Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz recommends including presentations in content marketing and SEO strategy

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Rand FishkinRand Fishkin is the founder and CEO of SEOmoz, a search optimization and social monitoring software company in Seattle, Washington. Rand and the SEOmoz team are active users of SlideShare, both for their individual public speaking appearances and for their event, MOZCon. Just returning from New Media Expo, Rand took time out to talk about how he uses SlideShare and why it is an essential element of SEOmoz’s inbound marketing strategy.

SEOmoz has a strong belief that sharing information and best practices is good for everyone. From Whiteboard Fridays and MozCon to the dozens of presentations Rand has published on SlideShare, there is a plethora of guidance for everything from creating strong presentations to SEO strategy. For example, his SlideShare classic, “Making Presentations Better”:

Give your slideshow traffic a boost during live events

When it comes to presenting live, Rand says to make sure to have a compelling title and a good first slide. On the opening slide he always includes a shortened link to the presentation:

Rand Fishkin SEOmoz
Same for the closing slide:

Rand Fishkin SEOmoz
Rand gets the most he can out of SlideShare’s network when presenting to a live audience. He makes all the slides available to download and has found that the audience starts sharing the content right away.

“I tweet the link to my SlideShare as I’m going on stage. I include the url of the deck in the presentation itself. I also tell the audience, ‘If you enjoyed this talk, please share the presentation on social media with the download link’. This creates a ton more sharing activity.”

Increase your reach by embedding presentations

There are many other ways to generate traffic from your presentations. Rand has found that it is valuable to promote his SlideShare presentations externally, from locations other than the SlideShare website:

“One of the most valuable ways to generate traffic is to get someone to embed your presentation on their site. The views go through the roof, and the brand is reaching more people.

“SlideShare is an automatic way to share more than just on my own website. It has its own network. I include it with Twitter, Facebook and Google+ in my thinking.

It’s an easy medium to post to, plus SlideShare has high domain authority. It doesn’t take a lot of links if you use the right keywords. Embedding helps your slidedeck rank better. Do both, upload to SlideShare then embed the presentation on your blog.”

Your SEO ranking will benefit from publishing on SlideShare

Another tip from Rand is to include links to other websites within your slidedeck. Rand says, “I know I’m making friends with everyone who is linked in my slideshow. They express thanks on Twitter and often reciprocate. In addition, there are 20 to 30% who will point back to articles I’ve written or tools on my site, sending traffic back to where it can convert to sales.” This is particularly important to SEOmoz, which relies on inbound marketing for all of its sales.

Rand explains, “SlideShare automatically transcribes the text in your presentation when you upload. This makes it easy for search engines to find you. If you have given a live presentation, and your slidedeck contains mostly images and not enough text to give it context, add your own script transcription. This will help your SEO.“

24 Comments

  1. Seo

    Google also needs to be given much attention to this issue for success in the desired words. Thank you.

  2. Martin Casper

    Thanks Rand…Video, images, pictures and visual content really crank up the rank with Google. I like the way you really emphasize the first and the last slide. I had a speech teacher in college who really focused on the following with a speech or an article:
    1.] Tell them what you are going to tell them.
    2.] Tell them.
    3.] Tell them what you told them.
    Thanks for bringing the focus back where it needs to be. Great article and slides.

  3. SEO Company Auckland

    PDF distribution through places like SlideShare and Scribd is a great way to reachm more of your audience and also get obtain quality link back to your site.

  4. Organo SEO

    Thanks a ton Rank, I have followed almost all your advices, but this one came as a surprise. If I hadn’t heard it from you, I guess I woudn’t have thought of promoting my business through slide sharing.
    This was an incredibly helpful one for me. Thanks.

  10. Idrus

    Thank you Rand, you share a great article on us. I’m bookmarking your page to make it easier to come again whenever I want.

  11. Christo

    Excellent information thanks. People tend to think about Twitter and Facebook and Google+ etc but something as simple as sharing a link on slideshare could be the gamechangers. Thanks for this – it is very helpful.

  17. CASE

    Slide share is a platform where we can share our presentation, get ideas to improve our Internet identity and so on. This post on SEO tips is a burning example. Thanks!

  18. Neil Youung

    Thank you Rand!

    This is a great guideline! I’ve been losing more hair trying to figure out what kind of deck to use for my grad school applications.

  24. Hung Jaquith

    Hi there,I enjoy reading through your article post, I wanted to write a little comment to support you and wish you a good continuation.All the best for all your blogging efforts. Your post helps many people understand better SEO but its also good for experts to renew knowledge. Keep a good work.