showing up in the top 5 to 10 positions of Google search results for your targeted keywords. Those are the competitors you want to analyze.

When doing a competitive analysis, use tools to find out:

• What those sites are ranking for.
• How many pages they have indexed.
• Their website structure.
• The quality of their backlink profile.

Also, we know page speed is a factor in Google’s ranking algorithm.

So run their landing pages through page speed tools. Look for areas of weakness.

For example, are their pages running slow? Are there keywords they have missed that you can target?

For more information on what to look for when doing a competitive analysis, read: 3 Ways to Quickly Compare Your Website with Your Competitors.

Tools to use: SEMrush, SpyFu, Majestic

Time involvement: Medium

6. Manage Local Business Listings & Citations

In addition to Google My Business, you need to control the accuracy of your local business data.

Consistency is crucial.

Data aggregators (e.g., Neustar Localeze, Factual) share information about local businesses, including the name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Make sure your business’s NAP information is consistent and accurate. Local business listings and citations (i.e., online mentions of a business) can help improve your local presence.

The best approach to local directories and citations is to sign up for a service that will distribute your business NAP information.

Tools to use: Yext, BrightLocal, WhiteSpark

Time involvement: Low

7. Get Links from Websites in Your Local Area

Most small business owners never think about links.

However, getting links to your site can help improve your rankings.

That can mean more sales and more customers.

My approach to “link attraction” has always been more of a publicity angle:

What can we do to spread the word about our business, educate others, and get involved in the community?

For ideas on how to get local links, check out the article, What Is a Local Backlink & How to Find Them.

Tools to use: Majestic, Ahrefs, SpyFu

Time involvement: High

8. Add Schema Markup

Schema markup sends search engines signals about page components, such as:

• Business name.
• Address.
• Phone number.
• Ratings.
• Business hours.

This can lead to rich snippets in SERPs.

Check out schema for local businesses here: https://schema.org/LocalBusiness.

Tools to use: Google Structured Data Testing Tool

Time involvement: Medium

9. Focus on Getting Reviews

Even my kids are conditioned to look up reviews before making a purchase.

Reviews were one of the leading local search ranking factors in 2017, according to Local SEO Guide.

Plus, you can improve your conversions by putting effort into getting reviews and feedback from your customers.

Platforms can help you organize and manage a review campaign.

Or, you can simply encourage customers to leave reviews on the major online review sites.

Tools to use: GetFiveStars.com, Yext

Time involvement: High

10. Create Videos & Images for Competitive Keywords

Websites need content, which means words, so that search engines understand what they are about.

Content goes beyond words, though, and should include images and videos.

In fact, if you are struggling to show up for competitive keywords, why not try a properly optimized video or an image?

Tools to use: Keywordtool.io, SEMRush, SpyFu

Time involvement: Medium

11. Mix Paid with Organic to Get Going

If you’re just starting out with SEO, it can take a while to see results.

SEO is a great long-term play, but sometimes you need to start generating leads right away. That is where paid search can really help.

While you are building up your SEO work, set aside a budget for paid, so that you can keep the leads coming in.

Even after you have a steady flow of organic traffic to the website, you might still consider running a paid search campaign in conjunction.

Read more about local paid search: 10 Tips to Get More Local Customers from AdWords & Facebook Ads.

Tools to use: Google Auction Insights, Bing Ads Keyword Planner Tool

Time involvement: High

Best 5 Content Marketing Strategies for Your Small Business

Content marketing is a powerful way to help small businesses gain more customers and grow. Though for content marketing to be successfully executed it needs to have a strategic approach, which is focused on creating and distributing valuable, unique, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain audiences.

To help your small business get the most out of the content marketing efforts on your website, take a look at the following five best content marketing strategies for your website.

5 Content Marketing Strategies to Consider

Identify Your Target Audience

Content works best when its targeted for a specific audience. Rather than blindly creating website content without considering who your business’s target audience is, spending time identifying your target audience and thinking who will benefit most from your products or services and therefore whom you are creating the content for, will ensure the content you create on your site is more engaging and relatable for your target audience.

As Jennifer Yesbeck, marketing manager at Alexa writes in a blog about targeting in marketing:

“Speak directly to a defined audience. Marketing messages resonate more deeply with audiences when readers can relate directly to the information. Brands that have a large, varied market of customers often struggle with creating marketing campaigns that speak directly to their audience.”

Make Good Use of Visuals

The age-old saying “a picture tells 1000 words” bears truth today, and none more so than in the world of content marketing. Accompanying great visuals, whether it’s pictures, videos or infographics, with quality and engaging text, is one content marketing strategy for your small business’s website that should not be overlooked.

That said, one image stuck at the top of a blog won’t suffice and the content on your website should be regularly frequented with stimulating imagery.

As Neil Patel, co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and KISSmetrics, informs in an article about Content marketing:

“Throwing a stock image at the top of a blog doesn’t cut it. You should add relevant images throughout the article. Try to keep the user’s engagement high through the whole piece of content, not just the introduction.

Create Content that is Sharable

Another vital content marketing strategy is to make the content you create on your small business’s website shareable, with the aim to make it go viral. Generating content that encourages others to share it will inevitable drive higher volumes of traffic to your website. And higher percentages of traffic means greater leads and sales.

In a post on the official SEMRush Blog, David Leonhardt of The Happy Guy Writing Services rightly states:

“Increasing your content’s social media reach can be done in many ways. In fact, it should be done in many ways.”

Create a Content Marketing Plan

Every effective and successful content marketing campaign should start with a content marketing plan. This vital content marketing strategy for your small business should ideally include mapping out potential blog titles and topics for the forthcoming weeks and months.

Include any guest blogging targets, where your content gets posted on external website to help your small business reach a wider audience, on your content marketing plan. A content marketing plan might also include the writing and distribution of press releases that focus on any news your business might have, such as launching a new product or taking on a new employee.

Such content can be an effective way to enhance your online presence and generate greater traffic to your website.

As Boney Pandya, a passionate online marketer who heads up the marketing efforts for WebNet Hosting, notes in an article on Small Business Trends:

“Press releases are a great venue for creating quality online content and developing links and avenues of sharing information.”

“Press releases not only give you quality content for Google to pick up on, they give you back links and the chance to fit in keywords related to your business venture within the text of the press release.”

Use Social Media to Share Your Website Content

Rather than merely writing a new blog and publishing it on your website or creating a new landing page and forgetting about it, share your fresh and engaging content to as many followers, fans and friends on all your social media channels. As well as using the more obvious social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, post regular content on as many social avenues as possible including LinkedIn and Google+.

As SEO and digital marketing expert Jonny Ross of Fleek Marketing advises in a blog titled ’30 Places to Share Your Website Content for Maximum Impact’:

“Like every social media channel going, Google+ is at its most effective and influential when you’re actively using it. Posting regularly is the key to the Google+ castle and, as ever, interesting content is the king. Continuously creating appealing, shareable images, posts and videos is vital to interacting with and growing your target audience.”