4 Unique Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog from LinkedIn Answers

LinkedIn is a great social network for small and large businesses to reach out to relevant prospective customers. LinkedIn Answers in particular allows you to find people publicly stating that they have a specific problem or need that your product or service would solve. It’s pretty awesome.
 What’s even more awesome is that you can get high-quality traffic to your blog from LinkedIn Answers, and get some really qualified leads as well. Here’s what you can do:

1. Create a New Blog Post in Response to a Question
Instead of simply answering the question in full right on LinkedIn Answers, create a remarkable blog post answering that user’s question. Then reply to that question within LinkedIn Answers with a summary of your answer, and let the user know that you’ve created a detailed and helpful post to answer their question. Something like: “Your question inspired me to write a blog post on the subject, and I’ve provided even deeper analysis over there: (insert link). Let me know if you find it helpful, or if you have any more questions!” Also enter this link in a “Web Resources” field, as you can’t create linkable text within the Answer text field. Going above and beyond will show potential customers that you really do care about helping them.




2. Answer a Question Linking to Relevant Existing Posts
When linking to your own blog within LinkedIn Answers, be careful not to be spammy. Create a new law for yourself: “I am only allowed to link to my blog if I include insightful information in my answer.” Once you’ve answered the question with helpful and insightful information, you can then link to your blog post. Preface your links with a comment like: “I’ve written about this subject before on my blog, so here are a couple links if you’d like to read more.” Enter these links in the “Web Resources” fields, as you can’t create linkable text within the Answer text field.


3. Create a Standard Signature for your Answers
At the end of each of your answers, include a signature, including your name, your blog URL, and even something like your Twitter URL. This way, for occasions when providing a link within your answer aren’t appropriate, you’re still giving people an opportunity to find your blog and read more.


4. Create a Blog Post Asking a Question that Includes Pictures

Write a blog post asking your readers a question, and link to that post within a new LinkedIn question, posed by you to the LinkedIn community. A good excuse for hosting your full question on your blog rather than LinkedIn Answers is the use of images; you cannot include images within LinkedIn Answers. So within your question posed to the LinkedIn audience, say something like “I’ve included pictures of what I’m referring to in this blog post. I’d really appreciate your feedback!”


*Note: Keep in mind that the link within your question won’t be hyperlinked, as LinkedIn doesn’t allow this. A user will need to copy/paste your link into their URL bar, so traffic will look like Direct Traffic unless you create a tracking URL or use a URL shortener with tracking functionality like bit.ly

By Diana Freedman RT @DianaFreedman: 4 Unique Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog from LinkedIn Answers http://bit.ly/hk7JHY