Most people’s perception of linkedIn is that it is just a hyped up online resume service, or a way to get a job (much like Monster.com). But what they don’t realize is that linkedIn can drive a lot of high quality traffic to your website and in turn generate business.
Before I jump into how to drive traffic with LinkedIn, first of all I want to cover why LinkedIn is an extremely important traffic source for your business:
LinkedIn Users Have a Lot of Disposable Income
“Visitors to your website arriving from linkedIn are usually business owners, decision makers, or professionals. Executives who have average annual incomes of $104K make up about 28% of LinkedIn users; while another 30% are networkers who make an average of $93,000 and often identify themselves as consultants. More casual or newer users had incomes of $88,000 or less.” referenced article – linked financial data
Therefore the average linkedIn user earns roughly $94k per year, and that’s a decent amount of income that they might be willing to spend on your business. Also, there are approximately 65 million users world wide (compared to 400 million facebook users), so the numbers are significant.
LinkedIn Users Are Not Your Average Joe’s
These executives, business owners, decision makers, and high level thinkers are not your average Joe’s. They are go-getters who take action when the need arises, find solutions to problems in their business, and are willing to pay good money for efficient products and services that meet their needs. Therefore this group of people are worth your time investment to get to know and attract to your website and eventually your products & services.
How to Get Traffic to Your Small Business Website From LinkedIn
1. complete your profile
Token efforts aren’t going to cut here. You need to upload your photo, write an informative description about yourself, and take every effort to completely fill out all the boxes. Not only does this tell other professionals that you are serious about LinkedIn, but your profile also gets a lot of Search Engine Optimization attention from search engines. So wherever it makes sense to do so, use keywords that are relevant to your local business.
2. increase your network by adding more connections
By adding more connections you will multiply the referrals that you potentially have access to through your contacts. Also, you will increase the page rank of your profile because you will be linked to more by incoming links. Therefore from both a business perspective and a search marketing perspective it makes sense to increase your LinkedIn profile by adding lots of connections.
I hear people say to me “but I don’t want to be spammed, or end up with hundreds of facebook friends”. My answer is, treat this like an introduction. You are not agreeing to marry the person, you are simply opening the door for a valuable relationship to develop. Without the introduction you will have no chance of building an effective and profitable business relationship. So get over your social media phobia and get connecting.
3. Customize your website links (in your profile)
This is an interesting tip. Make sure you edit your website links to contain your target anchor text. This will convey authority and page rank to up to 3 of your websites. Also make sure to customize your LinkedIn profile URL as indicated in the following image.
4. Join relevant groups where you contribute regularly to become your knowledge area expert within the group
By answering questions, helping others, and demonstrating your helpfulness and expertise in your knowledge area you will build trust and confidence with your group members. It also builds a strong sense of reciprocity and makes it likely that business will eventuate out of that relationship in the future.
5. Update your status regularly
Posting regular updates on your LinkedIn profile tells your colleagues that you are active and are doing ‘stuff’, and it could be stuff that interests them. Your updates appear in their LinkedIn news feeds, and it also has some SEO benefit for your profile (search engine optimization).
6. Add rss feeds to groups
Your blog has an RSS feed. Grab it and put it on your LinkedIn profile and in the groups that you contribute to. If you RSS is helpful to your group members, then they will visit your website.
7. Add the blog application to your profile page
This is really just a continuation of the item above.
8. Start your own group
This is perhaps one of the best tips in this list. As the founder of the group you can show your website link and profile to every user of that group when they first sign up. As the owner you can also send group wide messages.
tips taken from article small business tips for linkedin success
Conclusion
LinkedIn is a big deal and represents a big opportunity for your business. I’ve outlined some handy hints here to build your profile and drive internet traffic to your local bricks-and-mortar business. Don’t just file this article for later, take action now and start building your LinkedIn profile. Oh and by the way, please add me as a contact when you are over at LinkedIn. Here is my LinkedIn Profile- Wynne Pirini.
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