Slideshows are some of the most underestimated and under-used content verticals used on the web. By now, everyone knows the importance of im...
Slideshows are some of the most underestimated and under-used content verticals used on the web. By now, everyone knows the importance of images and videos along with textual content on their website/blog. But slideshows are still taking the back seat to other forms of content. However, there are some great slide sharing websites, such as SlideShare that you can make use of to drive some traffic to your blog. Who says you can get search traffic by just optimizing your own blog? If you're smart enough, you can use well optimized sites like SlideShare to get your slides into search results, and hence drive some secondary traffic to your own website!
Check out other posts in this series
Part 1: How to use SlideShare to Generate Traffic?
Can your slides get into search results?
What most people don't realize is, they can use the good reputation of other websites to generate a lot of traffic to their great content. There are hundreds of thousands of people looking for slides on one topic or another at any given time. If you can create a great slideshow that can be useful for many people, then not only can you drive referral traffic from SlideShare itself, you can also capitalize on the good reputation and ranking of SlideShare to get your slideshow into search results.
For example, if you search Google for the keyword "marketing for startups", you'll come across a great slideshow by John Webb right on the first page of search results! Now bearing in mind that this is a pretty competitive keyword, and it doesn't even have the term "slide" in it, I think it's a pretty amazing feat to get into the first page. And there are countless such examples. Now you own site might not be able to make it to the first page, but who knows your slideshow might? In that case, you'll be able to drive some second-degree organic traffic to your website.
Optimizing your slideshow
Assuming that you already have a SlideShare account, let's start out by uploading and optimizing a slideshow to take it from being good to great.
Pick a suitable keyword
Like much else these days, you need to do some keyword research before creating slideshows. Now the link applies more to researching topics for blog posts, but the principles are much the same. Try to think of a 3-4 word keyword. And think of 2 or three suitable keywords. Create your slideshow based on those keywords.
Fill out all the fields
Make sure you fill out all the fields such as Title, tags, description etc. As always, the title is the most important part. Not only will it become the <title> tag, it will also be your slide's URL. So make sure you use at least one of your keywords properly. Use as many tags as possible that are related to your keywords. And again, for the description, try to use all the keywords you thought of before.
Link to your website
This might sound obvious, but try to use as many links to your site within the slides as possible without seeming too obvious. Don't stuff the links in, but don't let go of a good opportunity either. The more the relevant links, the more referral traffic you'll get.
Generating traffic using your slides
Share like crazy on the first day!
If your slideshow gets a lot of shares and views on the first day, SlideShare will feature your slideshow on the first page. Now it doesn't take a genius to figure out how beneficial that could be. So before you upload your slideshow, make sure that you're ready to share it immediately. Upload it in the starting hours of the day, and ask your friends to share it as well. Make use of social media. This word-of-mouth marketing will only be for the first day, but if it gets you featured, it'll do a lot of good.
Share on your own site
For the same purpose, share the slides on your own website. Embed the slideshow in a post, and share it with your readers to get additional views to the original slideshow on SlideShare. Remember: the more the views, the better the chances of getting featured.
Optimize your personal profile
Always add a professional looking photo (and you alone) as the display picture. Complete out your personal profile, and don't forget to add personal link that SlideShare allows you to add. It can be a link to your website. While not a dofollow link, it can still bring in some referral traffic.
Did you like this post? Did it help you in any way? Let us know about your opinions in the comments section below. Cheers ;)
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