Social media has become a prime way of finding jobs. Without engaging in networking, a person will have a hard time of finding a job or at least a job that fits their qualifications. LinkedIn is one of the best social media sites available today when it comes to using networking to find a new job. Many people, however, are not accessing its full potential.

The first thing to do would be to obviously sign up for an account. There is really no hassle. Just enter your name, email address and a password. Then the site will ask what you are currently looking for, and you have the option of picking looking for work, employed, a business owner, working independently, or a student. Then all there is to do is enter the country and zip code you live in. The site will then ask to get contacts from your email address. Using this site will require bringing in as many contacts as possible.

After entering in every contact that you can think of at the time, the site will then give you the option of signing up for a basic or premium account. Basic is free and premium plans start at $ 24.95 a month.

Next, you need to develop a profile that will be full and paint a picture of who you are. Pictures are important in addition to the entire educational background, interests, and anything that you do to contribute to the world. This will help people get an idea of ​​whom you are, and in many ways it is like a resume that other people can pull up when they feel like it.

The main thing to focus on in LinkedIn is communicating with your first level contacts on a regular basis and building a reputation with them. This will lead to building second degree contacts. These are the people you want to get to because they are the ones you need to meet to find a new job. For example, a job opens that has connections to someone in your first level. You then simply ask the person in the first level about the job. However, a job opens that is related to a second level person, this requires having the person who links you introduce the two of you. Then you can build a relationship on your own and get to know more about job opportunities that this person offers.

This site is worth paying for. While the basic does let you search for jobs it does not let you connect with as many people a month or use the Talent Finder service. This service makes it possible for people to find you according to how you described yourself in your profile and what your qualifications are.

LinkedIn is a great way to build business relationships with people you would not have had the chance to otherwise. It offers new opportunities, and people can get the most out of it by searching for jobs and staying in contact with their networks.

The company That Grows Without Advertising

Have you ever noticed the company that never advertises, yet continues to grow? Some companies accomplish so much without spending a dime on advertising. But how do they do it? What’s the trick?

LinkedIn Referrals

The answer to growing your business without a large advertising budget is referrals. Some businesses build their client base completely through referrals. We have compiled a list of some of most useful tricks for growing your business through referrals and we start with LinkedIn because it is the most successful place on the Internet with which to grow a referral base.

LinkedIn: Professional Referral Powerhouse

The powerhouse of professional networking is LinkedIn. There is no ad in a magazine that can replace the power of connections obtained through LinkedIn. Profiles on many social networking sites are useful, but LinkedIn provides interval success by serving as a platform in sustaining and building business relationships. By building a robust profile in LinkedIn, you build authenticity. By completing your LinkedIn profile, you provide an authoritative resource on your career. It helps you to control your identity online, even in Google. You can control the top results that people see in Google when searching by your name. In most cases, your LinkedIn profile will appear at the top of these search results. So, for this reason alone, you should have a 100% complete profile in LinkedIn.

Here’s how…

A 100% complete profile in LinkedIn includes:

1. an executive summary and skill set
2. a photo
3. education history
4. three recent positions
5. three recommendations from your connections

To get started, click “Edit Profile” from within LinkedIn.

Be more referable.

Sounds simple enough, but not everyone does this. And remember, nobody wants to refer their clients to a company that is non-responsive. It looks bad. So go to work on the customer experience and the transaction that your company provides. Always be extremely responsive to your clients, even if you do not have the answer or solution, respond to the client with “We’re on it” or “We are researching this issue and will keep you informed of our progress towards a resolution”. A quick response to a customer’s question makes a bold statement that your company is eager to please. Customers appreciate that and will tell their friends or family about the pleasant experience that they had with your business.

Make it an expectation.

Make it an expectation that every single one of your customers is going to be a referral source. Start talking about it in the lead conversion process, when you are selling to potential clients. Introduce the idea that “Within 90 days”, for example, “you’re going to be so happy that we are going to ask you to refer three people who need the same positive results from our company.” It;s a great marketing message that “You are going to be thrilled”.

Make it a practice to participate in LinkedIn groups and discussions.

When you join a LinkedIn group, be sure to specify that you want to receive emails from the group. Then, daily, scan those emails and if one of the current discussions is relevant to your skill set, chime in. Keep your comments short and professional. When composing your comments, make it a habit to regularly think in terms of gaining more referrals. Set goals for yourself each week and keep track of the number of referrals that you get.

Be specific when asking for a referral.

Be specific when asking for a referral. And always-remember to ask for referrals. Don’t be shy about it. A good example is, “Our best referral is a small business owner who… ” and ask your customers for three referrals “… so that we can make them a happy client.”

Be consistent when asking for referrals.

Make every client meeting an opportunity to collect referrals, but don’t bee too pushy or obvious.

Offer commissions or referral fees.

Have you ever seen companies that have a page on their site, in a very visible position, that says “Refer a friend and get $100”? Well, it works! Educate clients about your service and how you can help other businesses. And don’t forget to mention that by referring clients to your company, they are paid a referral fee. It’s a win-win for both parties. Reward your referral sources. Keep them informed of the progress and the satisfaction of the person to whom they referred to you.

Happy customers are the best referrals.

Ideal referrals come from happy customers. So make it a habit to over-deliver and your referral base will grow.

Follow up after a sale.

Follow up immediately after meeting a new referral. Ask that referral to personally meet for coffee or write a letter of introduction to begin the relationship.

Most sales people stop at the end of the sales process. They go through the same cycle of prospect, present, close, follow-up. That sales strategy has worked in the past, but to build your company, you need to build relationships and become known as an expert in your field. You need to be known as a person of value. If your customers value the knowledge and expertise you offer to them, then the easier it is going to be for you to maintain a relationship after the sale has been completed.

Be Available

By making yourself available, you never know when someone will become ready to send you referrals. Remember, a referral is an engagement. It is a partnership and if you keep your customers happy, your referral base will grow. It costs ten times as much to get a new client than it does to get clients from existing customers. So capitalize on the asset of your client base and grow your business.

Don’t forget a thank-you note.

Always thank someone that sends you a referral. A “thank you” note received in a timely manner goes a long way. If someone sends you a referral on Monday, be sure they have the “thank you” note on their desk by Friday. Don’t wait too long or the thank you note will lose its effectiveness.

If you are job-seeking, you need to join LinkedIn, an essential job-search tool. If you’re not on a job search but you’re into online networking; or want to acquire new partners or clients; or otherwise want to rev up your networking activity level, you should likewise become a LinkedIn user, in my view. All that being said, there are some iron-clad rules for polite and professional use of the network. Here’s my Top Ten list for LinkedIn do’s and don’ts:

1) DO connect to your “real-world” friends.

I’m amazed by how many LinkedIn users join up, create a profile, and immediately set to work inviting all sorts of online strangers to join their networks. Sure, it’s fun to browse the LinkedIn database and look up people you might want to know better….but what about your friends back in three-dimensional space? The first thing to do as a new LinkedIn user – after creating a rockin’ profile for yourself – is to invite your true-blue friends and former workmates to join your network. There are three steps in this process:

a) Download your Outlook address book so that LinkedIn can find your friends who are already members.

b) Use the Find Colleagues and Find Classmates functions to synch up with people you know from school and past jobs; and

c) Invite bunches of “real” friends who aren’t already LinkedIn users, to join the network – you’ll be helping them get connected at the same time you grow your own network.

2) DON’T become an Invitation Spammer.

It’s tempting to start sending “connect to me” invitation to every Tom, Dick and Sally you find on LinkedIn, but it’s bad manners. If you want to reach out to someone you’ve spotted who has an enticing profile, send the person a Contact request rather than an invitation to join your network. A Contact request, to use an offline networking analogy, is like an invitation for a coffee date. An invitation to Connect is like asking someone to go steady. Unless you know a person already, don’t spam him or her with a “want to start recommending me to people, and vice versa?” invitation – it’s creepy.

3) DO unto others….

It’s astounding that a person would send out connect-to-me invitations while proclaiming on his or her profile that no new connection invitations will be accepted. Talk about all take and no give! There are other LinkedIn users who set up a profile and make connections, and then specify on their profiles that they won’t act on requests to forward (a key piece of LinkedIn’s value). These messages say, I want to be on this site and get its value, but I don’t want to deal with other people’s requests. A modern-day Dante would design a special, uncomfortable and crowded level of Hell for these folks: no pits of fire, but perhaps a zone where all connections are dial-up, cell phones can’t hold a signal and no one helps you with anything, retribution for the me-first approach to online networking that you showed in your most recent incarnation on Earth.

4) DON’T make assumptions about your own irresistibility.

Connection invitations should state clearly why you expect your invitee to link up with you – for instance, because you serve on the same fund-raising committee or because your daughters are best friends in the fifth grade. With so many activities crowding a typical businessperson’s schedule and so many people in the mix, it’s easy for people to forget how they know you. Likewise, even Contact requests should state your case as plainly as possible. A message that says “May I call you? We could collaborate” is not the world’s strongest pitch. People are incredibly busy – if you’re job-seeking, or trolling for new clients, you may lose sight of the fact that a person needs a compelling reason to even spend ten minutes on the phone with you.

It’s helpful to remember what I call the Happy Life theory of networking: when you reach out to a stranger, that person is presumably leading a happy and fulfilling life without the benefit of knowing you. It’s not enough to say “I’ll buy you lunch!” or the online equivalent of that offer; a $25 lunch (or a scintillating phone conversation with you) just might not be as hard to pass up as you believe. So lay it out there: here’s what I can do for you, or here’s what I need, or both.

5) DO keep your profile current.

A pox on the person who lets her LinkedIn profile languish! If you can’t be bothered to keep your profile current, why should another person bother to engage with you? If I receive a Contact request, jump over to the requester’s profile, and find that its details don’t match what’s in the requester’s email message, I’m already underwhelmed. Bonus: when you update your profile, you can send a one-click blast message to let your entire first-degree network know about your news. Note: please don’t abuse this feature! Reserve profile-update blasts for news on the order of a job promotion, book launch or appointment to a national commission….as opposed to news items like “I have started my PMP certification class.”

6) DON’T confuse quantity for quality.

If I were a recruiter, I’d build the biggest network I could, on LinkedIn or otherwise. After all, there’s zero downside to being able to view, and reach, a massive number of candidates when your job is locating talent. But for the rest of us, it’s easy to get the notions “a big network” and “a strong network” confused. The question to ask yourself is “could I recommend this person, and could he recommend me?” If not, the principal value in any individual LinkedIn connection will be your ability to view his network (and vice versa). That’s not a bad thing, but it would be a shame to mistake that kind of visibility for influence. Amassing connections can become a kind of addiction, but withdrawal will kick in when these near-strangers begin to ask you to vouch for them to your dearest friends.

7) DON’T pass along questionable requests.

I got religion on this item in an instant last summer, when a fellow asked me to send a friend of mine a spammy invitation to his business conference. “I can’t do it,” I wrote, “it’s purely a marketing message.” The gentleman’s return message essentially ripped my head off, affirming my initial gut reaction that his request was an improper one. Don’t hesitate to stand up for yourself and for your friends when sketchy requests come down the pike (and they will). If you pass along every bit of dreck that finds you, your trusted friends will start to doubt you, and that’s a far worse fate than having to write to another LinkedIn user, “I’m sorry, but I don’t feel comfortable passing this on.”

8) DON’T abuse the Find Colleagues feature.

LinkedIn’s Find Colleagues feature allows you to find old workmates and send unmediated connection requests to them, a boon if you’ve lost their email addresses over the years. Unfortunately, it’s easy to abuse the feature by listing false employers or dates of employment on your profile. What can we say about this? If you believe in the wheel of karma, avoid the temptation to claim employers and employment dates you’re not entitled to.

9) DO join the PowerForum.

Newbie LinkedIn users have lots of questions, and a great place to get answers is the user group called MyLinkedInPowerForum. Send a blank email message to mylinkedinpowerforum-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to join the group and get LinkedIn (and general) networking advice. MLPF founder Vincent Wright is a helpful guide and mentor to LinkedIn users all over the world – I can virtually guarantee that you’ll learn something useful from the Forum’s daily conversation.

10) DO disconnect from bad apples when you need to.

Finally, it’s worth noting that LinkedIn gives you the ability to disconnect from other users if you find that the connection no longer works for you. If you’re plagued by inappropriate requests or other annoyances from one of your connections, you can cut the cord and save yourself from recurring headaches. Some people just don’t get the notion of an online community with standards and norms; and it’s not your job to teach them how to behave. Just move on.

LinkedIn is a great way to market yourself as a professional. It’s not much use for a business as a whole, but if you’re a freelancer, contractor or independent consultant it’s one of the most important digital business cards you can have, and you neglect it at your peril. Despite being around for a while, I’m amazed at how some people just fail at using their LinkedIn profiles to sell themselves.

Before I make a list, there’s just one thing I want to say about LinkedIn – it is not Facebook. That means that Facebook rules and customs do not apply. You want to be connected to everyone you’ve ever met, and everyone they’ve ever met – because you never know when one of those connections will turn into a business opportunity.

1. Your profile picture

As I just said, this is not Facebook. Don’t have a picture of you in your bikini, or chugging beer with your bros. Get a professional picture taken, or use a good one of you in a suit. A suit, you hear me? Don’t ask questions, just do it. The more professional you look, the more seriously people will take you. And don’t forget to smile – it’s not a passport photo.

2. Think hard about your professional headline

Your LinkedIn profile allows you to add a “professional headline”. This isn’t a Facebook status to be changed every day, or a place for you to be funny. It needs to be 10 or fewer words describing what you do, and it needs to be as specific as possible. A good example is “Online Marketing and SEO Consultant for the medical equipment sector.” A bad example is “I’m an online marketer, casual baseball player and a follower of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour amen”. You get the idea.

3. Spend time organising your portfolio

Whether or not you work online, you can usually find something to add to your portfolio on LinkedIn. It takes a little bit of fiddling to get the hang of it, but it is well worth devoting time to. Get rid of the default descriptions like “my website” and put something interesting in there that tells recruiters and businesses what the website/project is, and what your involvement in it was.

4. Create a vanity URL

Vanity URLs are something that Facebook introduced a few years ago, and LinkedIn followed suit. It changes the URL of your profile from “LinkedIn.com/23u409832ur0u” (for example) to LinkedIn.com/JoeBloggsConsulting. If you can’t get your name, then get something close to it. Don’t use a nickname like “Jojo99” – it’s not MSN messenger.

5. Write a good summary, and don’t forget SEO

You have the opportunity to write a 2,000 word summary. You don’t have to use up the word count (and nobody will read the whole thing if you do) but spend a good hour or so drafting a good page of writing here. Focus on keywords that are good for how you’re trying to market yourself (use the Google AdWords Keyword Selector Tool for ideas). Divide it into sections with sub-headings if it helps, but for the love of Batman use paragraphs!

LinkedIn is an easy and effective way to stay connected with your business associates and your customers. Insurance brokers can benefit from LinkedIn recommendations and following life changes announced by their connections that may indicate the need for insurance.

Getting Linked: Link your prospects and link with your customers. Use your email address book to search for and invite associates to link to you on LinkedIn. If you've been asking customers for their email addresses now you have way to search for them and link on LI.

Asking for Recommendations: The nature of their business means that insurance agents have frequent opportunities to "go the extra mile" for customers. Ideal times to request a LinkedIn recommendation are after you've sold a policy, helped a customer through the claims process, and when you've found a way to reduce a customer's premium. The recommendations will show you provide stellar customer serviced under the best and the worse circumstances. When a new prospect goes to LinkedIn to vet you and your agency they will find your recommendations.

Change Is Good: It pays to update your LinkedIn account as any new activity will appear in the weekly email update sent to your connections. Login to LI and update your status. If you want to spend less time with updates, simply link your Twitter account and let it update LI for you! Don't forget to read the weekly email to find out what changes in career or business your connections have made … they may have a new exposure and will need more insurance.

Be the Q&A Broker: Don't overlook "Answers, an area on LinkedIn where members ask questions and you can provide the answer. It's a great way to build credibility as the" go to "broker on LinkedIn. LinkedIn also allows you to include Polls on your profile. Take advantage of this opportunity do a questionnaire. Understanding your customers' questions and needs will allow you to provide answers. And don't forget to blog about it! Of course you can also attach your blog to your LinkedIn profile .

LinkedIn can be a great way to promote your business. Here are a few reasons why:

• A network with 65 million business professionals around the world.
• One person creates a LinkedIn login every second.
• Nearly 50% of LinkedIn members have decision-making authority for their companies.

So, make the most out of LinkedIn’s opportunities to grow your business.

1) Market your Company – Invite people, post content, and ask questions, but do it through your company page, not your personal one. You want your LinkedIn followers to be engaging with your business, not with you. Put your best foot forward with a free Company Page that builds your credibility, provides key information, and gets your business discovered.

Tip: The imagery, colors and content on your company page should be consistent with your website and other social media networks that your business has.

Tip 2: Customize your LinkedIn URL. Here are the instructions on how to do this.

2) Brand Yourself – For the purposes of establishing credibility, join and participate in LinkedIn groups that are most closely associated with the area you wish to be viewed as an expert in. Posting questions, quotes, industry news or trends, or related resources on thought leadership will help you generate discussions, show your willingness to learn, engage your followers in relevant topics, and stay on customers’ radar. It’s important to lead with useful content. You can also create your own LinkedIn group. Once you have invitees join your group, you will have all your best prospects in one place. You also get to demonstrate your value/expertise for them. Plus, you also have a built-in focus group to call on. This is a great tactic to market your brand and generate leads to boost your small business.

Tip: Don’t oversell yourself or your products.

3) Marketing that is Personal – Start with connections, then build relationships. The Connections section provides many ways for you to organize your contacts. You can filter your contacts by company, tag, location, title, and even by recent conversation, so it’s easy to remember who you have communicated with and when. At the top of the Connections page it shows you which contacts are celebrating work anniversaries, new jobs, promotions, and more. Send a personal congratulations.

LinkedIn is much more than a social site. It’s a community of professionals – looking to see how you market yourself and your business.

We also have these upcoming LinkedIn workshops in the Northern Virginia area: http://cogointeractive.com/linkedin-training-seminars/ Check us out. We’d love to see you.

I recently worked with an organization that was concerned about the LinkedIn profiles of its staff. "All the profiles have been written professionally; we think they're nice and polished," the Marketing Manager said. "We even had professional photos taken. The problem is that recruiters are now approaching our team members because their profiles look so great! How do we stop recruiters trying to poach our staff? How do we get our LinkedIn profiles to link with what we ' re trying to achieve as a business? "

This is a common concern for businesses. This particular organization wanted LinkedIn to help increase its leads, boost its market share and increase greater sales. However, I could see two problems. The first was that all the team member profiles were written with the same purpose in mind: to highlight the individual's area of ​​expertise. This may not seem problematic, but it actually undermined the organization's wish to retain its pool of talent by attracting the attention of recruiters.

The second problem was that there was no differentiation between the profiles. They lacked strategy. It was clear who the intended audience was, and it was clear what the purpose of each profile was.

LinkedIn has more than 400 million users. Twenty new profiles are created every second, and Australia's LinkedIn membership base is one of the fastest growing in the world, with more than six million members. This represents a huge opportunity for businesses. LinkedIn, first and foremost, is a search engine. This means your organization can be found on LinkedIn – as well as in Google searches – based on the type of services and products you want the organization to be found for.

To be found on LinkedIn and stand out from the crowd, it is important that your organization's staff profiles have a clear purpose. A person makes a decision about someone within the first three to four seconds of landing on their profile, so it is vital that your company profiles align with your organization's LinkedIn strategy. If a profile appeals to a recruiter, then more recruiters are going to contact that person. If a profile connects with clients, collaborators and industry partners, more of these types of people will want to connect with your staff and organization. Problems arise when you want to achieve more leads and sales via LinkedIn, but your staff members are being contacted by recruiters instead. This indicates that the content of your staff profiles needs a shakeup.

There are four levels of an organization's LinkedIn strategy. These are:

Level 1: Forward-facing, customer-based profiles. These are the profiles of your sales team and business development team members – the people through which your business's services and products are sold. These people are not necessarily your contact center staff; they are your business-to-business development staff. Business to business is all about the customer relationship, so the content of these profiles needs to reach out to the customer.

Level 2: Manager profiles. Managers are brand ambassadors for your organization. Content about products and services can be included to validate the business for potential clients, but the main focus of a manager profile is to recruit and retain the organization's talent. A manager's profile is particularly valuable when a job is advertised within their team. We know that 75% of job seekers will validate an organization through a leader's profile, so a manager's profile must articulate the nature of the organization and the team, and what the team delivers.

Level 3: Executive and senior profiles. The purpose of an executive profile is not only to add credibility to and validate the organization as part of the recruitment process; it is to create and nurture industry partnerships. These profiles need to position the organization's vision. They must articulate their team's values ​​and how it contributes to the organization as a whole and its industry partners. These profiles are less about the individual and more about how the organization can collaborate with and help industry partners.

Level 4: The CEO's profile. A CEO's profile is incredibly important. The problem is that CEOs generally don't like putting themselves out in the public domain. However, two-thirds of customers make a decision about an organization based on its CEO, so this profile has a huge amount of leverage.

The CEO's profile has five purposes:

To highlight the organization's vision and what it wants to achieve. It needs to captivate the reader and inspire them to want to be part of that journey. This is regardless of whether they're potential talent, partners or customers. Focussing on what the organization does now is flat and lacks energy. It was Jack Welsh, retired CEO of General Electric and one of the worlds most celebrated and respected CEO's who said "Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion."

To provide clarity about the organization's services and / or products. The profile needs to be clear about what kind of customers the business helps and how. The profile is like a mirror and depending on the words in it, will determine what comes back; Equally if nothing is in it, nothing will come back. This will also support Search Engine Optimization.

To inspire talent who want to work for the organization. The content needs to explain why it is a great place to work and encourage potential employees to think, "Wow, look what they're trying to do. I want to be a part of that. I think I can achieve my potential working for this organization. " In her work on maximising psychological capital, Jess Pryce-Jones, author and founder of iOpener, identified "the five Cs" that help people feel more satisfied in their work. The top one is contribution. Job seekers will look at a CEO's profile and ask themselves, "How can I contribute? Could I make a difference? Would I be heard? Does this organization have clarity about where it's going and how can I get involved?" Provide evidence that your company is a stand-out workplace by including testimonials from team members, high-engagement survey results and statistics (eg. Has the average team member been with the organization for more than five years?). As the famous author and TED speaker Simon Sinek says, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it".

To highlight what sets the organization apart. Why is it so good at what it does? The perception and positioning of the business will make it memorable. The CEO's profile can include industry awards won, talent survey results and information about an increase in market share. Leverage this information so it appeals to clients, industry partners, collaborators, suppliers and people the organization is trying to influence.

To emphasize corporate social responsibility. How does the organization make a difference to the world? Or is it purely designed for the almighty dollar? Does it practice transparent, ethical behavior? How does its decisions and activities impact on society and the environment? According to Carl Jung, the renowned Swiss psychiatrist, people make decisions that are heart-based or head-based when working with others. The profile needs to connect with both these types of decision-makers. These days, a lot of weight is placed on corporate social responsibility and how it links to share price.

As you can see, all staff members have a role to play in your organization's LinkedIn strategy. It's vital that your marketing team is clear on what the purpose of each profile is during the build process. The question now is, what are the next steps to take so you can thoroughly leverage your organization's profiles?

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Don't chase after traffic. Discover where the traffic is already going and get in front of it. Then redirect the traffic where you want it to go, directly to your profit centers.

Get Your Wisdom Right Here

So many online entrepreneurs chase after traffic. Even veteran online entrepreneurs get caught up in this potential trap.

Chasing after traffic is especially dangerous for the beginning online entrepreneur. They throw money after traffic by buying traffic before they know what they are doing.

This can lead to lots of money going out with nothing to show for it.

Listen. I'm not against paid traffic. I use it.

I just strongly recommend that you create a proven system that takes a new person from prospect to customer before you pay for traffic.

Especially since there are so many great ways to get high quality buyer traffic for

Let's Look at This the Right Way

Your mindset about traffic is critically important. When you view traffic the right way you are much more likely to do traffic the right way.

Before we talk about what the profitable traffic mindset is, let's talk a bit about what it's not.

Profitable traffic is not a one time event.

I hear this often as an excuse for not being successful with traffic online.

"Well, I tried to get traffic like they said. I create a (fill in the blank) to get traffic and nothing happened. This traffic stuff doesn't work!"

This traffic stuff does work, it just might be you didn't work it right.

Driving consistent, evergreen buyer traffic is a life long task. I've been at this full time for almost 10 years now. I still make creating new traffic one of my daily revenue generation rituals.

The correct view is for the long haul, getting immediate, long-term and evergreen buyer traffic.

While looking at traffic the wrong way is one of the common traffic mistakes, there are 3 other big profitable traffic mistakes you need to be aware of and avoid .

Mistake # 1

As with lots of online success, there's this myth about traffic. The myth goes something like this:

"Well really good traffic is for those people, and I'm not one of those people."

On the surface it's the magical thinking that profitable traffic and the success that comes with is just something that magically happens to a chosen few. And you are certain you are not one of the few.

This is at best a glorified excuse for failing, even for not trying at all.

At worst it's a story some are committed to believing, because they are very committed, almost wed, to the notion that success is for other people, not them.

The reality is that every single one of those people who are enjoying successful traffic started with ZERO TRAFFIC.

Then they got the first person, then another, and then another and so on. They were willing to do the necessary things and work for the traffic they said they wanted.

Implement the correct and current strategies for building traffic, work at it, and you'll enjoy lots of evergreen buyer traffic.

The bottom line is that building traffic works when you work, and when you work it right.

Mistake # 2

Here's another big profitable traffic mistake: relying on only one source of traffic.

Many entrepreneurs do this silly thing around many issues in business. This mistake is so prevalent in fact that master marketer Dan Kennedy has said:

"The worst number in business is 1."

Back when I was a therapist in private practice I build many sources of referrals, which is the same as traffic offline.

When I started writing a weekly relationship column for the local newspaper that quickly became nationally syndicated my practice exploded with referrals. I was full with a waiting list and was filling up the practices of colleagues as well.

It was very, very tempting to stop nurturing other long term traffic sources and to not build any other sources of referrals.

Knowing the worst number in business is "1" I continued to nurture all my other traffic / referral sources and build new ones as well.

I wrote that weekly column for the local newspaper for 10 years. When that column, a major referral source, ended I was not panicked or affected at all because I had continued building additional sources of referral.

The bottom line online is you want to make building traffic a life long daily pursuit so that you have multiple streams of traffic coming in from multiple sources.

Mistake # 3

Once you get good at generating consistent traffic it's very easy to believe you can then go do the rest on your own.

And you will be able to do some.

The reality is that the profitable traffic game online is ever changing. It's really too much to try to keep up with on your own.

For this reason and many more I will always have a coach and always be a part of a mastermind. I always want to have another set of trusted eyes on my business.

Other people whom you trust can always see the things you can't see, simply because it's your business and you can get too close to be able to see all your options.

The bottom line for you is to always have trusted eyes on the traffic generation part of your business.

The Power of Profitable Traffic

Remember when I said don't chase after traffic, find out where the traffic is going, get in front of it, and then re-direct it exactly where you want it to go?

And where you want it to go is your profit centers like your blog, your opt in pages, your product resource pages as well.

The 3 types of traffic you want to build are:

1) Immediate traffic
2) Regular traffic
3) Long-term / evergreen traffic

Results Now Mini-Workshop

Now let's get you some traffic with your content, shall we?

The steps are simple really:

Step 1 – Choose a specific topic in your niche – Interestingly enough, the more specific you can make the topic, the more buyer traffic you will pull.

Cast too wide a net and the less high quality traffic you get.

Cast a specific targeted net and the more high quality buyer traffic you get.

Step 2 – Come up with the 3 most common mistakes most beginners make around that specific topic. These can also be mistakes everyone makes, beginners and veterans alike.

Step 3 – For each mistake talk about how the mistake is made and what it looks like, how easy it is to make. You want to avoid making your prospect feel bad for making this common mistake.

Step 4 – For each mistake include what to do instead. You are not giving away the farm here, just offering one small tip.

Step 5 – Include a call to action to visit one of your profit pages and get your content out on Social Media, your blog and LinkedIn.

Major congrats! You've just created and shipped an Evergreen Traffic Machine that will bring your immediate, regular and long term evergreen traffic.

Profitable Genius Tip

"An evergreen traffic machine a day sends buyer traffic your way."

I promised you a "traffic genius tip" and here it is:

You want to make creating your evergreen traffic machines something that you do daily. While that may sound like a lot, when you see the results it will feel much easier.

As you'll see ETMs come in all forms – some as simple, quick and easy as an info-graphic, along with some that take a little more time such as blog posts, articles and videos.

Building ETMs is one of my DRGRs – how's that for alphabet soup?

Said another way – creating evergreen traffic machine to build waves of highly qualified buyer traffic is one on my Daily Revenue Generating Rituals. I recommend it becomes one of yours too.

LinkedIn, a social networking site for professionals, is a large community of over 40 million users from all over the world. It allows people to interact with other individuals and maintain profile pages that contain their career-oriented information and contact details. The advantage of LinkedIn is that it prevents personal details from being stored in the same place as business information-which means, you can publish your business information without worrying about who’s going to read it. In fact, the more people who have access to your business information, the better. You never know where your next job lead might come from.

Like other networking sites, LinkedIn works on the concept that contacts can lead to even more contacts. People simply sign up and create a profile page containing the details they may want it to contain. After this, users can link their accounts with other individuals they may know. LinkedIn has a feature that allows its users to search through the e-mail contact lists and link with them if they are subscribed to the site.

Users are allowed to interact, using certain guidelines, with the lists of their immediate network. Contacts that come from the primary user’s connections are referred to as second-degree connections. Degrees can be built further as the network expands. Thus, what is created is a multi-tiered and continuous resource of professional connections.

The network that is created can be utilized by the user as a means of finding employment and other opportunities. For LinkedIn, an approach known as “gated-access” is used. This means that the identity of the user must first be properly acknowledged and recognized before any form of communication can take place. The user has to have a connection, first-degree or otherwise, with the user through other contacts.

The gated-access approach is set in place because it prevents people from being bothered by unwelcome individuals. In fact, LinkedIn is also one of the few networking sites that are able to comply with the privacy laws of the European Union. However, people sign up with LinkedIn because they want to build their networks. It’s not difficult to find contacts and connect.

It’s extremely important that you have a LinkedIn profile that you have put at least as much thought and effort into as you have put into your resume. It’s going to be the first impression that untold numbers of new contacts will have of you. It could easily be what makes or breaks your next job lead or job offer.

Social media marketing is moving front and center when it comes to insurance agency web marketing strategies, which may encompass other terms such as insurance agency search engine marketing or insurance agency search marketing optimization. Agents and producers, owners and executives should be cognizant of this new frontier, perhaps changing the famous saying of “Go West, young man, go West” as popularized by Horace Greeley, to “Go Web young man, go Web”. As social media websites for business go, surely LinkedIn is one of the most preeminent, and one that insurance agents and agencies should leverage in their daily routine. Here are 10 tips to help better leverage your LinkedIn presence.

1. Professional Headline– Create a professional headline that explains your expertise and is keyword friendly. For example, I am an “Insurance Agency Marketing Expert” rather than a “Business Development Manager.”

2. Complete Education & Experience – Process can be accelerated by uploading a current resume from a Word document.

3. Request Recommendations – Request a minimum of 3 recommendations. We suggest a client, a colleague and someone else. Recommendations for previous work are also powerful.

4. Include Website Links – Add links to your website, your blog, and a personal website (if possible).

5. Integrate Twitter Feed – If you are using Twitter, add your Twitter ID.

6. Summary – Create a 1-2 paragraph professional summary that explains what you do and why it is important. Make sure to include your areas of expertise and leverage your SEO keywords.

7. Specialties – A short list of specialties that should look very much like your Top 3 SEO keyword phrases.

8. Blog Application – Under the “Applications” menu, select “Get More Applications.” Choose the WordPress application and enter the blog address. Select the options to display the blog on your homepage and profile.

9. Other Application(s)– If possible add 1-2 more applications that you feel would be of interest.

10.Make Regular Updates – Post regular profile updates. What you are working on, webinar invites, blog links and announcements are all great updates. Make sure to include your SEO keywords in the updates as well.

LinkedIn’s website states they now have over 90 million members around the world as of January 2011. Most of these members are business centric, as LinkedIn seemingly becomes the Facebook of business. Every insurance agent should have a presence on LinkedIn, and every insurance agency should have a company page on LinkedIn. Does that mean agents should ignore Facebook and other social media sites? Insurance agents and producers, should embrace the major social networking sites. However, if you are a B2B oriented agency or broker, LinkedIn should be a top priority as a social media marketing venue.