Leverage LinkedIn for Search Traffic in 3 Easy Steps

If you are a regular reader of Website Magazine you have likely seen one of our previous articles discussing Barnacle SEO. You see examples of this all the time and probably don't even realize it. With Barnacle SEO you leverage the existing authority of a site like YouTube and use that to accelerate your rankings. This same strategy can be applied to blog posts you write and share on LinkedIn. Here are three simple ways to maximize your exposure.

1. Don't Forget the Basics

Even though LinkedIn is an authority site, your article isn't going to rank very well if you do not follow the basic guidelines for a well-optimized article. Here is what I would suggest as a general guideline:

• Identify your primary keyword and 2-3 related keywords often called latent semantic indexing keywords (LSI)
• Create an article of 400-plus words
• Use your primary keyword in the Blog Title
• Use a related keyword in the heading and last paragraph
• Use the other LSI keywords in the body of the article once or twice
• Include an image with a file name containing a keyword or related keyword
• Embed a YouTube video relevant to the content and properly optimized for keywords or YouTube

2. Get Social Shares By Choosing the Right Topics

LinkedIn will allow you to be part of 50 groups (check out the LinkedIn Group Directory). If you take a little time each day to scan through the new conversations in your groups you are very likely to run across some common questions or concerns. Make a note of the most common and address them in your blog post. This now gives you a reason to share your new posts with many if not all of the groups you are a member of. Pairing a well-written post with an audience already interested and you have a recipe for sharing. While you are at it, do not forget to share across your other social profiles as well.

3. Link to Your Posts

Many of you are presented with the opportunity to write for other sites and in doing so, you are often allowed to promote your website or likeness in exchange for the content. Several sites ask that you do not link to your own website from the body of the content you are writing but linking out to authority sites like LinkedIn is encouraged.

When writing a post for LinkedIn, consider what you will be writing about in upcoming guest posts and tie the two items together so that you can link to LinkedIn from your article in a way that helps the reader and pleases the editor.

See! Getting search traffic doesn't have to be that difficult. Set aside a little time to write a post or two and publish in on LinkedIn and you could be generously rewarded.

Are any of you using LinkedIn to drive traffic to your site or create brand awareness?