It’s “PAY IT FORWARD” Week at #RRBC! Meet Award Winning Novelist and Playwright Marc Estes!

March 17, 2016 Catherine Lyon Author/Writer Posts

A fantastic guest post I just had to share with my readers … By Natalie Ducey.

Rave Reviews Book Club’sgoal is to Profile, Promote and Propel its member-authors via as many viable vehicles as possible.

As a proud member of the club, I’m delighted to participate in our“PAY IT FORWARD” week. Join me and let’s celebrate the Award Winning Novelist and Playwright Marc Estes!

Meet Marc Estes

marc pic

Accomplished writer, Marc Estes, is the award winning author of the Vendicatori Series. His 2014 debut novel, Four Pieces For Power, Book One of the Vendicatori marks the first in a series of Vendicatori novels developed by Mr. Estes. Book Two of the Vendicatori: Rekindle the Flame was released in 2015.

He is a two-time winner of the Vermont Playwright’s Award for his plays, What Would Dickens Do? and Glass Closets. What Would Dickens Do? also won the 2012 Robert J. Pickering Award for Playwriting Excellence. His play, Gumbo (adapted from the short story by Charles Huckelbury) was a…

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5 Strategies to Increase Blog Traffic.

“As a writer and blogger, I can always use extra help learning how to increase my blog traffic in as many ways as possible. That is why I always look to the “professionals” of TruConversion and Mike Dane, PR Manager and my buddy.
Here is a new guest article he has shared for all of us to gain more traffic to our blogs. All this back -link and SEO stuff can sure be confusing, so I always welcome Mike to help us understand it all. He is the expert” . . . *Cat Lyon*

Mike Dane
PR manager at TruConversion.com.
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Increase Blog Traffic

Starting a blog is too easy. Maintaining it is even easier, but getting visitors to the blog is a tough challenge. When over 2 million blogs are published each day, your blog has very good chances of getting lost in the crowd.By following a set of tips you can lower the chances and increase the number of visitors to your blog. The strategies are:

Value-driven content

You are recommended to write more content and longer content. But there’s hardly any point writing content that lacks value. Content on your website should be of value. Who decides whether the content is valuable or not? Your readers.

To get success in blogging, you need to understand a reader’s psyche and think from his end. Ask yourself the following questions:

Why is he coming to your site?
What type of content he expects to see on the blog?
Is he getting what he wants from your blog?

Unless you find answers to these questions, you can never get more visitors to your blog. Check the sources from which visitors are coming and you can anticipate why they are visiting the blog, observe which posts are getting maximum visits to get a sense of what visitors want to see in them.

Use Google search console aka Webmasters tool and Google Analytics to know what keywords are sending traffic to your blog from search engines. Target those keywords and write content around them.

Sharing strategy

Sharing your blog on one or two social channels is not enough. The majority of bloggers, be it an individual or a company, forget about the blog after sharing its link on social networks. That’s a grave mistake, never do that.

If you want to increase the blog’s reader-base, share the links on multiple networks coupled with different texts, at different times and with or without highlighting images and multimedia elements (depending on the blog).

The timing is very important. See the infographic below:

Source

Immediately after writing a post, publish it on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. The same day, after 2 hours, share the post on Twitter again, do the same next day, next week and for next two consecutive months. Twitter posts only have 140 characters and get buried down easily, thus this strategy.

On Facebook, your post keeps showing up on other’s news feeds, so once you post it on your wall, don’t re-post it until the next month. Rand Fishkin promoted this strategy in his Whiteboard Friday clarifying that tweeting the same post after a month gives off the message that the post is still contextual.

Apart from timing, hashtags are important. Highlight the key-phrases with which people search by using hashtags as they are critical to social media success. Do this on all networks and you’ll positively see more engagement on your posts.

Guest posts and interviews

Writing guest posts is a wonderful idea for all bloggers out there. Guest post tick all checkboxes – SEO, social share, safe link building, networking and interaction with readers.

If your posts are informative and insightful, reputed blogs wherein posts get hundreds of shares may accept them. Any idea what that spells out? You, as the author will get recognition and your blog will get it too.

Source

With just one stone, you kill five birds. The links pointing to your site, in the author bio and the organic ones in the body will ratify your SEO efforts. The blog’s popularity will fetch social shares and ensuing interaction with other bloggers and thought leaders in the industry. It all depends on the quality of your posts. To excel in guest blogging, you need to write high-quality content.

Similar to guest posts, interviews help you create networking ties with other bloggers. As you publish interviews of other bloggers on your blog, those bloggers will promote the posts, bringing traffic to your blog.

Write unique posts

This might sound like a no-brainer. All your posts are unique and original. They are copyscape certified, so no question of plagiarism. Why does this even have to be mentioned in the first place?

Well, what you understand by uniqueness may not be what uniqueness really stands for in the blogging context. Maybe your post wasn’t copied from anywhere else, but that doesn’t mean it’s unique.

The topic of the post makes it unique. Cover a topic that’s new and interesting at the same time. Make sure very few people have covered the topic. Writing on such topics gives you the first-mover advantage. Whenever someone will write on it in the future, he will reference your article. If he links your post, Google will acknowledge it as link-bait-worthy and you as a thought leader.

Besides that, your post may come in top search engine ranking whenever someone searches with keywords pertaining to that topic. For better visibility, anticipate possible keywords, keep 1% density of them in the post and highlight them in the meta properties.

Retain your readers

While getting readers is important, retaining them is even more important. The reason nine out of ten bloggers find it difficult is they take their readers for granted. A change in approach is necessary for them.

A blogger needs to visualize himself as the CEO of a company. CEOs can do everything in their capacity to convert leads to sales, let alone be retaining the existing customers. They never take any of their customers for granted.

A blogger needs to display the same approach. He needs to take each single of blog visitors seriously. The best place to interact with them is the comment trail. But most readers don’t post comments, they leave the site after they are done reading a blog post.

One way to make them interact is telling them to do so in the article. Finish the article with expressions like “Let us know what you feel” or “Share with us your opinion on this.” The problem is this strategy is new anymore, readers have somewhat become immune to it.

A better way to make them interact is to end an article with “Let us know your problems in the comments and let’s see if we can solve it.” But in that case, you have to write “How-to” type posts that deal with specific issues, not anything generic. A third way that persuades readers to interact is holding contests and offering giveaways. Many bloggers do this and if done correctly, it can make a blog popular among readers.

Blog well!
Mike Dane of TruConversion

“Presented by Lyon Book & Social Media Promotions”

Book Promotion – Author, Catherine Lyon Does Recovery & Book Promoting Right.

March 13, 2016 Catherine Lyon Author/Writer Posts

Thank you, Jason, for the Fine Book Promo and Love your new Online Book Store! I hope your friends will come visit my recovery blog to learn more about gambling addiction and recovery.

Author & Columnist, Catherine Townsend-Lyon :-)

Author A.R. Tirant Makes Media Splash with her Book “Echoes from the Oasis!”

March 5, 2016March 5, 2016 Catherine Lyon Author/Writer Featured Guest, New Book & Author Press Release, News Around The Web Amazo Best Seller, Historical Romance Novel Series, Lyon Book Promotions, Media Press Release, Novelist A Rosie Tirant, PR Echoes from the Oasis

Hello Readers and Welcome Blog Friends and Authors,

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“Media Release for “Echoes From The Oasis” a Historical Romance Novel”

“One of the many reasons why I enjoy helping authors promote all their fantastic books? Well, for one it is my passion! And, when my authors make mainstream media headlines. Great job Rosie Tirant!”

“Stunning Novel Depicts Bold, Brave Women of Seychelles’ Bygone Era… Hailed “Captivating” by Critics.”

BEAU-VALLON, MAHE, SEYCHELLES, February 25, 2016 /EINPresswire.com/ — Written from the heart by A.R. Tirant, ‘Echoes from the Oasis’ is the first volume in a compelling new series that thrusts readers back to the turn of the nineteenth century to explore the colourful history, religion, culture and changing role of women inhabiting the Seychelles. Tirant is herself a native of the islands, and her tale of love, faith, brevity and a deadly Smallpox epidemic goes beyond illustrating the region’s exotic beauty and natural charm to celebrate the sheer grit of the islanders of this tiny British Colony on the eve of the ‘First World War’.

While millions flock to many of the Seychelles’ 115 islands in search of sand, sea and sun, few are aware that the region’s history is boundlessly tumultuous and fascinating. In her cinematic new novel, the author manages to skilfully hold the reader’s attention as the story develops its numerous threads that set the stage for a flurry of love and passion in the midst of hardships suffered by the young community of the tiny archipelago. Her penmanship is particularly remarkable in the manner in which she paints the historical backdrop to the stage setting as she introduces the main players whose lives and passions intertwine with the historical events of that period.

‘Echoes from the Oasis’ is a cocktail of love, adversity, religious oppression and societal change – all told through the eyes of a young nurse – Anna Savy – who refuses to experience life from the sidelines. But, as with any epic work of fiction, her thirst for more comes with its fair share of challenges…

Our story opens in 1912 on the island of Mahe. The forces of newly found love between Anna, the daughter of an overseer, and Louis du Barre, the son, and heir of the landed gentry, faces the almost impossible challenge because of their backgrounds and social status, taking them on a head-on clash with all the norms and values of that period.

While the novel’s central focus is naturally on the Seychelles, the story also visits many other areas of the world, their fascinating brushes with history, and their connections with the Seychelles islands. The myth of the ‘Garden of Eden’, the siege of Khartoum and the demise of British General, Charles Gordon, is prominently featured. Through two of the main characters, the hatred and mistrust between Irish Catholics and English Protestants show’s the devastating impact of the ‘Potato Famine’ in Ireland, but it also highlights the power of forgiveness, and how we are all the same in God’s eyes.

Without doubt, no story of a colony of Great Britain, no matter how tiny, could ever be told without showing the role played by the ‘Motherland’, so we see the garrison town of Greenwich and East London, with the mighty River Thames taking prime focus, with its numerous quays docking the Steam Ships plying those rich cargo routes of the colonies, but with a slight twist, as it is two English ladies of Greenwich who shows us the real East End.

Readers have celebrated the novel, with a string of five-star reviews. Frank Alphonse comments, “This unstoppable book is a must have and a must read. The writings boast incredible characters, fantastic locations, and wonderful adventures which are all tokens of the author’s commitment to her research but also to her natural charm”. Whilst David Sinon adds, “From the minute I started reading the book, I did not want to put it down. Beautiful, well written, captured the essence of the islands”. For more readers reviews, articles, interviews, purchase links and information and picture of Seychelles, please do visit the website at www.seychelleshistoricalnovels.com ..

‘Echoes from the Oasis’, from Beau-Vallon Publishing, is available in both Kindle and Paperback.

‘About the Author’

Rosie Tirant-Longhurst, aka A.R. Tirant, was born in the Seychelles in November 1958. The daughter of a policeman and, the eldest in a family of four brothers and four sisters. She grew up on the northern coast of Mahe island, in the tiny seaside village of Beau-Vallon. Her working life started in 1975 as a nurse at Mahe’s Victoria Hospital, and followed thereafter by a career in the Hotel Industry. She emigrated to England in 1995, and now lives in West Sussex with her husband. She has two grown up sons and a granddaughter.

Rosie wasn’t born with a pen in her hand, far from it. Life growing up was hard and strict. The home comforts we all now take for granted were but a dream for the young girl whose days were divided between household chores, cooking, cleaning and looking after her young siblings. Water for all the household use had to be carried from a stream, with one hand holding a pail on her head, and the other keeping a second from spilling.

Education only happened because it was the one way of getting some rest during the daytime, even if the chores still had to be done by the light of a coconut oil lamp. They were difficult times… times when she would lean against the pillar of the outdoor kitchen waiting for dinner to cook in the large black pots, staring at the tropical skies and marveling at the diamond beauty of the scattering of stars above, and all the while wishing for a different life…

‘Echoes from the Oasis’ is her debut novel which will be followed by other titles in the same series.
For direct contact, please email: a.r.tirant@gmail.com

“Presented By Lyon Book & Social Media Promotons”

Why Should Authors and Readers Engage & Connect With Each Other?

March 2, 2016March 2, 2016 Catherine Lyon Author/Writer Book Promotion Tips For Authors, Marketing and More, News Around The Web Authors, Book Promoting Advice, Books, Connecting With Readers, Reader & Author Engagement, Readers, Social Media, Tips For Authors

Hello Readers, Authors, and New Friends,

Why should authors and readers connect? There are many reasons why for both sides of this topic. As a book promoter, I know how important it is for an author to interact and engage with their reader fans. It creates more excitement for the reader to know an author is “touchable” and they can learn more about their favorite writers, which helps authors with book sales and gaining more book reviews for books. And it seems I am not the only book promoter, social media PR firm and book marketing site that feels this way.

Here are two articles I came across this week that can give insights as to why authors need and should interact and engage with readers throughout social media and many book sites are exclusively for this purpose like Goodreads. I will share snippets as I would like you to visit and join free so you can be “In The Know” with many tips and advice on book promoting . . .
OUR FIRST is at http://www.bookdaily.com/authorresource/blog/post/1805275

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“This morning I received three emails.”

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One was from a lady in Scotland who read one of my books and joined my fan page. She wanted me to know how much she appreciated waking up and finding that I had responded to her messages.

The second was from a man in Australia who sent me a list of things he liked about Silent Witness. He highlighted sentences that he particularly liked, but at the end of his note, he said, “thank you for making Hannah so intelligent.”

The third was from the very first fan I ever had. We’ve been pen pals for 28 years. Now we communicate on the computer but every once in a while we still send one another a card, remember birthdays, the holidays and share information on grandchildren (hers since I only have a grand dog).

The point of all this is that what authors do is extremely personal. It begins with our characters. If we don’t feel them in our souls and translate that feeling into words on the page, our books will be enjoyed but not treasured. When we do make that magic happen and a reader reaches out, opening a personal dialogue with them will make a reader into a fan. In some wonderful instances, it also creates a friend.

Here are my top five rules of engagement:

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1) Know thou characters: Know the personal history and habits of every character in your book and write as if you live and die with them. If you do this, real people will reach out to you . . .

Please stop by the link above to see all of Rebecca’s rules of engagement.
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OUR SECOND is by Marsha Friedman CEO & Founder, of EMSI PR Firm

No one really needs to convince me how great social media is for connecting you to your customers (Readers) – and keeping you connected – but the point was reinforced perhaps better than ever this week when I was chatting with Jay York, our senior social media strategist.

Jay was telling me about Datz, a restaurant near his home in Tampa, that has impressed him with its excellent use of social media as a marketing tool.
Talk about connecting! Datz has more than 12,000 followers on Twitter. It has nearly 8,000 on Instagram. It has 1,280 mostly positive reviews on Yelp. And, perhaps most impressive of all, more than 40,000 people “like” Datz on Facebook.
Those are remarkable numbers for any business. But especially when you consider that Datz is a local restaurant and not a recognizable brand name like McDonald’s!
So why am I telling you this? Because this social media success story prompted me to have Jay share tips on how small businesses ( and authors promoting their books) can make the most out of their social media to keep customers and potential customers thinking about them.

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Here’s what Jay had to say:

Interact with customers. Engage your customers inside your business as well as outside it. Some of the most successful restaurant owners have mastered this, Jay says. They take the time to chat with and get to know their customers when they are dining at the restaurant, and they also interact with them on social media. Here’s where it’s worth remembering the “social” part of social media. These sites are all about having a conversation and people expect you to be involved in that conversation – or else they’ll be discouraged from interacting with you in the future.
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Use undivided attention opportunities to promote your social media. There are a few ways to do this, Jay says. In-store signage that encourages you to follow the business on social media is the most obvious. Restaurants, such as, might drive visiting customers to their social media sites by giving 10 percent off an entrée if they follow them right at that moment on Twitter. Professional speakers can use the same strategy when they’re in front of a large audience by posting their Twitter handle on the screen behind them. The point is to take advantage of the attention of hundreds or thousands of people – all with mobile devices – who can start following you immediately . . .
.Again, please visit the link above to read the Tips to use social media to promote your books and small business. No matter the product, readers want to interact with you and this is a crucial part of your book promoting efforts. I hope you find these articles helpful. :-)

*Author, Catherine Townsend-Lyon of Lyon Book & Social Media Promotions*

“Part-Two of our Series ~ How To Gain Traffic To Our Sites, Back links and More By Mike Dane of TruConversion”

February 26, 2016February 26, 2016 Catherine Lyon Author/Writer Book Promotion Tips For Authors, Featured Guest, Marketing and More Gain Website Traffic, Guest Mike Dane PR MNGR, Learn SEO, Marketing Books, Use Back Links, Visit TruConversion

Hello and Welcome Friends, Authors, and Visitors,

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My friend Mike Dane from TruConversion is back to share Part Two of this week’s guest article about how we gain more traffic to our websites and blogs and learning how to use back links properly. Part One was pretty interesting and I myself used a few of the samples Mike had shared with us already. So let’s see what more we can from Part Two where we ended our article about Characteristics Of Quality Backlinks . . .

(Mike Dane, PR Manager for TruConversion.com)
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Now, that you know the basics, how do you create high-quality backlinks?

How To Create High-Quality Backlinks:

One: Give Testimonials

Yeah! Today we flip the coin. Instead of advising you how to include testimonials in your site, we will tell you why leaving testimonials in other websites is great for your blog

So, here goes:

Imagine finding a relevant product from a relevant site and leaving a testimonial there with a link back to your blog. How many people will you have referred back to your blog especially when you give a testimony on how well a particular product or service has worked for you?
Here is why testimonials are your good hunting ground for traffic:

A consumer review survey has showed that 88% of people have read reviews to determine the quality of a business, 39% read reviews on a daily basis and only 12% of people actually don’t read reviews.

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Source: Searchengineland

As seen from the image above, the trend on how many people read online reviews is an upward one. This means that this is a potential place of building high quality backlinks.

Hypothetically speaking, if you write reviews in these businesses especially the go to one, in my view, then you widen your net on leading as much traffic back to your blog.

While you do this, remember the Google trustrank philosophy and try to choose high quality websites to plant your testimonials.

Here is an example of how a testimonial links back to your site:

Two: Look For Opportunities In ‘Best Of ‘ Blog Posts

Yeah! Today we flip the coin. Instead of advising you how to include testimonials in your site, we will tell you why leaving testimonials in other websites is great for your blog.

Truth be told, the internet has too much information and the best way to go around your search is looking for best of something. Believe me, I do this too.

Take for example;

If you wanted to know the best website analytics tools in the market at a particular moment, a blog post with a list of at least 10 such tools would really narrow down your search ( seriously, look no further, Truconversion offers the best analytics in the market).

Visit Source: E-commerce platforms (for infographic)

Why is this the gold mine?

I will give you two reasons.

If your blog is featured in such a list in your niche area, then you are sure of getting traffic from these sources. After all, these people came there to EASILY find you! This means the more people the list attracts, the higher your chances of attracting more traffic.

If you are not featured, you can pen down a request to the blogger and have yourself featured. (Be careful with your approach on this though. You might throw some people off especially when you sound like you are using them) You have a list of high ranking, popular bloggers in your niche that you can review and in turn create backlinks through them. This means that you need not feature in the list but use the list to know who to review.

Three: Link Reclamation:

You know, sometimes your backlinks get lost in one of the simplest ways possible. Someone mentions your blog and fails to link back to it.

This is not those situations where you sit back and whine. There is something that you can do.

Let’s look at what Brian Dean from backlinko did:

He discovered that a particular blog post had mentioned his blog but did not link back to him. Here is what he saw:

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Source: Backlinko

You can see that backlink was mentioned but the text is not hyperlinked.

When Brian saw this:

He took time and wrote an email to the blog owner, with a friendly reminder to include the link. This is what we call link reclamation.

The fact that someone took time to mention your blog in theirs means that they think you got value. So, talking to them shouldn’t me hard.

But how will you know that you have not been linked?

Great question!
Brian Dean did not have the internet at the back of his head but he knew how to use it to find out who didn’t link back to his blog, after mentioning it.
This is the process, according to him.

Find Unlinked Mentions

Tools such as BuzzSumo and Mention.net help you to find mentions of your brand all over the internet. The beauty of it is that you will get a notification whenever someone writes about you online.
Here is a search Brian did in one of these tools:

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Source: Backlinko

See whether the blogger who mentioned you linked back

This is simple, simply click on the links you will be shown with your mentions, and manually find out if the blogger linked back to you.

If they did, you are good to go. If they didn’t, then proceed to the next step.

Reach out
Now that you are sure that you have not been linked, politely contact the blogger and let them know. To make it easier for them, mail them the article link.

Four: Guest Blog
Of course, this would not miss the list!

Sometimes, the best way to build traffic for your blog is to publish in another blog.

Don’t get me wrong here. Someone would argue that the guest post will lead to the hosting blog but not yours.

Sure enough.

But look at the benefits.

If you do a great job, the traffic in the host website would want to read more from you. Better still, this is your chance to personally use another blog, most likely a more popular blog, to refer traffic to your blog.

Your author profile could also serve as your pitch to traffic in the host blog, giving the reasons why they should visit your blog. To crown it all, the killer post is usually proof of your work. So you better work it!

One more benefit:

You easily sell yourself as an expert. You know why? The fact that a different blog let you publish on its platform gives the illusion that you are an expert. (This is very easy marketing if you ask me).

Now that you understand how crucial this is, let me teach you how to be an excellent guest blogger.

I will start with one major guest blogging don’t.

Since this is your gateway to generating backlinks, you might get excited and decide to write on every blog that offers guest blogging opportunities.

Listen,

Not every blog is a great guest blogging opportunity. Guest blogging is actually sometimes an arrangement that I would like to call ‘scratch my back, I scratch yours.

So, compare the value you are getting against the value you are offering.

How To Craft A Guest Post:

Provide a positive experience for your audience: This is basically about the UX-the post’s readability. Can someone skim through and immediately pick out the important points? Do you have visualHYPERLINK “http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/boost-engagement-visual-content”s to engage readers?

Here is why you need to include visuals. Your audience remembers only 20% of what they read and 80% of what they see.

For this reason, you can’t afford to ignore visuals when doing your guest post.

Offer solutions to your audience: In terms of quality, a post that offers a solution to a problem, showing tangible and proven techniques, is the best. The fact that guest posting displays you as a pro doesn’t mean that you should relax.

Prove your worth by giving valuable information.

Let the content trigger response: Great content is bound to make your readers want to contribute and add to the conversation.

In the event that there are any responses in the comments section, be sure to respond. It is rude to be a digital mute.

Leave a mark: Be sure to link back to your blog in the most appropriate way possible as discussed between you and the blog owner. (You are a guest here so you must play by the house rules).

Five: Use Q&A Platforms To Your Advantage:

People always have questions that they need answered in different areas in life. Now, as much as answering them will generate high quality backlinks for you, you need to be careful about the Q and A forums you indulge in.

The kind of forum in my view, will determine the quality of audience you will have and the quality of backlink.

Now, among these many platforms which include Quora and Yahoo, I choose to discuss LinkedIn.

This is why:

LinkedIn is the best social network for lead generation, compared to the rest. It has the highest visit-to-lead conversion rate of 2.74% compared to 0.69% and 0.77% on twitter and Facebook respectively.

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Source: Hubspot

Well, I know this is a social media network and not necessarily a Q&A platform but I will show you how it actually is:

I like the fact that it is a social media platform, meaning that it is one of the greatest places to generate leads and traffic. So, if you want people to read your blog, why not post a link here?

But, how?

Well, in the past, you actually did not have a voice on LinkedIn. By this I mean that you did not have the opportunity to publish and speak out your mind.

And now.

LinkedIn has opened up its publishing platform that will allow its members to create content.

Here is how you use this particular feature.

Write a short status that will trigger someone to want to read further, then boom, you provide a link leading to your blog. It has been shown that providing a link in your update increases engagement by 84%.

Let’s look at one great LinkedIn post example that would teach you how to drive insane traffic to your blog:

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Source: LinkedIn

From the image above, you can deduce the features of a great post when generating backlinks. Do you see the power of visuals and providing a link just after writing a short update that’s a teaser?

And Oh, I forgot to mention something juicy:

LinkedIn has over 259 million users, a figure that increases by 40% each year.

Isn’t this great fishing ground for traffic?

Problem is:

Everyone is focused here, therefore targeted to a particular niche. This means that your potential traffic is less than the attractive 259 million people.

Great news: There is a way out!

It’s simple! Find other avenues other than the publishing platforms to build backlinks. We will discuss two of these.

#1: Actively Participate In LinkedIn Answers

In order to be visible and stand out among the 259 million members, you need to be an active participant.

So, what is LinkedIn Answers?

This is a QHYPERLINK “http://www.linkedin.com/answers/”&HYPERLINK “http://www.linkedin.com/answers/”A platform within LinkedIn where people ask questions, expecting useful answers. The beauty of this is you are sure that these people are professionals seeking valuable answers and would do anything to solve their business problems.

In this case you need to provide the best answers possible as long as you are sure you clearly understand the problem.

Here is quick advice:

This is not about self-promotion.

Yes we understand that is the motive behind backlinks in a bid to generate links but because this is a high quality forum, you need to be more careful.

The best way to generate incredible traffic is to establish yourself as a thought leader in that field, while you do this, you also post links back to your blog.

Be sure to add a disclaimer and clearly state that you are out to offer the best advice you have. This way, you will build more trust by not coming off as someone desperate for blog traffic.

The result? Amazing! People will begin to perceive you as an expert and even refer traffic to you.

#2: Participate In LinkedIn Groups:

LinkedIn groups are usually targeted at professionals in a particular field.

For example, if you are a website developer interested in user experience, you can join a specific LinkedIn group on the same, where all you talk about are UX tips and tricks.

This is your most opportune moment to share your best knowledge and invite people to read your blog. (These are professionals so the blog better be good).

Here is how you do this:

You need to join the group and encourage your marketing team (if you have one) to join the group. Do this, you need to comment whenever relevant questions are asked and if necessary, post a link back to your blog where someone can find additional information.

With time, as long as you are a consistent participant, you will increase awareness for your blog and in turn attract high quality traffic, which is targeted and focused.

In my view, this is the kind of blog traffic that will give you the lowest bounce rates.

Let me tell you why I think so:

They did not just stumble upon your blog. You established your blog as the go to place when they need to have problems solved and great knowledge impacted. This means when they come knocking, they know exactly what they are looking for and are sure they can find it in your blog.

So, how do you choose groups in LinkedIn?

It is a general rule that you can only participate in 50 groups or less. LinkedIn thinks that is it not practical for one to actively participate in more than 50 groups.

More so, some people, who need traffic, just end up spamming these groups with backlinks to their sites, eroding the essence of the group.

For this reason, you need to be very careful when picking your groups since you cannot participate in all of them.

Use the key group insights to determine if the group has your target audience.

The image below shows you what you should see when you do this:

Source: LinkedIn

After getting your ideal group, let me show you how to stand out:

Establish yourself as a thought leader

We had discussed the importance of establishing yourself as a thought leader earlier in this post. So we will not delve much into it.

Just a quick reminder:

Don’t portray yourself as someone who is looking to generate quick high quality backlinks and increase traffic. Just do what you do best- giving valuable information.

If you make the mistake of displaying yourself as someone who is desperately building links, then you risk being misjudged.

And even when the information you have in your blog is exactly what these people need, their negative perception will cause them to view your blog with bias. In worse cases, shun it.

In THREE simple words:

Build your credibility, be genuine and be honest. The rest will flow as desired.

Give In-depth answers to questions

To be a thought-leader, you need to be better than the rest. There has to be a defining feature. One of them is how you answer questions.

Refrain from giving obvious answers that every Tom, Dick and Harry in your field would.

Instead:

Give your insight, have an aha moment.

It is the extra information that counts. While you do this, remember that it is not always that you will give links to your blog. Sometimes it is better off to make people want more of the honey then when the interest builds to a certain level, you lead them to the honey pot.

Last tip:

Follow the conversation and be opportunistic. Give your info at the right moment.

Sometimes, just sit back and watch the conversation unfold then unleash your knowledge.

Create a poll

This is a smart way of getting content for your next post which you can draft after the poll and then use this same audience as your way of building backlinks.

When creating a poll, you need to be careful though because some groups do not allow. So you need to check the moderator settings.

Here is how you do it:

Create polls to find out the biggest industry problems and have people discuss them in the survey.

At this point, you need to be focused on the poll not your intentions with it. One wrong miscalculated move and someone somewhere will assume that this is more about traffic than solving industry problems.

Here is what you do with the information:

After analysis, be sure you are creating new knowledge and now, this will help you create backlinks. Do you know how?

Whenever people quote your statistics, they will have to refer back to the blog post that discussed the poll.(please read on link reclamation to know how to find out when people don’t link back to you).

This will obviously be your first blog post generated by the poll. You can get a second post too.

From the poll, you can tell high priority and low priority problems. Your second post will now revolve around these problems, while you offer solutions. Better yet, depending on your judgment, all these problems can individually lead to different blog posts.

Then,