CPA Marketing: 5 Actionable Strategies to Grow Your Accounting Firm

Are you struggling to get more clients for your accounting business?

You’re not alone.

A study by Hinge Marketing found accounting and financial service firms were the slowest growing of all professions studied.

While the tech sector grows at an 18 percent median rate, accounting business slogs behind with a growth rate of 9.3 percent.

Marketing Tips for Accountants/CPAs - accounting firms growth rate inforgraphic

However, this doesn’t mean your accounting firm is doomed.

The difference between low-growth and high-growth businesses in any sector is marketing.

How so?

Marketing is what develops the all-important know, like, and trust factor. Clients can find you through social media or blog posts, learn more about you, and decide you’re the best accountant for the job.

In short, the better you get at marketing your services to the right people, the more you can squash industry-standard growth rates and boost your profitability.

Why Should Certified Public Accountants Advertise Their Services?

Shopping online isn’t only for eCommerce businesses.

Fifty-three percent of consumers conduct online research before making a purchasing decision. If you don’t have a digital presence, you’re leaving money on the table and creating a barrier between you and your potential clients.

With 2.14 billion digital buyers, there’s a huge pool of people you could tap into by having a digital presence for your CPA business.

Besides the earning potential, advertising your services online has other benefits like:

  • Instilling trust: You set yourself up as an authority and expert by having a professional website with sales pages and blog posts.
  • Brand awareness: Almost 92 percent of people use Google to answer their most pressing questions. By investing in SEO and getting your CPA business on the first page of search results, you can grow your brand awareness without a huge paid ad budget.
  • First impressions count: In the digital age, your website is your first impression to potential clients. If it’s slow, outdated, or uninspiring, your site visitors will leave, and you’ll lose the sale.

6 Marketing Tips for CPAs

Ready to take your CPA marketing to the next level? Here are some of the best ways to grow your brand awareness, attract the right customers, and scale your accounting business.

1. Create an SEO-Friendly Website With a Strong CTA

Because so many buyers turn to Google to conduct online research before purchasing, a website is no longer a “nice to have.”

It’s a must.

An SEO-optimized website does three things:

Search Engines Send Organic, Qualified Traffic

Sick of cold emailing tactics or leads who have no intent on opting in for your services? 

By going all-in on SEO and targeting keywords your potential clients are using, you can attract the right customers (who are ready to sign a contract) straight to your website.

Not sure what SEO is or how to do keyword research? Check out my ultimate SEO guide, which takes you through absolutely everything you need to know to get your CPA business on the front page of Google.

Turns Visitors Into Leads

When someone is knee-deep in research mode, a professional-looking website goes a long way in the decision-making process. 

With a strong call-to-action (CTA) on your homepage, you can stop people from leaving your site without scheduling a call, or filling out a form to find out more.

Here’s a good example:

Notice the “Get Started” button. It’s above the fold (meaning you don’t have to scroll to see it), and it encourages visitors to take action.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs Create an SEO Friendly Website with a Strong CTA

If you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see another CTA to schedule a call.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Turn Visitors Into Leads

Want help setting up a CTA? Use one of my eight foolproof CTA tactics.

It Sets You Up as the Go-To Expert

Once your website ranks for the right keywords on Google (i.e., words and phrases your customers are using), it tells the user you’re an expert and creates brand awareness.

When someone sees you as an industry thought leader, it establishes trust. This sets up one of the natural laws of business: People do business with those they know, like, and trust.

2. Create a Blog for Your Website

When it comes to marketing for CPAs, creating a blog is an incredibly effective tactic.

Why?

Your blog posts will rank on search results. 

When you’re ranking on the first page of Google, you get more visibility, website traffic, and qualified leads. For your customers, blogging is beneficial because it answers their questions, gives them quick wins, and helps them find solutions to their problems. 

It’s a win/win for everyone.

How do you start writing blog posts that end up on the first page of search results?

First, you need to do keyword research to understand what problems your audience is trying to solve.

Take the keyword “hiring an accountant for taxes.” Here are some blog posts from CPA firms on the first page of Google. 

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Create a Blog For Your Website (an example)

By using blogging like these CPA firms, you can identify the challenges your clients are facing and create blog posts that add value and convert visitors into clients.

Keyword Research Resources:

Next, you need to write your blog post and optimize it for search.

What does this mean?

According to a user’s query, there is a formula search engines use to understand the content and decide where it should show up in the results. By following basic on-page SEO principles, you can make sure your blogs are optimized for ranking on the first page of Google.

SEO Blogging Resources:

3. Start Using LinkedIn

Do you have a LinkedIn profile?

Out of the 774 million working professionals using the platform, you probably fall into two camps:

  1. Yes, you’ve created a profile, but it pretty much collects dust.
  2. No, and you don’t want to add another social network to your plate.

However, LinkedIn is more than a social media network. It’s one of the best places to connect with your potential clients and land work.

Eighty percent of B2B marketers say LinkedIn is the best place to find leads.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Use LinkedIn (LinkedIn numbers)

Follow these steps to spruce up your LinkedIn profile and start attracting paying clients to your CPA business.

Update Your Profile for SEO

Yup, SEO extends beyond search engines. 

You want to make sure your profile is optimized with keywords your potential clients use to find you.

The better your LinkedIn SEO, the higher up you’ll appear on search results.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Start Using LinkedIn
Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Start Using LinkedIn (example of CPA profile)

Post on LinkedIn

Whether it’s status updates, sharing business news, or writing thought pieces, creating content on LinkedIn is a powerful lead generation tool.

You can tag your posts with hashtags to boost your reach, and the more engagement it gets, the more the algorithm will push your content out to a wider audience.

By increasing the number of eyes on your posts, you increase your chances of leads finding your profile and reaching out.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - create linkedin posts to grow your brand's visibility

LinkedIn Marketing resources:

4. Create YouTube Videos

Writing not your style? Are you a better speaker?

Then create a content marketing strategy around YouTube. With over 2 billion monthly users, people come to the platform to learn, get inspired, or have fun. What makes YouTube such a lucrative platform is this: The content is searchable on Google.

In 2016, the search engine giant bought the video-sharing site and has integrated the platform with search results.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Create YouTube Videos

Like Google, SEO also plays a part on YouTube.

To see success on the platform, you need to use the same keywords your audience uses to search for you. Consider using keywords in these places:

  • your speech (YouTube scans your words)
  • video title
  • video description
  • tags
Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Create YouTube Videos (an example)

These views turn into leads and are an excellent way to grow your brand awareness and establish trust with your audience.

Bonus: Once you hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time, you can sign up for the YouTube partner program and start earning money from your uploads.

YouTube Resources:

5. Claim Your Google Business Page

Google My Business can help your CPA business gain more visibility in local search results. According to a study by BrightLocal, 84 percent of searches are discovery. 

That’s a lot of opportunities for your next client to find you. Let’s say someone searches “CPA in New York.” If you’ve set up your Google My Business page correctly, it will show up in search results like this:

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Claim Your Google Business Page

These cards make it easy for people in your area to find you, contact you, and become your next customer.

All you need to set up your profile is a business name, location, and category. Once Google authorizes it, you’ll start showing up on local search and Google Maps.

Your customers will be able to leave reviews, add photos, ask questions, save your listing, and see important information like your contact details.

Marketing Tips for Accountants CPAs - Claim Your Google Business Page (an example)

In the above example, Miller & Company has put “CPA of NYC” in their title and made their description “accountant in New York City.”

Again, this is SEO. These keywords help Google understand your listing and show it for the correct search results.

To learn how to set up your Google My Business account, optimize it for local SEO, and what mistakes to avoid, check out these resources:

6. Build Your Email List 

While building a presence on YouTube and LinkedIn are solid marketing strategies for CPAs, those platforms could close down tomorrow.

If that happens, you’ll lose access to your audience.

The solution? Building your email list.

Create a lead magnet and use it to entice your website visitors to subscribe. Your lead magnet should focus on a problem your audience wants to overcome and present a quick win.

For example, if you help freelancers with their tax you could make a checklist for how to prepare for tax season. At the end of your lead magnet, include a call-to-action to hire you for those that want to skip the admin and let someone else handle it.

Other types of lead magnet ideas include:

  • toolkits
  • reports
  • whitepapers
  • ebooks
  • case studies
  • cheat sheets

Once you have people on your email list, you can nurture the relationship and promote your offers and tips via a weekly or monthly newsletter.

Marketing for CPAs Frequently Asked Questions

What's the best way to promote my accounting business?

The best way to market your CPA business is with digital marketing. It’s cheaper than traditional marketing and helps you attract your ideal clients with ease.

Should I hire a marketing firm to promote my accounting business?

If you don’t have the time to manage your marketing, yes. A marketing firm can help save time and tweak your marketing efforts to improve ROI.

Should I invest in digital marketing for my CPA business?

Yes! With most people turning to Google to answer their questions and find companies to solve their problems, a digital presence is necessary.

How much should I spend on marketing for my accounting business?

It depends on the size of your firm, location, and how much money you can allocate towards your marketing, as well as what platforms you want to use and the results you want to achieve. You can do it yourself and spend very little, or invest thousands (which may generate thousands more in revenue.)

{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “FAQPage”,
“mainEntity”: [
{
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What's the best way to promote my accounting business?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: ”

The best way to market your CPA business is with digital marketing. It’s cheaper than traditional marketing and helps you attract your ideal clients with ease.


}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “Should I hire a marketing firm to promote my accounting business?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: ”

If you don’t have the time to manage your marketing, yes. A marketing firm can help save time and tweak your marketing efforts to improve ROI.


}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “Should I invest in digital marketing for my CPA business? “,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: ”

Yes! With most people turning to Google to answer their questions and find companies to solve their problems, a digital presence is necessary.


}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “How much should I spend on marketing for my accounting business?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: ”

It depends on the size of your firm, location, and how much money you can allocate towards your marketing, as well as what platforms you want to use and the results you want to achieve. You can do it yourself and spend very little, or invest thousands (which may generate thousands more in revenue.)


}
}
]
}

Marketing for Accountants: Conclusion

As you can see, digital marketing is no longer a “nice to have” for accounting firms.

The digital world is more important than ever before. Approximately 6 billion people have smartphones, which means your next customer will most likely come from Google rather than a traditional ad in the newspaper.

Follow these marketing tips for accountants, and you’ll learn how to create content that attracts your ideal client, creates value in their lives, and sets your firm up as the go-to expert.

Which of these accounting marketing tips are you going to implement in your business?

Internal Linking Guide: Actionable Tips, Strategies, and Tools

Internal links are a crucial part of a successful SEO strategy.

Small but mighty, simple yet complex, internal links help navigate users through your digital content and give search engine crawlers information about how your website works.

Internal links are found on almost every page on the internet. You’re probably already using them, even if you don’t know it. (Hint: there’s a few included in this intro,)

If you want to optimize your content for SEO, you need to understand how internal links work, where to place them, and why they matter.

In this post, we’ll dive into internal linking and cover best practices.

What Is Internal Linking?

Internal links are links from one page to another within a single domain.

These are different from external links, which point to pages on a different website.

Every website with more than one page should be connected through internal linking.

Think of your website’s home page. In the top navigation, you likely have a menu that links to other internal pages. This could be your About, Shop, and Contact pages.

This internal linking structure is essential for SEO because it establishes a site architecture and improves your link equity.

Having multiple web pages attached to a singular domain improves your chances of being ranked by allowing search engine crawlers to index more content.

Internal linking is a simple issue of site design and architecture, and the search engines expect it. All websites have a design and architecture that keeps them structured logically, such as this common silo model.

internal linking - silo model site map

Of course, site architecture and structuring can get far more complex.

internal linking guide - site architecture example

But as long as you have a strong internal linking structure, your website will be crawled, indexed, and ranked by search engines.

Internal linking is also an important part of your user experience, as it allows users to uncover related information or find what they are looking for, which improves dwell time.

5 Reasons Internal Linking Is Good for SEO

Internal linking is one of SEO’s most valuable weapons.

Why? Because it works.

Google’s machine-learning algorithm has come a long way since the early days of SEO. Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible to game the system.

As advanced as the algorithm is, there are still simple changes that will give you an immediate boost in SEO without gaming the search engines.

Internal linking is one of them. It’s not a trick or a gimmick, and it’s certainly not hard to do.

Here are some of the benefits.

1. Helps Google Index Your Site

Google’s crawler follows link paths throughout the internet to find and index websites.

If your website has strong internal linking, the Google crawler has an easier time finding new content you publish.

google crawler moving through internal links on website

Google’s bots regularly crawl the web for fresh content. If your content is woven together with multiple internal links, crawling happens a lot faster.

As a result, your content will get indexed faster, too.

Improved crawling and indexing can boost your SEO.

2. Increases Backlink-Earning Potential of Deep Content Pages

Take a look at where most of your website’s backlinks are coming from. You’ll probably see a lot of links that send users to your homepage.

When you compare the homepage backlinks to deep page backlinks, this is what you usually see:

internal linking start page and deep page

Unfortunately, too many home page backlinks are bad for SEO. We call this over-optimizing, and it should be avoided.

What you want to see is the pie chart reversed. The majority of your external links should point at deep internal pages, not your home page. That’s because the homepage doesn’t generally include the type of detailed information users search for.

When a website doesn’t actively publish and promote new content, its link profile looks like this:

internal linking structure ranking

Most of the links on the website go to social profiles or standard pages such as “About” or “Contact.”

This provides very little SEO value to the site.

If you create a strong internal linking structure, you can boost the link juice earning potential of the internal pages, by creating clear click paths and indexation throughout the website.

Why? Because you are increasing the overall crawl priority throughout the site with better distribution of your links.

3. Internal Linking Spreads the Strength of the Site to Internal Pages

When your website receives a link to the homepage, some of the link value is passed on to internal pages.

This is often referred to as “link juice.”

internal linking guide - link juice

If Page 1 then links to Page 2, the “link juice” flows from Page 1 to Page 2, helping it rank higher in the search engine results page (SERP).

The more tightly-knit a website’s structure (through internal linking), the better the overall site will perform in search.

4. Internal Linking with Optimized Anchor Text Is Good for SEO

An internal link is a simple string of HTML that links one website page to another. It looks like this:

<A HREF = “http://www.example.com/internalpage“> an article on cat food </A>

When you create an internal link with anchor text, as opposed to with an image or navigational text, however, the value of the internal link goes up.

Anchor text improves the value of the link by adding keywords and content to the linking process. Google isn’t just looking at an A HREF tag. They are also looking at the anchor text that is part of that link.

The days of keyword stuffing anchor texts are long gone. But, there is value in optimizing your internal anchor text.

Anchor text that flows well with the overall content, versus over-optimized anchor text, is best.

5. It Provides Value to Your Users

This is the most important point of all. Internal linking is an SEO technique, yes. But, it’s more than that.

Ultimately, internal linking is useful for users.

Think about it this way: When you’re researching a topic, do you check one source or multiple?

Do you enjoy exploring other content that reinforces your understanding of the topic?

Maybe, you just like the writing style of the article you’re reading and want to read more work by the same author.

Internal linking on a site increases the value of each piece of content by backing up claims and leading the user to related information.

While it may not drive conversions directly, internal linking does have a place within the marketing funnel—carrying people to a target destination.

As an added bonus, you can help readers stay on your site longer and increase their trust in you by using internal linking.

SEO is about user optimization, not just technical tweaks and sneaky tricks.

Even if you don’t care about the technical value of internal linking, at least do it for your users.

Internal Linking Best Practices

Now, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. How do you do internal linking? What’s the best method for creating the biggest value with links?

There are two things you need in place first:

  1. Written content on the site: Even if you have a single article, that’s okay. That’s your starting place. If you don’t have any written content but want to create some, check out our The Ultimate Guide to Writing Epic Content.
  2. Continually writing new content for the site: Getting into a regular publishing schedule is important for internal linking to be effective.

Okay, let’s get into it.

Link to and From Content-Heavy Pages

The best internal links are those that connect one article to another. This creates a strong internal linking structure deep within the site.

If you have good site architecture, you’ll have enough links to the site’s main pages, such as the homepage, About page, Contact page, etc.

You don’t need more links to these pages.

Obviously, if you’re trying to drive conversions using a squeeze page or sales page and the opportunity is right, link to it.

For the most part, I recommend creating links in and among long-form articles. This automatically spreads your internal linking naturally.

Create Text Links Using Anchor Text

What kind of internal links work best?

It’s simple: Links with descriptive anchor text.

What do we mean by descriptive anchor text?

You’re familiar with anchor text, right? An anchor text is the word or words that link to another page. They typically appear as blue text to the reader.

This is anchor text.

Your internal links should use anchor text, but not just any anchor text will do. Include phrases that describe what the target link is about.

Here are some examples of strong anchor text:

If you wanted to link to an article about the 10 most important SEO techniques, you could do it this way:

Here are a few important SEO techniques you should be using.

If you wanted to link to an article about Google Hummingbird, you could do it this way:

Google’s algorithm has been updated with new machine learning capabilities.

Each of those examples is associating the subject of the link with relevant phrases. The first anchor text contains “10 most important SEO techniques,” which is the subject matter of the article you’re linking to. The second anchor text has the phrase, “Google’s algorithm has been updated,” and the linked article contains information about Google, Hummingbird, algorithms, and updates.

Here are three things not to do with your internal linking:

  1. Do not try to create an exact match between the anchor text and the link target. This technique, known as “exact match anchor text” has been associated with SEO penalties via the Penguin update. Today’s search engines are sensitive to the regular use of exact match anchor text because it wouldn’t frequently happen in regular content. It appears unnatural because it is.
  2. Do not use phrases like “click here.” This adds no value. Anchor text needs to be related to the linked page in some way.
  3. Do not link more than one sentence. An entire hyperlinked paragraph is unsightly and makes for a poor user experience. Just stick to a few words or a phrase when using anchor text to point to an internal link.

Add an Appropriate Number of Links Per Page

When you write a new piece of content, you should include five or more links to old articles. This is really important to your internal linking strategy and how the search engines review and rank your content.

Why?

Websites have a “freshness value” that Google detects and uses as part of its ranking algorithm.

According to Cyrus Shepard, “links from fresh sites [or pages] pass fresh value.”

two web pages show fresh internal linking

Pinging old pages with a new link helps to boost its likelihood of increasing rank in the SERPs. In the eyes of the search engines, readers who follow your internal links are actually “refreshing” your older content by showing it’s still relevant.

However, be careful not to over-stuff your content with links.

According to Moz, search engine crawlers have a limit of 150 links per page. After that, they stop spidering.

Overstuffing your page with links could negatively impact your SEO.

Be sure to link, but don’t overdo it. This will help both the search crawlers and your user experience.

Update Old Articles With New Internal Links

You’ll get the most power from internal linking if you combine it with another SEO technique—updating old content.

When you update old content, Google’s crawler sees it again, indexes it again, and may increase its ranking in the SERPs.

We always recommend updating your old articles regularly. Here is a good process to follow on your old blog articles:

  • Add a new paragraph of content at the beginning, explaining your updates.
  • Add several new paragraphs throughout, adding additional or updated information.
  • Remove or replace outdated stats or information.
  • Add several new internal links to content you’ve recently created.
  • Add links in places where it’s logical and value-added.

Remember, internal linking isn’t only about linking new content to older content. It’s also about circling back to older content and creating internal links that connect to your newer work.

You’re accomplishing two things by doing this.

  1. It updates old content, which improves its ranking value.
  2. It creates an internal link between an old established page on the site and a new not-so-established page.

Add Links Where It Makes Sense

Now that you’ve learned so much about internal linking, you’re probably wondering where you should put your internal links?

It’s tempting to get lazy and throw them in at the end of an article: “For more awesome content, click here!”

Don’t do that, please. Or at least, don’t do just that.

Instead, look for areas in the content where the subject matter overlaps. These are logical points of connection to create an internal link. For example, you can add links to define complex terms or explain a related topic.

Think of internal links as a reference point that improves the experience of the reader.

Only Add Dofollow Links

Don’t add a nofollow tag to your internal links. Nofollow links do not have any impact on the search engine rankings of the destination site.

On top of that, Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across nofollow links. It won’t even crawl them.

While some data from Ahrefs has shown nofollow links can be useful when used externally, there is no reason to use them in your internal linking strategy.

Link to High Converting Pages

Do you have pages on your website that convert visitors more than other pages?

If so, link to these pages.

Some articles in our blog have super high conversion rates. The content is compelling, and the CTAs are so powerful that users convert in droves.

We always make sure to link internally to these pages.

This is where internal linking has more than just SEO value. It can have revenue value, too. The more visitors you can drive to a high-converting page, the more conversions you’ll have.

Take Site Navigation and Information Architecture Into Consideration

Site navigation and internal linking go hand in hand.

Internal links define site architecture and hierarchy by creating funnels that direct users through your website.

Ultimately, this is an important part of your UX/UI and will impact how long people stay on your web pages and how often they come back.

When building an internal linking strategy, consider the most important content on your site and how you’re promoting it.

If you have a piece of cornerstone content that you want more eyes on, point more internal links to it.

Create Lots of Content

The best way to have a healthy internal linking structure is to have lots of internal pages.

When you create lots of content, you’ll have lots of linkable content. The more links to the more places, the better your internal linking strategy will be.

Remember, simply having a lot of web pages doesn’t equal a robust internal linking strategy.

While internal links are essential to your website navigation, repeatedly linking to your homepage won’t move the needle on your SEO score.

Instead, consider writing a blog or creating landing pages that house resourceful content.

Whatever your strategy, do it well and do it often.

Internal Linking Practices to Avoid

Now that you know how to use internal linking correctly, let’s review some of the practices to avoid.

Adding too many links to your content can be detrimental to your score. Remember, Google does not crawl pages that have more than 150 links. It’s also important to note that your header, footer, and menu links are included in your on-page link count.

Don’t overdo it!

Keyword stuffing in anchor text is another internal linking practice to avoid. This black hat tactic was popular in the past, as SEO’s thought it would improve their chances of ranking.

These days, sophisticated search algorithms penalize keyword stuffing in anchor text. So, don’t do it.

Using internal links in header text should also be avoided. Links in headers signal spam to Google crawlers and can negatively impact your SEO.

Finally, be sure to check all of your internal links before posting them. Broken links don’t spread any link juice and signal to Google that your website is low quality.

Internal Linking FAQs

How many internal links should I include per post?

There’s no set number, but 5-10 for every 2,000 words is a good best practice. Remember, Google won’t crawl pages with more than ~150 links, so be careful about overstuffing your content.

Should I add internal links to my pages with more or less traffic?

According to Databox, internal links can spread link juice from low-traffic web pages to high-traffic ones. That being said, it’s also important to point as many links as possible to your cornerstone content so it benefits from increased traffic.

What is an example of internal linking?

Internal linking is a link that points to another page within the same domain. Internal links show up as hyperlinks, like this: Tips for building better evergreen links.

Are internal links backlinks?

No, internal links stay within your website domain, they do not come from an external source. Backlinks are external links that point to your domain.

{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “FAQPage”,
“mainEntity”: [
{
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “How many internal links should I include per post?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “There’s no set number, but 5-10 for every 2,000 words is a good best practice. Remember, Google won’t crawl pages with more than ~150 links, so be careful about overstuffing your content.”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “Should I add internal links to my pages with more or less traffic?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “According to Databox, internal links can spread link juice from low-traffic web pages to high-traffic ones. That being said, it’s also important to point as many links as possible to your cornerstone content so it benefits from increased traffic.”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “What is an example of internal linking?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “Internal linking is a link that points to another page within the same domain. Internal links show up as hyperlinks, like this: Tips for building better evergreen links.”
}
}
, {
“@type”: “Question”,
“name”: “Are internal links backlinks?”,
“acceptedAnswer”: {
“@type”: “Answer”,
“text”: “No, internal links stay within your website domain, they do not come from an external source. Backlinks are external links that point to your domain.”
}
}
]
}

Summary of Internal Linking Guide

Internal linking is a core part of a solid SEO strategy. When done right, it enhances the user experience and can help you rank higher in the SERPs.

While internal links are part of any strong website design, it’s important to find ways to include internal links in your content to ensure you’re getting the most out of your content. Make sure to use optimized (but not over-optimized) anchor tags, and add internal links that provide users with more information about a topic they’re interested in.

What internal linking practices have you found to be the most effective?

5 Actionable Tips to Get Your Website Added to Google News

You can get thousands of clicks to your site from Google News.

And, you don’t even have to be a journalist.

Smart bloggers, news publishers, and digital content marketers are already tapping into this huge resource for targeted traffic and better search engine visibility.

Google News is reserved for sites and blogs that publish timely, topical articles. You don’t necessarily need to be a news site but if you are consistently posting newsworthy content it’s possible to get accepted. 

Danny Sullivan once said: If you aren’t a news site, Google News and its web crawlers won’t likely show you love. 

But that isn’t a guarantee.

What is News?

A major search engine like Google defines news as “newly received or noteworthy information, especially about recent or important events.”

image07

If you’re at the forefront of your industry and reporting information that’d be of interest to your audience on a timely basis, then you’re a news publisher.

Google News is a content syndication platform that Google introduced to help organize the world’s news in many ways and to make it more accessible to its users, like a news XML.

Google News sends 6 billion clicks per month to publishers all over the world. Even if you get just 0.0001% of these clicks to your web site, that’s huge. Do the math.

image13

That said, it’s a challenge in many ways to get your website indexed as a news publisher by the Google News sitemap file crawler and your articles indexed and ranked in Google News.

Let’s look at some of the best practices for getting added to Google News XML sitemap and how you can get real-time traffic.

Adhere to the Principles of Good Journalism

If you look at recent additions to the Google News sitemap syndication platform, you’ll notice that Google, for the first time, is no longer 100% focused on news-related “current events”- type content. You can tell that just from looking at the meta tags.

It’s evolved over the years as a news sitemap, leveling the playing field for bloggers, content creators, and news publishing experts. This evolution may not be obvious from the search term headlines but the content reveals this expansion.

image17

However, the principles of good journalism haven’t been discarded by this major search engine. Google still cares about the style and substance of articles, especially as part of its XML. Good journalism is all about being honest and as objective as possible.

Why do you think the Google XML sitemap crawls, indexes, and publishes third party website content from CNN, BBC, Techcrunch, The Wall Street Journal and others in its search results?

One of the reasons is because these sites are true news publishers and adhere to strict standard journalism practices. They’re transparent and they adhere to the same professional standard. Just take a look at their search history and you can see they take their news seriously. 

image11

To be included in news XML’s your reporting must be original, honest, and well-structured with quality anchor texts, meta tags, and an authoritative voice.

Standard journalism is all about investigation and not just about search engine optimization. So, you should be able and ready to investigate a story and authenticate it, before reporting it.

For your story to strike a chord with editors, who will in turn syndicate it at Google News, PBS recommends that you present information from the most to the least important content points.

There’s an established application process to get your stories featured on the XML sitemap of Google News. But, before you apply, follow these guidelines:

1. Don’t copy from other sites. Write original news articles.

First and foremost, you need to make sure that your stories are original.

A major search engine like Google doesn’t want to syndicate the same piece of content verbatim and it’s search algorithm will pull you up. You’ve got to make your story original with accurate data points from credible sources. Wherever you got your information from, whether it’s trawling through search history, sitemap files, or exploring web pages – make sure your sources are trustworthy.

Take a look at the Google News homepage. All of the featured stories are original content with credible sources. And, no site is ranked more than once for its stories.

Google is a credible company, a major search engine that is trusted by millions all around the world. Imagine Google reporting a story that’s false, it would be a metasearch engine disaster!

What do you think would happen to its credibility?

And, speaking of credibility, Google is equally concerned with Author Rank.

There’s no better way to become a reputable author than to write for other news and magazine sites. If you’ve never written for trusted news web sites, such as Forbes, Inc. or Business Insider, you need to begin.

Google knows that reputable authors and columnists don’t copy news stories from other sources which is why they get included in their XML sitemaps.

Instead, they go all out to get an original story. Famous authors who publish original stories over a period of time are given credit so that they can build “rank” and improve their reputation, no matter what online publication they choose to write for.

image08

One way to get your story added to Google News quickly is to use a co-author who has a high Author Rank.

In Google’s view and when looking for inclusions on their news XML sitemap file, such an author brings a higher level of authority to your site and the resulting story is more likely to be original and credible.

To get started reporting news, you need original stories. The resource guide below will give you more guidance:

The Origin of Stories: How Journalists Find and Create News in an Age of Social Media, Competition and Churnalism

2. Write keyword-rich headlines that communicate the story topics.

Your headline makes a promise to the reader. If you get it right, your news story will likely be picked up by Google and other journalists who can amplify the content’s reach.

According to Poynter, you should “try to keep your headlines straightforward and unadorned. Use concise and familiar words, if possible.”

You may be tempted to use numbers in your news story headlines. After all, users love numbers. But, if you’re going to use a “listicle” headline type, it should provide specific insights and steer clear of “linkbait” territory. There is no way that linkbait and lousy anchor texts are going to get you placed on Googles news XML sitemap file.

I’ve noticed that authority sites that report stories daily rarely use the listicle format or “numbered” headlines.

They simply write an accurate, clear and compelling headline. Let’s take a cue from Search Engine Land.

Just like blog posts, your news story headline determines whether your story will be syndicated by Google or not.

Here are some tips to help you write newsworthy headlines that are sure to appear in the search results and remember the same approach can be taken with your meta tags:

i). Don’t repeat words: The purpose of getting your website or story added to Google News XML sitemap is to get clicks and views from the huge user base. You don’t have to repeat words or keywords in the headline, as though you’re actively doing search engine optimization.

Here’s a weak news headline:

“How experienced investors can mentor about-to-quit investors”

Avoid this repetition of words like the plague.

ii). Use active voice: A news headline is a quick way to demonstrate what’s inside the story and will catch the eye of the search engine.

Don’t bore users or discourage journalists from picking your story. Avoid using a passive voice.

In the passive voice, the subject is receiving the verb. For example:

  • Passive voice: Mary was hit by a car.
  • Active voice: The car hit Mary.

An active voice starts with the subject. With an active voice, you can say more with fewer words from the very first time. Brevity is an essential news publisher tactic that captivates the audience.

image12

Using active voice in your news headline also helps to trim down unnecessary words. If you check Digg’s homepage, you’ll see that most of the syndicated stories have headlines written with an active voice.

Here’s an example:

image03

The passive-voice version of the above news headline is obviously weaker:

  • An Episode of ‘Top Chef’ Was Produced with Help From the CIA

iii). Write in the present tense: This is another important point to keep in mind when writing a story headline with the hope of getting it syndicated on the Google News XML sitemap file.

Even if the story itself or content is written in the past tense, the headline should indicate what’s happening right now. After all, that’s why it’s called “news”, and that’s what the XML sitemap is looking for.

image02

Several stories on the Google News homepage are written in the present tense. Take a look:

image16

iv). Know which words to capitalize: Have you noticed that not all words in a news story headline are capitalized? As a rule of thumb, capitalize the first word of the headline. You must also capitalize proper nouns.

On the Google News homepage, both title case and first word/proper noun capitalization standards are used.

image05

If you use title case, don’t capitalize articles. So, for example, “Judge Rejects Kesha’s Last Effort to Free Herself From Dr. Luke” is correct, but if “to” were capitalized as well, that would be incorrect.

3. Write news-related articles, not evergreen content.

In adding sites to Google News, remember that a major search engine like Google can only include sites that follow their Webmasters Tool Guidelines.

If there’s nothing timely about your topic or story, it’s not news. It’s as simple as that. In journalism, “timing is everything.” Timely content makes it to the top, others get lost in the pages of the search history.

image18

For your site to be accepted, you’ve got to write news-related articles consistently. Evergreen content just won’t work with Google News.

Aside from that, the major search engine Google also has specific types of content that they accept. In Google’s words:

“We generally do not include how-to articles, advice columns, job postings or strictly informational content such as weather forecasts and stock data.”

In the world of blogging, creating evergreen content is your guarantee for sustainable organic traffic. And Google rewards such content in its organic results.

But, that kind of content isn’t news, so a search engine like Google won’t syndicate it.

When you look at the Google News homepage, you’ll notice that the stories are timely – mostly as the events unfold:

4. Write at least 2 news articles each day.

Are you the only one managing your site? If you want to get added to Google News, you may need to make a change.

The majority of the news media sites that are syndicated on Google News are multi-authored. In other words, more than one person writes for the site.

Think about CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, New York Times, Huffington Post, and so forth.

These sites are updated every minute of the day, by a crop of prolific writers who are transparent and accurate in their reporting, it’s why they are so popular in the search engines.

You need more writers who can source for fresh stories, write about them and submit them within hours.

You may find you have to train good writers. You could start by hiring freelance writers, then train them on the journalistic approach that Google News and other media platforms and search engines require for every story.

You should also work to teach your writers how to follow your brand guidelines, especially if they are writing for you for the first time. Let them know the elements that should be present in a news story – the headline, the appropriate voice, the requirement for sources and the rules of citation.

Ideally, create an author page on your site, where you introduce each writer on your team. 

Google will ask you for a list of authors who report stories on your site. In fact, you’ll be required to submit contact details for each author, when you apply.

5. Establish authority with your blog.

Google is understandably strict about the content it considers to be news. Not every article is news-related.

Most of the time, it’s not about the story, but the context or angle by which the author covered it, this is why lamestream media can be so popular. 

Since Google is passionate about timely, up-to-date stories, you need a way to prove to Google that you’ve adhered to its guidelines.

You need to establish authority with your blog. Authority, on the web, boils down to how many user-friendly sites and web pages link back to yours. Webmasters tool can help you check where you stand. 

image04

Let’s say that your 3-month old blog has been reporting timely, up-to-date stories as they unfold.

Another site (say, Mashable) has more authority than your blog and established search history.

Now answer this question:

If your blog reported the same trending story as Mashable, and both news stories followed the news-writing standard, which of the stories do you think that Google would crawl first, index, and offer a high pagerank?

Did I hear Mashable?

You’re 100% correct.

The reason why is obvious: Mashable has more authority in the search engines than your 3-month old blog.

Mashable publishes more timely content because it’s got the budget for a sufficient number of authors. If you’re a small business, you can’t beat that.

Building authority with your blog isn’t a straightforward thing. And, it definitely will not happen overnight.

You need to get off of your site. You should be everywhere.

While you’re building your Author Rank, by contributing to other trustworthy sites, always reference your story in a natural way. Ideally, use your branded keyword or story headline as anchor text to link back to your site.

The more authority sites you contribute to and get links from, the more authority your blog will get and the more you will show up in the search results and the search history. Your blog will build momentum gradually. Be patient!

Social media is equally vital, so spread the love. Get active on social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter.

Don’t try to copy or mimic another author’s writing style. Find your own voice. Stick to it. That’s the only way to stand out from the crowd and get your news-related articles added to Google News.

image01

When your content is unique and compelling, more people will click your headline, visit your site and take action.

But, when your news is like everyone else’s, you’re not making an impact. To the audience, there’s nothing in it for them. Consequently, they’ll leave.

Conclusion

Now that you’ve seen the possibility of getting your website and news articles added to Google News, it’s time to take action and apply.

Don’t be too quick to do this. You first need to create a path, on your blog, that a Google News bot or spider can follow to crawl your fresh stories as they’re published.

Google suggests that you add a Google News Sitemap to make this easier. If your blog is hosted on WordPress CMS, you can find Google News sitemap plugins in the WordPress repository.

Once you’ve installed one of the plugins, you can apply to Google News here. This will connect with your Google Console account, thus making it easier to add several of your sites to Google News. Be sure to use the webmaster tool to check your indexing status.

Does your site meet the Google News requirements? If yes, why aren’t you tapping into Google News for real-time traffic?

15 Actionable Examples of Fashion Marketing

From high fashion to a terrible sense of fashion, wherever we fall on the spectrum, fashion marketing comes our way online, on television, catalogs, billboards, window shopping, and more. We are bombarded with messages of what we should be wearing, and why.

If you’re on the marketing or sales side of fashion, how do you leverage your message to reach the right buying audience? In this guide, let’s learn what fashion marketing truly is and how to form your own strategy if you work in the fashion field.

What Is Fashion Marketing?

Because we interact so often with fashion marketing from a consumer perspective, we may think we have a clear picture of what all goes into it. We may have some idea of what fashion marketing is, but maybe we don’t understand all the logistics behind it.

Fashion marketing is about advertising and promoting fashion to the right market in various ways, from print to online, in-person to digital. Remember that it’s more than clothes; it’s also accessories, including hats, shoes, jewelry, and outerwear, that help people connect with and showcase a certain style.

What Sets Fashion Marketing Apart From Marketing in Other Industries?

While any industry can leverage the wide world of marketing opportunities, fashion marketing has its own unique practical implications that may impact certain marketing choices.

Just like any kind of marketing, fashion marketing has to start from a pain point, and there’s often kind of an obvious pain point, as well as the deeper whys.

For instance, there’s hunger with food marketing, of course, but there’s also why you want to buy, cook, or eat that food.

Let’s switch back to fashion marketing and think about that obvious point first. Fashion marketing does have a practical side. We have to wear clothes. Fashion marketing tells us which ones we should wear.

Then there are the deeper whys. It’s not just about protecting your body from the elements. Style is about being part of a community and expressing something about yourself.

That’s the story that brands can tell across their marketing campaigns.

As fashion marketers consider those pain points and the motivations of their consumers, they also have to think about seasonal changes and when consumers are primed to purchase for that next season.

They also have to stay ahead of style trends, while maintaining a balance with practical options for consumers. Price points are another tricky topic for fashion marketers. Fashion can range from thrifty and economical to high-end and luxurious.

There’s a lot we can learn from luxury marketing, but it’s important to remember that fashion marketing can span a more approachable and inclusive market as well.

15 Examples of Great Fashion Marketing

There are many ways to get the word out about your fashion brand, but you can get a lot of tips from big-name brands that are out there.

1. Allbirds

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Allbirds

It’s hard to know what an item is going to look like on your own body when ordering the product online. Allbirds advertised an in-app, try-on experience. Using augmented reality, the try-on feature allows you to see what the shoes would look like on your own feet. To advertise this feature, Allbirds created a social media ad series with a video showcasing how you can do a virtual try-on. The ad also speaks to the brand’s environmental causes.

2. Warby Parker

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Warby Parker

Warby Parker did something similar to help their customers get an idea of what their glasses would look like on themselves before they order. They created an app-based, virtual try-on experience and a series of TV ads to get the word out about the app. Since it’s a relatively new idea that many may not be as familiar with, the TV ad shows how it works and how customers can “try on” glasses to decide which ones to order.

3. Patagonia

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Patagonia

Patagonia also wanted to use their marketing efforts to speak to a certain cause greater than their own brand. To encourage environmental awareness and a better use of resources, they created a Worn Wear campaign. They took to the road and did a cross-country trip with a team of people who could repair clothes. People were invited to bring worn-out clothes and be given new life. These kinds of long-term marketing efforts are quite the undertaking, but the sense of giving back to the community, aligned with your brand’s philosophies, is something that any brand could try, even on a local level.

4. Ted Baker

Ted Baker came up with an interactive catalog or lookbook, using a 360-degree film experience. The video consists of various vignette scenes of a midcentury family in their home and neighborhood. The scenes are relatively minimal to really showcase the clothes. It went along with a series of commercial style videos with the hashtag #MeetTheBakers. Even if you don’t have the Ted Baker budget, anyone could use videos to showcase their clothes on the whole family and highlight how they could be worn in everyday, or fantasy, life.

5. DKNY

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - DKNY

DKNY leveraged the power of hashtags and of having a brand consisting of four letters, in their #DKNYStateofMind campaign. That hashtag became popular among influencers, bloggers, and other content creators. In addition to launching a new line with this, they also utilized inspiring graphical messages, with the letters D, K, N, and Y highlighted. It showcased who they are as a brand, both in their clothes and their message.

6. Everlane

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Everlane

One of the challenges of selling fashion is helping buyers understand how a piece would work in their wardrobe. Just a single image in a catalog or on a sign may not be convincing enough. Everlane created an influencer marketing campaign where they asked fashion bloggers to create three looks with their jumpsuit. This helped potential buyers see the versatility of their product, as well as the different women wearing them. Everlane shared these on social media, but they also got coverage on blogger websites, such as The Golden Girl Blog. This was great for SEO and backlinks for Everlane.

7. Nike

examples of great fashion marketing - nike

Sometimes it’s about more than selling shoes. Fashion marketing can sometimes take up causes or philosophies greater than just the clothes they are selling. Even when ads take that approach, it’s about aspiration that is connected intrinsically to fashion. We wear what we wear to send some kind of message.

Nike has long had a history of memorable ads, starting with “Just Do It” and leading to their Colin Kaepernick “Believe in Something” campaign. This kind of fashion marketing doesn’t necessarily showcase the actual products, but they do get people talking, such as in this Forbes article. By taking a stand and creating a campaign around it, fashion brands can align themselves with a certain ambition or way of thinking that may convince consumers to buy and wear their products to align with that mission, too.

8. Lululemon

examples of great fashion marketing - lululemon

In a similar fashion (pun intended) to Nike’s stances, Lululemon has leveraged the community to build their brand. They talk about believing in what their athletic wear is capable of helping people do by living the life they want.

They use their social media platforms to create that community, sharing ideas and tips and allowing others to share their experiences through their ambassador program. In that vein, they use those platforms not just to share their clothes, but to share guidelines they expect from themselves and those in their community. It’s a way of leverage aspirational marketing, like Nike does, in a welcoming, inclusive manner.

9. Boden

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Boden

When it comes to fashion marketing, sometimes it’s about being there at the right time, with the right offering. In other words, keeping it simple can be some of the most effective fashion marketing. Here’s an example of a Boden Facebook post highlighting their swimsuits with beachy images. This ran in April just as spring is starting to warm and people are starting to dream about summer vacations and beach plans. Seeing this post in this season, with that discount incentive may have daydreamers clicking through.

10. Threadless

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Threadless

Social media campaigns are also a great way to tell your brand story. In fashion marketing, the story behind the products can be as important as the products themselves. Explain to consumers how products came to be, including the design process and the production. People want to know where their clothes and accessories come from and are intrigued by interesting stories. Threadless uses its social media posts to talk about its work with independent artists in creating unique product lines. People who are seeking a different look, and who also want to support independent artists, will resonate with that story.

11. Levi’s

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Threadless

We’ve talked about fashion marketing in regard to aspirations and bigger thinking as well as telling brand stories. Levi’s has built a campaign around its water-saving measures. They developed a trademark around their techniques called Water<Less™. They shared this story on their website and social media.

12. Kotn

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Kotn

Another way to leverage word-of-mouth marketing is to share reviews from customers. In a sponsored Facebook post, Kotn leveraged a review from a customer who talked about the company’s ethics and commitments to sustainability. They paired this review with an image of a product and a link to shop now. They also included their return policy, which is a great reminder for those who are shopping online and can’t try on.

13. Atlas Supply

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Atlas Supply

Getting consumers involved with a brand is a component of fashion marketing. Customers can grow loyal to certain fashion brands they believe in and with whose values they align, as we discussed above. Finding ways for customers to be involved in the whole process, from design to sales, is great to build that loyalty. Atlas Supply did this in an Instagram post where they asked followers to help them name their next product, in return for a free bag.

14. Tommy Hilfiger

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - Tommy Hilfiger

Sometimes fashion marketing is about being cutting edge, not just in design and style, but in how you design and style. Tommy Hilfiger announced that they would be incorporating 3D design into their process to lean into digital opportunities and be more sustainable. To make more of a splash, they didn’t just start the process but announced that their spring 2022 line would be designed this way, giving fashion aficionados something to watch for.

15. ThredUP

Examples of Great Fashion Marketing - ThredUp

As discussed, engaging with your loyal customer base is a great way to share your message and get the word out about your brand. Allowing customers who love your brand to share that in their own way can bring authenticity to your fashion marketing, rather than just your speaking all the time. ThredUP has included sections in their YouTube channel where they share user-generated content.

Conclusion

Fashion marketing covers a wide range of brands, from the thrifty to the luxurious, but what they all have in common is the need to understand your target audience and why they wear what they wear.

E-commerce fashion marketing touches on everything from the actual products to aspirations and greater causes. Consumers can hear from loyal customers about what they love about your products, how they are made, what your brand stands for, and more.

Are you a fashion brand looking for help with your strategy? Our agency can help with everything from SEO to social and paid campaigns. Reach out if you want to hear more.

What new fashion marketing idea are you ready to try for your brand?

How to Use LinkedIn Insights in an Actionable Way

What is an insight? According to Merriam-Webster, it’s the “power or act of seeing into something.” LinkedIn Insights gives you the ability to see information about who follows you, engages with your content, or may be of interest to you as a lead or new hire. Whether you’re hiring, promoting, or putting together marketing strategies, …

The post How to Use LinkedIn Insights in an Actionable Way first appeared on Online Web Store Site.

The post How to Use LinkedIn Insights in an Actionable Way appeared first on Buy It At A Bargain – Deals And Reviews.

How to Use LinkedIn Insights in an Actionable Way

What is an insight? According to Merriam-Webster, it’s the “power or act of seeing into something.” LinkedIn Insights gives you the ability to see information about who follows you, engages with your content, or may be of interest to you as a lead or new hire.

Whether you’re hiring, promoting, or putting together marketing strategies, LinkedIn Insights can help you make the most of an already powerful business platform.

What Are LinkedIn Insights?

As marketers, we live and thrive with the data. Everything we do involves measuring different metrics to see what works and what doesn’t. The key to understanding the data is knowing how to look at it and turn it into action. That’s the goal of LinkedIn Insights.

These analytics aim to limit the amount of data you need to look at in order to get the results you want from your marketing campaign. You’ll essentially be able to optimize the campaign and focus on a more narrow audience.

One of the most powerful aspects of LinkedIn Insights is the fact that you can cater the data to your specific industry. For example, they have several different types of insights: people, industry, advertising, and talent.

LinkedIn People Insights

Developing the ideal buyer persona is something all great marketers must do. We need to understand our audience at a granular level; what makes them purchase, move, mad, sad, or happy? We should understand all of these factors because it’s how we’ll make the most of our marketing campaigns on LinkedIn and other platforms.

The people insights section on LinkedIn can help you learn more about your audience. The data provides you with information regarding their location, skills, occupation, and data about other people they like and follow on social media.

You can then take that data and filter it so you only get a list of the results you want. For example, if you’re involved with real estate marketing, you may need a highly targeted list within a specific location.

LinkedIn provides ways for you to narrow it down even further. You can get lists of people who engage with certain content similar to yours. Use this trick to your advantage by focusing on the content you think your target demographic will like.

For example, if you’re running LinkedIn ads centered around sports training and fitness for senior citizens, you may know that people interested in the topic are also interested in related topics about aging and retirement.

Having this data allows you to narrow down your search and zero in on your audience to provide you with the best chance of success.

LinkedIn Industry Insights

Understanding the ins and outs of a specific industry can also help catapult your marketing campaign in the right direction. Knowing what trends and insights matter to you is most important.

The industry insights section provides you with data on certain industries, such as healthcare and financial services. You can find out information and trending news within these industries, so if you’re targeting these people, you’ll know what’s important to them.

Tools like this are powerful because it helps take a lot of the guesswork and testing out of the game. It takes a lot of time to test ad copy, photos, and colors to see if they’ll resonate with your audience. While you might have a good idea of what will work before you start, you’re still not 100 percent certain (and can never be).

However, having industry insights and knowing for sure what your audience is interested in could make a significant difference in the reach and success of your campaign.

Another great thing LinkedIn industry insights can do is provide examples of what others have done correctly in the past. Thought leaders and frontrunners of a given industry tend to get a lot of attention due to their experience and reputation. Knowing what they’re doing right can help you gain a little insight into what you can do too.

LinkedIn Advertising Insights

Advertising insights exist to help you understand the LinkedIn advertising model from every angle so you can make the most of every dollar you spend. If marketers understand more about how advertising works, it can help them create more successful campaigns and ultimately a better ROI.

These insights assist with measuring the success of a campaign. You need to know which metrics are important and how they translate into certain actions that get a result.

This section also helps with branding and reach so you can better measure your performance on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Talent Insights

One of the most powerful uses of LinkedIn Insights is the talent insight section. It’s a talent intelligence platform that helps you make better hiring decisions.

Investing in workforce development and onboarding is an expensive process. If you’re consistently trying to hire people and dealing with turnover, it may not be so much about the process but more about your talent acquisition.

Sometimes we have to face the fact that not everyone will work out even if they’re qualified for the job. By utilizing talent insights, you can get a snapshot of what other companies are doing and how skills are changing. Use that to narrow down your search with snapshots and benchmarks.

We all know LinkedIn is a great place to find new talent, but how do you tighten your search so you only discover the talent you want?

The talent insights section on LinkedIn helps you pool all your best candidates based on their experience, education, and history on the platform. You’ll receive real-time data on the supply and demand and a 360-degree view of what the current hiring landscape is like.

This is beneficial for businesses looking to grow and scale rapidly but don’t want to work through all the red tape involved in hiring and onboarding. LinkedIn talent insights help filter through the candidates so you can focus on hiring the best people for the job.

How to Use LinkedIn Insights

As we dive further into LinkedIn Insights, the benefits continue to pile up. If you’re considering implementing LinkedIn Insights as a part of your marketing campaigns, you may experience some of the following benefits.

Highly Targeted Content

Content is the name of the game, and it’s a code we’ll spend forever trying to crack. Unfortunately, there’s no handbook on producing highly targeted content (or is there?). All we can do is get as close as possible and do the best we can from there.

LinkedIn Insights can help by telling us what our audience wants to know more about and what they’d like to avoid whenever possible. We can learn this by translating the data we receive about the most engaged and least engaged content.

You can also use the insights to check out the competition and see what others are doing, then use that knowledge to craft unique content.

Improved Retargeting

Anyone in marketing knows a retargeting ad is worth its weight in gold. Retargeting involves finding someone who recently engaged with something you put out there but didn’t complete the desired action.

For example, you might have offered a free e-book in exchange for an email to add to your list. If someone clicked the ad for the e-book but never entered their email, you could then retarget them with another ad.

These campaigns are so successful because the lead is already warm. They know who you are, and they trusted you enough to at least click your link and go to the next page. Retargeting ads can have a CTR ten times higher than a regular ad.

Increased Employee Retention

A lot of hiring managers turn to LinkedIn to find and research candidates in the industry. The qualities and skills of candidates are changing all the time. One of the best ways to learn about prospects is to take a look at pools of candidates on LinkedIn and see what they’re all about.

Understanding your applicants can help you better understand how to find the best ones. If you’re looking to grow your business by hiring a few people, using LinkedIn Insights can help you find the best candidates without time-consuming trial and error hires.

Stay Hip to New Trends

Besides understanding what makes your prospective new employee tick, LinkedIn Insights also helps you learn about what customers want. With follower insights and trends, you can see certain characteristics about all the people who follow your company. You can also track trends that large groups of followers are interested in.

For example, let’s say you own an e-commerce store selling political-related gear, accessories, and clothing. Your popularity would generally skew higher around election time than it would in the other years between.

As the election approaches, you could see what trends people are most interested in, what pages they follow, and what content they engage with the most.

How to Access LinkedIn Insights

To get LinkedIn Insights up and running, you’ll want to log in to your LinkedIn account and click the “Work” button in the top right corner.

LinkedIn Insights - step 1 to set it up

You’re brought a page that displays LinkedIn’s product offerings. To set up insights, you will click the “Insights” button.

LinkedIn Insights - product offerings page

Next, you will fill out the following form for someone to reach out to you.

LinkedIn Insights sign-up form

You’ll eventually receive an email from LinkedIn asking for more information about your goals and objectives. This offers a nice personal touch by catering to an individualized plan rather than having a blanket offering that everyone gets.

They also offer a LinkedIn Insights tag you can put on your website to work alongside the LinkedIn Insights process. This tag works exactly like any other social media platform. You’ll copy a small snippet of code and put it on your website. You can then track all the conversions from your LinkedIn ad and gain valuable insight into who they are and what makes them tick.

LinkedIn Insights Case Study: KBC Bank

KBC Bank has one of the most prolific case studies for LinkedIn Insights. Their goal was to improve company culture by developing the best hiring and workforce management process. The problem was, they didn’t have a lot of data on candidates in the space their business is in.

While they had plenty of internal data about candidates they’ve hired in the past and retained, they knew in the current remote landscape it was important to understand the existing marketplace outside of their business.

The team at KBC Bank started using the real-time pool of data they received with Insights. They were then able to take the data and develop an action plan to hire the best possible candidates.

What did they gain as a result?

They gained a better pool of talent by tapping into markets they didn’t know they had. They took the skills and expertise of their candidates and compared them to those their competition was hiring. Finally, they accessed new data to continue to explore the marketplace and make better decisions on candidates in a shorter time using data-driven hiring.

Conclusion

If you’re considering giving LinkedIn Insights a try, my team can help you understand how to leverage your LinkedIn business profile to make the most of your efforts. LinkedIn has always been a powerful B2B platform, but a lot of businesses aren’t using it to its full potential.

Data is important, but it’s not just the data that matters. It’s how you interpret it and turn it into actions and steps to grow your business. That’s the key factor of LinkedIn Insights.

What do you use LinkedIn Insights for? Let me know in the comments.

6 Actionable Tips to Boost Content Engagement on Your Blog

6 Actionable Tips to Boost Content Engagement on Your Blog You’re likely well aware of the fact that having an active business blog is crucial to building better brand visibility online. Producing fresh content on a consistent basis is a key part of any website’s search engine optimization (SEO) and overall digital marketing efforts. But … Continue reading 6 Actionable Tips to Boost Content Engagement on Your Blog