By Janette Leon-Speyer

Traditional ways of finding new business aren’t as effective as they use to be. In today’s business climate, being a little web savvy goes a long way. LinkedIn is the social media platform of choice for businesses and professionals and enables you to target and connect with new business prospects.

First a few facts about LinkedIn users according to Lewis Howes, author of LinkedWorking: Generating Success on the World’s Largest Professional Networking Website:

* 65 million business professionals use LinkedIn.
* It is the #1 social media marketing tool to target business professionals.
* LinkedIn allows you to export your database. You can then add your connections to your email list.

Effective Tips When Formatting Your Profile

When creating your LinkedIn profile have a plan of action and a goal in mind. Then test and tweak.

* Carefully select your keywords and place them in five different places: your headline, in your current and past experience, in your profile and in your summary. Doing this simple exercise will make you more searchable.
* Try not to “stuff’ your profile with keywords, you want to look professional above all; style before substance.
* Your headline should reflect who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. For example: “I am a social media marketing specialist that can build your followers or contacts to enable you to find more qualified prospects to grow your business online.”
* Add a call to action. i.e. “Visit our Blog” or “Visit our Facebook Fan Page”
* Give an unsolicited recommendation to a connection; often times they will give you one back without soliciting them to do so. Social media is about giving first, not just getting.

Make Connections with the Discussion Tool

LinkedIn can also be a successful marketing tool. Aside from helping you in SERPs, LinkedIn also gives you the opportunity to make “warm” calls. You can post questions and answers to other people’s questions in your field of expertise to help them, gain a contact and give yourself exposure. Think of it as self-marketing. By browsing through company and employee profiles, you can find out their interests and needs and may even discover a way to market your business, products and/or services to them.

LinkedIn also allows you to connect with professionals and friends in or outside of your field. The connections you meet could also be your next client. Through LinkedIn, the Web Success Team has been able to generate leads and even new business. One businessman, who invited me to connect with him on LinkedIn, liked my profile and read my recommendations. After some correspondence, we set up a meeting to establish a marketing strategy that would help his business. He hired our team on the spot. Generating leads through LinkedIn can lead to sales and worthy contacts. The possibilities are endless.

Effective Use of the Summary Feature

Within your profile, there is the summary feature where you can further connect with your visitors. Start with introductory headlines and short paragraphs for each of your areas of expertise. No bullets please. This is a personal letter so you should talk about who you are, what you do and how you can help people. And always use your keywords in your descriptions. You can add a laundry list of specialties like: LinkedIn Consulting; Social Media Consulting; Blogging; etc. but do them in a vertical list, not in sentence form separated by commas. It is an easier read and more organized.

Target Groups to Join

We also recommend to join as many groups in your niche as possible. The larger the groups the better. What’s great about communicating through LinkedIn is that it will automatically send messages to everyone in your group for added exposure. You can further spread your message by sharing links on the home page.

The Last Few Tips

In closing, you can add a blog application like WordPress, which will automatically add your three most recent articles to your profile. You can also add a video to your profile and have it play automatically. Not many people are doing that. Imagine opening up your profile and you are talking to them. And don’t forget to add Twitter to your LinkedIn profile. Cross marketing is effective and will get you more exposure and traffic.

Grow Your Business Online: These tips are meant to be used as a guideline to improve traffic to your site, increase your conversion rates, help turn visitors into buyers, and keep you ahead of the competition. Turning to a web marketer can ultimately save you time and money and increase your success online. The Web Success Team has many proven marketing strategies and techniques. The Team would be happy to discuss your web marketing needs with a complimentary consultation and web marketing assessment of your current site. Simply mention this article when contacting bob@websuccessteam.com or call 818-222-5643 for an appointment. Please visit our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter for more information. To your web success!