LinkedIn gives you the ability to share content in many different ways. When sharing articles, you might see only a handful of views! When sharing posts, people see it, but you are very limited by what you can share in the posts.
You might give up on creating articles and focus on only posts. That might be a mistake.
BUT! You might be frustrated with LinkedIn articles.
You worked so hard in creating a whole long article and NO ONE WILL SEE IT!
What is the point of spending all this time creating an article if no one reads it?
I personally have written over 200 articles and many of those articles have been seen by my network and have been ranking on Google. The above image is what Google sees when you are not logged on to LinkedIn. They have a really nice gallery of all my articles!
I believe that the point of an article is not to GET EXPOSURE from LinkedIn directly, but to take advantage of the three main benefits.
You might not realize that articles do have value, even with FEWER VIEWS... Why?
Article views are MOST VALUABLE than POST views because when someone spends 5 to 10 minutes reading an article, they are going DEEPER with you.
I would rather 100 people read an in-depth article, than 1000 people spending a few seconds scanning a post.
LinkedIn has a FEED and when you log into LinkedIn, you see all the things that load up on the feed. That usually includes your connections, posts, advertisem*nts, and content from pages you follow.
Sometimes you will also notice posts from second-degree connections, content that is being shared, and content from hash tags that you follow.
We rarely notice articles loading in the feed because articles take people away from the feed, where the ads are. LinkedIn wants people to FOCUS ON THE ADS. That is where they make the most money!
The more posts people see, the more ads they will see! That's why posts are so popular.
How often should you be posting a LinkedIn article on your profile?
Personally, I recommend that you create ONE article per month, and that article can INFORM many posts. In the comments of each post, you can also promote the article so people go back to the article and read the full article.
Here is an article I created about 4 books that have impacted my life. Each one of those books can be a separate post, and each one of them can promote the article too!
That is what I mean about the article being a content pillar. You create one in-depth article and you use the content of that article as a separate post.
When you are writing articles, you want to create the article in CHUNKS, so you can later share sections of the article as a post on LinkedIn!
LinkedIn posts do not rank in Google but LinkedIn Articles do!
Go ahead and search the following on Google, “How to get a LinkedIn article to rank on Google organic” or search “The difference between LinkedIn articles and LinkedIn posts” and see what comes up on SEO.
Yes, this LinkedIn article might be on the first page of Google, if no one else has those words on their website on the internet.
LinkedIn gets picked up FAST by Google because it has HIGH authority and great SEO.
Google loves great content and if you make an article with high-quality content, it will RANK well on Google.
Articles are usually UNIQUE, but posts can be duplicate content. You want to make sure that your articles are high quality and when you get traffic to your article from Google, you get people to look at your profile and learn more about you.
Did you know that you can SEE WHO looked at your profile? That means you get a lead just by getting exposure to your profile.
Let’s say your ideal client is a registered dietitian who wants to go fulltime in a private practice. They might search “How to start a dietitian private practice.” If you are a business coach for dietitians, you can look at which dietitians looked at your profile, by finding your article on Google, and then connect with them, nurture them and possibly serve them!
The possibilities are very big when it comes to using LinkedIn strategically.
How do you go deep with a LinkedIn connection that reads your LinkedIn article?
Being that LinkedIn articles are different from LinkedIn posts because people invest 5 to 10 minutes reading the article, you are actually building a relationship with the LinkedIn connection that takes the time to read the article.
This relationship is powerful because you are going deeper and making a bigger impact.
Just think about OUR relationship now that you spent the past few minutes reading this article. You might view me as a valuable resource to you and you might recommend my course and coaching program to your clients because you got value from this article.
You might even contact me and say, “Joe, can we have a conversation about my LinkedIn Strategy? I think I need some help.” I would be thrilled to learn about your business and see how I can add value to you with one of my two companies.
Recommended by LinkedIn
Ajax Union creates strategies for professionals who want a DONE FOR YOU LinkedIn Strategy via our LinkedIn Authority Blueprint. You probably want to watch our 20-minute class on how we do that at www.ajaxunion.com/blueprint.
Evyrgreen is a training company that provides a course and coaching program for professionals that want to learn how to use LinkedIn themselves, or they want someone on their team to learn LinkedIn to generate more awareness, credibility and conversations with ideal clients and centers of influence.
We even have a 30 Linkedin tips booklet you can get here and then if you want you can learn to see if you qualify for our course and coaching program to help you leverage LinkedIn.
Now that you know how LinkedIn Articles are different from LinkedIn Posts, and how you can leverage LinkedIn articles, you might wonder how to get more exposure to LinkedIn articles.
Never thought you would ask!
Here are 5 ways to get more exposure and views to your LinkedIn articles.
When creating SEO content for your website, blog or Linkedin article, you want to consider keywords or key phrases that people might search on Google.
How to get my LinkedIn article to RANK on Google? Might be a phrase that people search for, right? So I purposely included that phrase in this LinkedIn article.
Do you see how I keep saying LinkedIn articles as opposed to ARTICLE throughout this LinkedIn Article? I do that strategically because I want the keyword density for the term high ranking LinkedIn article or LinkedIn article ranking tips to be high.
How often do you use your ideal keywords in your LinkedIn article? Are you bolding words, using H1 tags etc? You might not do those SEO strategies and that will limit how many views you get on your LinkedIn article.
If your article is a GREAT ARTICLE, why not share it with your clients and partners via email or via LinkedIn direct messages?
People love to read content. So when you create a valuable LinkedIn article and you wonder, “How do I get more views to my LinkedIn Article?” Realize that no one will find your article if you just let it sit hidden in your profile.
You have to PROMOTE YOUR LINKEDIN ARTICLE with your network.
If you have an email list, send out the first PART of your article to your list, and then tell them, to READ THE REST of this LinkedIn article, click on this link and view it LIVE On LinkedIn.
Ask them to PLEASE LIKE and COMMENT on the article so that more people see it. Engagement does help with exposure. You can even ask them to MENTION a few people in the comments of the LinkedIn article. That will help drive more traffic to the article.
If you know people who are RELEVANT to a LinkedIn article that you slaved over, why not mention them in the comments with the @ symbol and type their name. You can mention anyone that allows mentions, which is ON by default.
This will make your article pop into their notifications section and they may even get an email about it.
They will come and read the LinkedIn article because you mentioned them in the comments.
Make sure that YOU ARE NOT SPAMMING people by mentioning RANDOM people who do not care about your content or your LinkedIn article. That will ruin your reputation on LinkedIn.
Here is a strategy that helps me get more views on my LinkedIn articles.
I will write a POST that is relevant to my LinkedIn article of the month. Then I will link back to the full article in the comments of the post.
Many people LOVE reading comments on LinkedIn and if you link to your great LinkedIn article in the comments, people will see it and visit your article.
Also, you can leave comments on other peoples' posts with your LinkedIn article and people will notice it. Go on Gary Vaynerchuck's posts and leave a valuable comment that is RELEVANT to his post, and include a link to your article.
People will not only LIKE the comment, but they will often visit your article too.
So far this article is over 1600 words (10,000 Characters!) and that means you spent several minutes connecting with me over this topic. I think it's time for me to end the article but that doesn't mean that the conversation ends.
Why?
Because we have comments! Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
You might have a question about LinkedIn articles or want to know the technical differences between a post and an article. If that is the case, I will add a Link to an article I posted in 2018 about the difference between articles and posts.
Leave a comment with what you will do and feel free to mention someone in the comments as well, that might benefit from reading this article.
Looking forward to seeing you in the comments of this article!
I appreciate you.
Joe Apfelbaum
CEO - Ajax Union
PS: Check out my previous articles here
