What is SlideShare?
SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing slide presentations, as well as PDF documents, infographics, and videos.
Founded in 2006 and acquired by LinkedIn in 2012, SlideShare is one of the top 100 most-visited websites in the world with over 18 million uploads in 40 content categories.
And the best part? That matters to YOU?
Over 80% of SlideShare’s 70 million visitors come through organic search.
…And THAT adds up to a LOT of eyeballs for your content.
How I Got Hooked on SlideShare…
Some 4 years ago, I knew nothing about SlideShare.
Yet I kept hearing about it and its incredible traffic generation potential.
It wasn’t until Mauro D’Andrea published this guest post at Traffic Generation Café that I gave SlideShare a try.
Sort of…
First, I wanted to take SlideShare for a ride around the block… as a backseat driver.
So instead of learning it on my own, I asked Mauro to create a SlideShare presentation for me.
…what was he going to do?… say no??
Two weeks later, I had “my” first SlideShare deck published.
Mauro did a fabulous job… and I reaped the benefits.
3,500 views? Impressive!
I was IN.
The SlideShare muse graced me the very next weekend: the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick, my husband’s keen sense of humor plus his love for the San Francisco 49ers…
…and my first SlideShare presentation was born.
Not too shabby for my first time, if I may say so myself.
What did it take?
- PowerPoint - my FIRST TIME EVER using it
- every last tip I learned from Mauro D’Andrea
- a night in front of the TV
I’d tasted the victory and it was good.
I was hooked.
Next thing I knew…
And here’s the screenshot of all my SlideShare views in 2013 - 9 months after I published my first SlideShare presentation:
You MUST be itching to learn how you too can milk this SlideShare power and traffic potential for all its worth to YOUR business…
Here it is, in a nutshell.
5 Steps to Making a Killer SlideShare Presentation
So you are brand new to creating a SlideShare presentation.
Where do you start?
1. Get the right [= any!] presentation software
If you have PowerPoint for PC or Keynote for Mac, you are all set.
If you don’t, you can download OpenOffice.org - the free alternative to Microsoft Office.
Or use Google Slides.
That’s it.
You are ready to make your very first SlideShare presentation.
2. Use your existing blog post
This is called content repurposing or RECONTENT.
Pick one of your existing blog posts.
[you know… all those painstakingly crafted blog posts rotting in your blog archives?..]
Transform it into a SlideShare presentation.
Reach your target audience right where they are (70 million of them on SlideShare.)
Drive traffic back to your site.
3. Condense your blog post into an outline
How do you turn a sizable blog post into a bite-sized presentation?
Edit ruthlessly. Down to the bones.
Leave nothing but
- title
- headings
- context-essential information (essential to solving your prospect’s problem)
…as well as
- catchphrases (those ‘brilliantly clever’ one-liners you so proudly came up with)
- Bucket Brigades (the cliffhanger words, phrases, sentences that create anticipation and keep the viewer flipping through the slides)
- any elements of a possible presentation theme.
It’s sort of like speaking in bullet points… but without putting anyone to 😴.
Keep it simple.
Keep it short.
Keep it punchy.
I know, I know… A slew of ??? are popping in your head…
You see the power of content repurposing and you want to know HOW TO use it to get traffic for your business.
I do teach all this in-depth in my brand new content repurposing course, Content Boomerang, but it’s closed to the new students at the moment. ?
Don’t be sad - get on the waiting list here and I’ll let you know when Content Boomerang re-launches in March.
(PLUS, you’ll get a detailed PDF of my content repurposing process - my 🎁 to you)
4. Optimize your presentation outline for keywords
Keywords = Discoverability
Want to be found on SlideShare? Or Google?
Include your target keyword(s) in:
- Original PDF file (before you upload it to SlideShare)
- Slides
- Title
- Description
- Tags
Why your original PDF file?
SlideShare creates your presentation slug (the URL part that comes after ‘slideshare.net/…’) using your original file name.
It happens in the background while SlideShare uploads/converts your presentation.
You want your slug to contain your main keywords.
Thus, use your keywords when saving your presentation as a PDF file on your computer.
Why your slides?
SlideShare automatically transcribes the text in your slides and adds the transcript to the bottom of your presentation page.
You can choose to remove the transcript, but why would you?
So… stay on topic and use your keywords.
While I never obsess over keywords, I do use SEMrush to find the best keywords my target audience might be using to find my content.
Keywords = Discoverability
5. Find the right images
This is the most time-consuming, but also the best part of putting together a SlideShare presentation… if you allow it to be.
Of course, you have to pay attention to copyright infringement - that’s something you don’t want to mess with.
To learn more about finding free images for your SlideShare presentations, take a look at this post:
Free Blog Post Images: Where to Find Them, How to Use Them - at TrafficGenerationCafe.com
And here’s a tutorial on turning those dull generic stock images into original masterpieces:
How To Create a Blog Post Image That Gets Noticed And Drives Traffic - at TrafficGenerationCafe.com
Here’s the thing: even when you use Creative Commons images, you don’t really know the origins of an image.
What if someone finds a cool image somewhere online, uploads it to their Flickr account, and lo and behold, the image shows up under Creative Commons, yet it was copyrighted by the original creator?
My philosophy on this: don’t overanalyze it.
If you can’t create your own images from scratch, do your best to find Creative Commons images and always give credit to image sources in your SlideShare description.
Or you can attach a disclaimer to your presentation, like the guys from SlidesThatRock.com did it here:
By the way, SlidesThatRock on SlideShare is another great place to learn more about creating killer SlideShare presentations. Browse through their portfolio to see how they do it and do it like that, just better. 😉👍
If someone does end up complaining about you using their image, C’est la vie; you’ll fix it and move on.
6. Add a Call to Action
A SlideShare presentation is no different from any other piece of content you create.
It needs to move your viewers to take an action as a result of watching it.
What is it that you want your viewers to do after they are done with your presentation?
- Come to your blog?
- Subscribe to your email list?
- Like your Facebook page?
- Follow you on SlideShare?
- Share it with their social media followers?
Whatever it is, rule #1 is to HAVE ONE.
Take a look at the closing slide of this presentation.
Where’s the call to action?!!
Sure the blog link is clickable, but without a clear call to actually click on it, most viewers never would.
It’s a missed opportunity.
Let’s take a look at other examples.
Pay with a Tweet
This call to action is from Mauro’s presentation 12 Essential Steps of a Phenomenal Story.
It actually has 3 calls to action (CTAs), which is 2 too many, but the one that matters - Pay with a Tweet to download the presentation - is a great one.
Social Media Sharing
Here’s another one from Mauro’s 9 Steps to Make Great Presentations Faster.
List Building
A call to action leading to my Bite-Sized Traffic Hacks newsletter optin page from Goodbye Google Reader, Hello 10 Google Reader Alternatives:
Facebook Fan Page Likes
From How to Write Awesome Facebook Status Updates:
Read a Blog Post
With some presentations, you simply want your readers to come back to your blog to finish reading your post on the topic, like I did in How Google Search Works: Why Crappy Sites Rank Higher Than Mine? presentation.
By the way…
Did you know you can embed live links into SlideShare presentations?
And not just naked URLs, mind you (like https://trafficgenerationcafe.online/), but URLs with anchor text, clickable images, etc.
So keep that in mind when creating your SlideShare presentations.
It’s good for link building (since Google can crawl PDF files and follow links within them), but even more importantly, it’s great for traffic from SlideShare.
Good Samaritan reminder: don’t spam. Just because you can include live links in your SlideShare presentations, doesn’t mean you should stuff them with links.
If you do, your account could be suspended or even deleted without warning. It’s happened.
What exactly does SlideShare deem to be a “spam link”? I am not sure. I’ve read SlideShare (LinkedIn) Terms of Service, as well as their Community Guidelines, yet found nothing on the topic.
How many outgoing links are you allowed? Once again, it’s not defined anywhere, so be safe than sorry.
SLIDESHARE PRO TIP
SlideShare doesn’t allow live links in the first three slides of your presentation, so create your presentation accordingly.
Put it all together
It’s not rocket science, I promise.
I’d NEVER used PowerPoint or Keynote before I created my first SlideShare.
I played around with it, figured out how it worked, and now creating a SlideShare presentation has become a piece of cake.
Let me share some very specific tips on how to make the most of your SlideShare exposure.
More SlideShare “Good-to-Knows”
Presentation size
Your SlideShare presentation will look its best if created in 4:3 ratio.
However, if you are planning on turning your SlideShare presentation into a video, which I highly recommend you do, I suggest you create your presentation in 16:9 aspect ratio.
SIDE NOTE: I am a strong proponent of content repurposing - taking one piece of content and turning it into several formats to reach your audience on various platforms.
I call it ‘Content Boomerang‘.
You’ll hear me talk about it ALL the time, because it’s THAT good - one of the best ways to drive traffic, bar none.
You can watch me repurpose a SlideShare presentation into a video in this YouTube mini-series:
Re-Upload
Unlike YouTube, SlideShare allows you to re-upload your presentations after they went live.
The feature is great in case:
- You notice a mis-spelling (or, more likely, someone will kindly point it out to you);
- You want to change your call to action;
- The information becomes outdated, but the SlideShare presentation is still driving traffic;
- etc.
And the best part?
When you re-upload the presentation, you keep everything: the original slug, views, comments - everything.
4 Ways to Get Traffic from SlideShare
It’s all nice, Ana, but who’s got the time to make SlideShare presentations?
Is SlideShare really worth it?
YES.
If I haven’t convinced you by now, here’s my last shot: how to get traffic from SlideShare.
1. Get on SlideShare Homepage
This is something Mauro discussed in his guest post at TGC as well, but he and I learned a few things since then.
There are three ways to get on the SlideShare homepage.
The first one takes the least effort, but won’t yield as much traffic.
The last one is unpredictable, but results in killer traffic.
1. Get Featured in “Trending in Social Media” Section
This is the bottom third section of SlideShare homepage.
It features presentations that are currently hot on either Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or all four.
I do not know the exact number of shares required to be featured in this section.
From my experience, if I get a lot of shares on any one of these platforms (I find Google+ to be the easiest one for me, since I’ve established a good presence there), the other three will catch up.
So share away!
If you want to learn how to promote the heck out of your SlideShare presentations, I highly recommend you pick up Kristi Hines’ Blog Post Promotion: The Ultimate Guide.
By the way, why LinkedIn?
SlideShare is owned by LinkedIn.
2. Get Featured in “Featured SlideShares”
“Featured SlideShares” is the middle section on SlideShare homepage.
How do you get featured there?
Read the section below.
3. Get Featured in the “Today’s Top SlideShares”
“Today’s Top SlideShares” is the top above-fold section of SlideShare homepage.
This is PRIME web real-estate.
This is where you want your SlideShare presentation to end up.
How do you do that?
Mauro and I have been watching the homepage like hawks for days and weeks, trying to figure out how SlideShare algorithm works.
Our initial assumption was that the amount of views was what did the trick.
Yet, we saw plenty of presentations with a lot fewer views than others make it to the “Today’s Top SlideShares” section.
So what was the secret?
The secret is that there’s no algorithm to become a “Today’s Top SlideShares“.
From a post on SlideShare blog:
We’d like to correct an assumption made in another recent blog post (Mauro’s guest post at Traffic Generation Café) and referenced by Mauro.
The “Trending in Social Media” sections reflect the traffic and activity of presentations on the various social platforms.
But the “Featured” and “Today’s Top SlideShares” presentations are hand-curated every day by the SlideShare editorial team.
In order to be featured on the SlideShare home page, keep creating well-designed, useful, relevant presentations.
Your content and design will catch the team’s attention.
That’s it.
Those sections are hand-curated.
That’s the good news and the bad news.
The good news: it’s a level playing field. Whether you are a blogging superstar or a newcomer, you are equal (in theory anyway) in SlideShare teams’ eyes.
The only thing that matters is how great your presentation is.
And that’s the bad news.
It HAS to be great.
But then again, anything worth doing is worth doing right.
2. Get embedded on other blogs
Another way to bring SlideShare traffic back to your blog is by getting your presentation embedded on other sites.
Embeds bring traffic. You saw it from the screenshots above.
How do you get your SlideShare presentation embedded on other blogs?
Two ways:
- Either by getting featured on the home page and catching attention from other SlideShare users or
- by embedding the SlideShare presentation on your blog and encouraging your readers to do the same.
Making it easy goes a long way.
3. Get ranked on Google
We’ve talked about adding on-page SEO elements to your presentations above - that’s the gist of your SlideShare SEO.
The other piece of the puzzle would external links pointing to either your SlideShare profile (builds overall authority) or specific presentations (through embeds or traditional links) - just like any piece of content you’d publish on your own website.
To learn more about SEO for non-SEOs (same principles will work for ANY page you want to rank - whether it’s a post on your blog or a presentation on SlideShare.net), take a look at this guide:
Once again, it’s much easier to create a powerful SlideShare presentation around competitive keywords and rank it on Google than wait for your own site to gain enough authority to compete with 800-pound gorillas.
Your call to action should do the rest.
By the way, am I concerned that my SlideShare presentations will outrank my blog posts on Google?
That’s the kind of question that deserves an in-depth answer in a post of its own.
When “They” Steal Your Search Engine Ranking and Traffic…
FUN FACT 😀 👍
(as of December 2016)
4. Make your blog content more viral
SlideShare presentations embedded in your posts make your content more interesting.
Interesting content is much more likely to get shared and linked to.
Popular content drives traffic and Google rankings.
You see where I am going with this?
You might not even know that it’s the SlideShare presentation that’s making the impact on your rising traffic numbers, but trust me: if your presentations are good, your website traffic WILL increase.
More SlideShare Features
With a site as extensive as SlideShare, there bound to be more features than can be covered in one post, right?
Here are the ones that I recommend you check out:
Add YouTube video
When in “Edit” mode of an already uploaded video, one of the options you’ll see is “Add YouTube Video“.
Add Audio
The “Add Audio” tab is right next to the video feature.
You can upload an mp3 audio file from your computer to go with your SlideShare presentation.
It can’t be a music file; only recordings of a presenter talking are allowed.
Here’s an example of a SlideShare presentation with an audio added:
Browse
Another way to get in front of SlideShare users, as well as see what kind of content works best on SlideShare, I highly recommend you use the “Browse” feature.
Learn more about SlideShare
The best way to learn more about SlideShare and how to use it best for your business is SlideShare blog.
See some of the best-performing SlideShare presentations in action; follow us on SlideShare:
More helpful resources about Slideshare:
SlideWealth.com - Get MORE Traffic, Sales and Clients with SlideShare - Mauro D’Andrea
How to Use SlideShare to Generate Leads - Jason Miller, SocialMediaExaminer.com
The Marketer’s Guide To SlideShare - Mauro D’Andrea, KISSMetrics.com
SlideShare Cheat Sheet - Marketo.com
Why You Shouldn’t Use Slideshare
It might sound like I am blowing my own trumpet here, but it’s true: when it comes down to sharing my best traffic generating information, I am generous to a fault.
I don’t know how to hold back or charge money for holding back.
Thus, you get the best, most timely and in-depth advice on how to increase website traffic - either here at Traffic Generation Cafe or in your inbox through my Bite-Size Traffic Hacks newsletter.
If you were to actually use these tips, you would be unstoppable.
Then I’d have to compete with you for traffic, which is really too much of a headache.
So I am sharing these superb Slideshare traffic generation tips quietly hoping that you won’t do much about them and let me continue dominating Slideshare.
Like this (this screenshot was taken a couple of weeks after the one at the top of the post - 2 weeks +77K views):
Of course, in the end the choice is yours.
Are you going to let me have all the fun and Slideshare traffic?
From Ana with ❤️
Tony says
Very nice piece of information. Something I’ve always wanted to try but never had the time and the knowledge to do it. Now I have something to refer to. 🙂 Your article itself, as well as the discussion in the comments add a lot of value. Many thanks!
Ana Hoffman says
You are very welcome, Tony.
Manoj says
Hi Ana,
Great guidance. Slideshare is an excellent tool, but I am still a basic user of it. The tips you have shared here, prompt me to use it deeper.
Thanks so much for the share.
Take care,
Ana Hoffman says
Happy to help, Manoj.
Just like any other skill, creating slide decks simple takes practice. All the best with it!
Dan says
Great, informative post Ana!
I’m definitely going to be trying this out (it actually looks quite fun as well :P)
Thanks for the post, keep it up!
Dan
Ana Hoffman says
What can I tell you, Dan… I create presentations for fun! 😉 #truestory
Rachel says
I first heard about SlideShare on your blog! Thanks for sharing this guide and lending us your expertise. You make it seem doable for me (which is saying a lot!).
Ana Hoffman says
Hope you take it from ‘doable’ to done, Rachel! 😉
Amar kumar says
Hey Ana,
SlideShare is really considered as great vistual content marketing tool for the toolbox. It is a powerful platform for promoting our products and services for helping to built our brand.
Now-a-days, in age of digital marketing an image is absolutely sounds significant weapons compare to plain text. visual content is in high demand. Eventually, thanks for exploring.
With best wishes,
Amar kumar
Ana Hoffman says
Absolutely, Amar - visuals are taking over text!
Thanks for coming by.
nekraj bharitya says
Hi ana ,Your guide is awesome and I am saying it awesome because I am starting my slideshare campaign right now .I will also share my case study after 1 months If success .
P.S Why you use a cow image at the start of post ? It is totally iterating and useless .if possible delete that image and use another one .
Ana Hoffman says
Glad to hear you found the post useful, Nekraj.
PS I found it interesting that you chose to say something critical about my work despite it being your first comment on my blog. Might not be the best idea to leave that kind of first impression going forward…
And to respond to what you said: since English is not your first language, you might’ve missed all the references to cows in the post and the SlideShare presentation embedded in the post. That’s probably why you didn’t get the connection.
Simon says
Wow! Valuable imformation, Anna.
Really got a lot of value from this post (had to get my jotter and get somethings down).
Never thought of using slideshare to drive traffic to my blog (not yet live) until after this post.
Thanks once more, Anna.
Simon.
Ana Hoffman says
SlideShare is da bomb ?, Simon!
I’ve actually gone waaaaay beyond SlideShare in my content repurposing efforts by now, but creating a slide deck presentation and then posting it to SlideShare is still at the core of my system.
Frank says
Hi Ana,
I thought this article is so good, I will be sharing it with my 3600 person email list. Not much but I think they will see value in it.
Ana Hoffman says
It’s never about the quantity, Frank - quality is what matters when it comes down to an email list.
And thank you; truly honored! ? ?
Merve says
Hi Ana 🙂
I liked your posts, they are useful thank you for all. I just started to use slideshare.
All day, I’ve been doing research on the subject which is the showing title of presentation with blue, not only the numbers as 1,2,. Also the titles are clickable and going to the slide of slideshare pages.
How can ı do this?
thanks
Merve
Ana Hoffman says
Hey, Merve - so glad you found my posts helpful!
I can definitely relate… Trying to figure out one seemingly small detail, spending waaaaay too much time doing it, but you just can’t stop - it drives you nuts! That’s how it goes for me anyway. 😉
You might need to send me a screenshot or at least send me the link to where I can see exactly what you are referring to - at the moment, I am not quite sure how to answer your question.
RJG says
hank you for your informative post..
going to sign up for slideshare also would SS work for any Niche?
Cheers
Robert
Ana Hoffman says
Indeed it will, Robert.
Adam Barton says
Amazing Ana
You have done a great job in providing valuable tutorial on how to get traffic from Slideshare.
Thank you for all you shared here about Slideshare, you’re extremely generous with your knowledge! I have so much to learn, but your delivery is very inspiring.
Sorry but i have to bookmark it because it is not easy to read all of that at one, so i will read it in chunks.
I can just say that keep the good posts coming.
Regards
Adam Barton
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks, Adam; and yes, indeed - to actually take advantage of SlideShare, you have to digest/work on this post one bite at a time.
Let me know how your progress with SlideShare goes!
Amina says
Hey Anna,
I discoverd your blog in Neilpatel blog, means i discoverd new source of information. The important of using Slideshare is the ideas of the content which must be attractive for reader. So do you think non-designer can do this staff. Thanks you have nice blog.
Cheers
Amina
Ana Hoffman says
Welcome to Traffic Generation Café, Amina!
To answer your question: you don’t have to be a designer to effectively use SlideShare! As I mentioned in the post (I think), I’ve never worked with PowerPoint before creating my first SlideShare presentation, yet it did great on SlideShare.
Practice makes perfect - in all things. ?
Iqbal says
On my way to creating a slideshare account 😉
Great tips Ana! I didn’t know we can link to our blog. I think will experiment a bit with slideshare to drive traffic to my blog.
Thanks!
Iqbal
Ana Hoffman says
Yay, someone is listening! 😉
Thanks for coming by, Iqbal.
Noticed your blog is a bit… stale. What’s up with that?
Iqbal says
Yeah I know 🙁 I’ve been really busy with college this past year that I nearly don’t have time to update my blog.
I’m hoping I can invest more of my time though starting from next month. Wish me luck Ana!
Ana Hoffman says
I’ll wish you success instead; how about it, Iqbal?… 😉
Iqbal says
That’s more like it! 😉 haha thanks Ana!
Alphonse Couturier says
I think you have done a great job in providing valuable tutorial on how to get traffic from Slideshare.
I have been involved in internet marketing for some times, I’m so impressed that you give advice on generating traffic from Slideshare.
Ana Hoffman says
Thank you, Alphonse.
Robin McIntire says
Thank you for all you shared here about Slideshare, you’re extremely generous with your knowledge! I have so much to learn, but your delivery is very inspiring… I’m bookmarking this to refer to! ?
Ana Hoffman says
Very kind of you to let me know, Robin.
Let me know how you do with SlideShare!
Mohit Bumb says
after reading this article I’m going to create slideshare account for me now. very nice article 🙂
Ana Hoffman says
Let me know how it goes, Mohit!
Elvis Michael says
Ana, you’re a Godsend.
I discovered this post (and this awesome blog) super mega late. But you know what? It’s never late to get started!
Thank you so much, and keep killing it 🙂
Elvis
Ana Hoffman says
And looks like I am super mega late responding to your comment, Elvis - for that I appologize.
Look forward to seeing you around Traffic Generation Café!
Sowjanya says
Feel the same!
Ana Hoffman says
Very kind of you, Sowjanya.
Lawrence Mak says
I think you have done a great job in providing valuable tutorial on how to get traffic from Slideshare.
I have been involved in internet marketing for some times, I’m so impressed that you give advice on generating traffic from Slideshare.
Thank you so much Ana.
Ana Hoffman says
You are very welcome, Lawrence.
Gerrard Tshepiso says
Ana this is completely unbelievable! you have just got me heading over to open a slideshare account. I have never imagined slideshare to be this powerful. What an inspirational post. This is the reason I will keep coming back to Traffic Generation Caffe - for more properly brewed coffee like this!
Ana Hoffman says
Very kind of you, Gerrard; let me know how it goes with Slideshare!
Thomas says
Hi Ana
That was a very long post you have written here..! I must be honest and say that I have not read it all, because I was just doping by your blog. However I have signed up for a Slideshare account to see if I can make it work for me and I will use this post to help me out 🙂
Ana Hoffman says
I know it’s a lot, Thomas, but hey - you got yourself a Slideshare account; that’s a great start!
Brent Carnduff says
You just saved me hours of research trying to figure out Slideshare. Great tutorial. Thanks again!
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks, Brent; always a pleasure to have you at TGC.
Johan Bengtsson says
Wow, this was a really great guide on how to use slideshare and how to create slides. I am amazed on the results you have had from it in such a short time. Looks like I need to start looking into slideshare as a way to promote my blog.
Ana Hoffman says
Still one of my favorite traffic strategies, Johan.
Michael Aulia says
I was following one of your videos about converting blog posts to PDF and upload them to SlideShare. Did a few yesterday and I got suspended/banned today
Can’t even contact them about it, oh well, worth a try 🙂 Probably the format and niche (they weren’t slides and gadget reviews)
Ana Hoffman says
I’ve never heard of Slideshare banning anyone, Michael… Have you asked them what happened? Their customer service is very responsive.
Michael Aulia says
To ask them, I need to open a ticket + register first. I’ll try registering with another email address and ask about it, cheers
Ana Hoffman says
I’d be very curious to know what they say, Michael; as I said before, I’ve never heard of Slideshare suspension and I upload PDFs all the time.
himanshu says
Yeah Ana i am alive and want to add that i am newbie to Slideshare and your post let me know the benefits of easily ranking your posts using Slideshare.
Ana Hoffman says
Glad to hear it, Himanshu; all the best in your Slideshare efforts!
Sandy Cormack says
Hi Anna, thank you for this highly informative post. When you create a killer Slideshare deck about…how to create a killer Slideshare deck, you’re already ahead of the game, I guess!
I created and uploaded a deck after studying the ‘Slides That Rock’ advice. A few things I learned - Slideshare doesn’t like the fonts the STR guys recommended, so you really need to convert to a PDF before uploading. Also, the Slideshare processing does not always convert your links if you ‘print to PDF’ from your application. I found that I had to re-create the links in a PDF editor before uploading for them to ‘stick.’
Here is my first attempt. I think your niche has a lot to do with how successful you’ll be at this:
http://www.slideshare.net/hamerhokie/organizational-development-how-to-build-a-workforce-that-rocks
Ana Hoffman says
VERY nicely done, Sandy; one of the best first attempts I’ve seen - concise, engaging, and great images to go with it.
One problem: when I click on your call to action at the end, it takes me to a page with the same image and nothing happens from there.
RE: your finding - I always convert my decks into PDF before uploading them, so never knew the problem existed. Links: need to check into that - I don’t always have the time to make sure all the links work… I should though.
Sandy Cormack says
Yeah, I think I should change the image on the website, because I figured it might cause confusion. You have to click on the CLICK button again to engage the survey.
Chen says
Hi. Followed your guide and made it to the featured section on the SlideShare homepage.
Not Presentation of the Day (yet), but I am happy! Thanks!
Ana Hoffman says
Very well done, Chen; you made me proud!
I love your use of transitions and the owl definitely ties it all together.
Maybe next time fewer words?
Thanks for letting me know about it!
Chen says
Thanks! I tried to minimize the words but I felt it needed that some points needed additional explaining. In my other presentation there were less. In any event I plan to write about my experience in our blog in the near future and will definitely give you credit!
Denis says
I landed on your blog from Kim Roach’s blog. Man this is great info! Thanks. I myself have several ppt presentations on slideshare and am getting targeted traffic from Google. A recent review article netted me 900+ in two months. Your detailed instruction gave me additional insights. Thanks.
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks for coming by, Denis, and yes, Slideshare can be very powerful in helping us achieve something we couldn’t do with just a blog.
James says
may as well give this a shot, I want that #1 position:D
Ana Hoffman says
Your business will only be better off for it, James.
BJ says
Love your article. It inspires me to do a Slideshare.
Question about software. I did Photoshop images and dumped in Power Point then realized that I would lose SEO if they were images. Bummer!!!
I hid the word layers and resaved. Now I am struggling to format my PowerPoint slides to look like my former Photoshop images.
I am better at Photoshop CS 6 and MS Word. Any way to use either of those without losing the SEO value?
MS Word can go to PDF and I could use background images. Would that work?
Ana Hoffman says
I think you are making it to be more complicated that it is, BJ.
SEO value comes from the slug, title, description, and your (unhidden) text in PDF file - Google can read PDFs AND Slideshare posts a transcript of your presentation. I’ve touched on all these points in the post.
BJ says
Thanks for responding. I am following your slideshare tutorials. Love them. Great information.
Guess I wasn’t clear. If my PowerPoint contains only Photoshop images (jpgs), I would get the benefit of slideshare title, description and the link but Google and Slideshare couldn’t read my PDF.
I realized my mistake after I had no words except embedded in jpgs.
Finally, I decided to suck it up and learn PowerPoint better. I brought in images, typed in my words and used some advanced techniques so my file will look close to what I had with Photoshop.
Thanks for all your information.
I even bought the Slides That Rock iTunes book. Slideshows are fun to learn.
Ana Hoffman says
Oh, got you, BJ - that makes sense.
Glad you decided to give PowerPoint a try; it’s pretty easy, isn’t it? Even for someone like me who’s never used it in the past.
Send me a link to your presentation when it’s published; would love to take a look.
yogesh pant says
hi ana,
I have read this long long posts of yours…..
But i just want to confirm whether using these types of means like slideshare to increase website traffic cool or safe along with the google adsense?
The other day, I was reading somewhat similar kind of post on another such tool called linkreferral……that was also having the same concept of increasing the blog traffic.
I am scared that google might consider them all as the fake methods of the traffic generation to the individual sites.
Please do reply.
Ana Hoffman says
Linkreferral is NOTHING like Slideshare.
yogesh pant says
it means that you are stating that it is absolutely safe to use it with the google adsense account?
Ana Hoffman says
I don’t think I understand your question very well, Yogesh.
Can you embed Slideshare presentations on your blog and still monetize it with AdSense? Of course. Think of Slideshare as YouTube, but instead of videos you’ve got slide presentations.
yogesh pant says
yes ana,
I was exactly asking for that very question.
thanks for giving the response!
Brian Burkard says
Hi Ana,
Thanks so much for the great tips on using Slideshare. I have used it in the past to post some articles, but you have opened my eyes to a much more effective use.
I also greatly appreciate the detail of your post and for sharing actual examples. I look forward to implementing this strategy and hope to get some similar results to your first Slideshare presentation.
Ana Hoffman says
You are very welcome, Brian!
Robert A. Kearse says
Hi Ana:
Great post! AS USUAL.
Your posts are usually long, detailed and filled with actionable content.
BUT. . .
Many of your posts could be divided up into Parts 1, 2, 3, etc.
Many NEW bloggers I’m sure get overwhelmed by the amount of information you provide.
Make your posts more bite-sized rather than full course meals.
Multiple part posts will increase your publishing frequency, number of shares and likes, etc. Increased frequency will also likely positively impact your SE rankings.
All in all, the quality of your posts is so high that no matter what you do you’ll be OK.
Ana Hoffman says
First of all, thank you, Robert, and glad you enjoyed the post.
Secondly, I’ve tested going the “shorter posts, more frequently” route and it didn’t work too well for my readers, me, or Google.
Lars Kroll says
Ana thank you so much for this amazing Slideshare tips!
They’re so helpful! Looking forward to see more of this quality presentations form you!
Ana Hoffman says
You got it, Lars; thanks for coming by.
carolm says
Hi Ana, I posted a Comment at the top of Comments and had to use FB. That’s ok, but now I see I could have posted one down here at the end of your Comments, and the links of others go to a sharedby url.
This Comment is really to see how that works when I comment using this form - unless of course you reply and tell us about sharedby - it looks interesting.
I see Commentluv is no longer in use here, not even nofollow links. Are these other options better for your traffic, or backlinks?
Ana Hoffman says
Hi, Carol - this is the native WP comment system.
Shareby is just an engagement bar, just like StumbleUpon for instance. You can read more about it here: https://trafficgenerationcafe.online/stage/visibli-increase-website-traffic/.
I disabled CL links because of broken links issues. Nothing to do with traffic or backlinks; I still recommend to use it.
Brian Hawkins says
Very detailed post Ana, you could probably put a price tag on it and sell it as a guide. 🙂 I think I’m going to give it a try. I looks like a great way to offer blog tips on very little real estate that’s very sharable. It also allows you to share great content without duplicate content issues or worries about credit. Just reading your post and going through the slides gave me several ideas already. Oh, thanks for the mention 🙂
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks for coming by, Brian.
If you ever decide to give Slideshare a go, let me know; would love to check out your work.
Darnell Jackson says
Big shout out to Gail at Growmap for sharing this article with me.
Excellent job on the presentation.
I love to see people just do stuff instead asking for permission all the time.
respect.
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks, Darnell - it’s a bit hard to truly move forward otherwise.
And thanks to Gail for sharing the post!
Joel says
Hey Anna Did not know that Slideshare could really get so much traffic to one’s blog.Really Informative post.I will surely give it a try and keep up the good work
Mike C Smith says
Ana, you never fail to amaze me, where do you get all this information, this slideshare looks real promising I will work on this today. Thank you as always for sharing
Mike
PS Best thing I did signing up for your e-mails
Ana Hoffman says
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mike.
Harish says
Hi Ana,
Thank you very much for a wonderful post! I am getting very interested to create some slideshows and post on Slideshare. Your post has so much great stuff that I am going to bookmark it and come back and refer to it as I understand Slideshare better.
I appreciate your effort in creating such fabulous content and sharing it with everyone.
I am going to implement some of your tips soon!
Thanks again,
Harish
Mark Trueman says
Hey Ana,
This post got me excited for trying out Slide Share. I’ve seen it everywhere now but never really considered using it to generate traffic. But seeing that you were able to generate 243k+ views in a month can be very motivating.
Love step by step break down in the slides. I really have no excuse to not try it out now 🙂
- Mark T.
Kevin Martin says
Thank you for writing this amazing review about Slideshare, Ana. I will definitely use Slideshare in an attempt to increase my blog traffic.
dhaval says
As I run a technology site on what things I can make presentations :/ because every one would search on google rather then seeing a presentation… Any suggestions?
Ana Hoffman says
The world is your stage, Dhaval - just take any one of your popular posts and turn it into a presentation.
Kit Seeborg says
Nice article, and very cool that you’re sharing with the SlideShare community. Thanks for letting people know that Featureds and Presentations of the Day are curated by humans 🙂
Ana Hoffman says
You are welcome, Kit, and welcome to Traffic Generation Café!
Felipe Jose says
That is what I am talking about!
Your presentations on Slideshare are awesome! Really, I just don’t know where you find so many cool images. Can you tell your secret?? 🙂
Hey Ana, I just disagree with you when publishing the same content on your website and on these PDF directories but when you prepare these outstanding presentations.. when that is the case, I couldn’t agree with you more!!
Have a nice weekend!!
Ana Hoffman says
I did mention in the post where I get the images, Felipe.
Felipe Kurpiel says
Sorry Ana… I reread the post and still did not find this! But that is OK! I don’t wanna bother!!
Take care!
Ana Hoffman says
Under “5 Steps to Making a Killer Slideshare Deck”, step 4 is “Find the right images”, Felipe.
Rika Susan says
Hi Ana! I understand why Felipe asked about the images again. Both in Chrome and Firefox I see no points under “5 Steps to Making a Killer Slideshare Deck”. It is just the heading and then it goes on to “Why You Shouldn’t Use Slideshare”. Refreshed the page a couple of times to make sure. Don’t see that step 4 you mention. Beginning to think I should have my eyes checked or something… 🙂
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks for letting me know, Rika; must’ve been a glitch of sorts - let me know if you have trouble again.
Rika Susan says
Thanks for sorting it out, Ana! Great stuff! Your SlideShare tips are awesome!
Babanature says
Hello Ana,
I still find it hard to use Slideshare but i have started learning the scope of things and with your first slideshare, i’ll definitely works towards it. Because there is no time for quitting, right?.
Ana Hoffman says
You can make it work, Babanature!
Stacie Walker says
Ana,
All I can say is awesome, awesome, awesome! Thank you for being a great teacher. I have to take a seat in my home office with the door locked, so I’m not distracted by my hubby so I can get my TGC education on SlideShare.
You Rock!
Stacie Walker
Woman in Leadership
Lisa Irby says
Love, love, love your creativity and fresh approach to driving traffic. Ana, my wheels are spinning! This is fabulous. This has been on my to-do list forever. I think you’ve convinced me to make this a priority now.
Ana Hoffman says
Now that you are dominating YouTube, Lisa, Slideshare could be your next one to conquer!
Peter says
Anna, You tweaked my day with this awesome post. You overdeliver. Hope to start implementing ur gorgeous tips.
Ana Hoffman says
Glad to hear it, Peter.
Onibalusi Segun says
Wow! What a great Information, got a lot to learn from your blog Ana. To be frankly speaking i know only little about slide share, but after reading this article i got to know more about it.
Thanks for sharing Ana! 🙂
Iain says
I have used slideshare a bit, but I haven’t invested into it heavily yet.
You have may have just pushed me over the edge here and encouraged me to do just that.
I hadn’t realized all the amazing ways you can use slideshare. I just thought it was the same old boring presentations, but you can create some pretty epic ones with some creativity.
Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Ana Hoffman says
Let’s see what you’ve got, Lain!
Iain says
I put one together the other day. It was my first attempt.
I can post the url here if you like.
Ana Hoffman says
Would love to see it!
Iain says
Here is a link to it.
http://www.slideshare.net/ipjrobson/internet-marketing-techniques-for-farmers-1
It is just a start. I actually made a video after I made the presentation too.
I haven’t submitted it to pdf sites, not sure if it’s worth it. Given the lack of text.
Ana Hoffman says
It is a good start, Lain - love the pics!
I’d submit it to a PDF site; you’ve done your work, now it’s time for it to work for you. And you don’t need “text” to submit things to a PDF site; just needs to be a PDF.
iain says
I’ll submit it to Scribd at the very least.
Do you have any suggestions to improve upon for next time. I think the first page should be different at the very least.
Thoughts ?
iain
Ana Hoffman says
Yes, you definitely need a catchy cover image and a title - that’s the first (and many times the last) thing viewers see on Slideshare.
Iain says
Thanks for the input.
I shall include an awesome picture for the cover as well.
Strangely enough did get some traffic from that one though. Not very much.
I’ll keep you posted.
Ana Hoffman says
That’s great - just goes to show how much better you can do with an even better presentation.
Zac Johnson says
Awesome detail and write up. I’m going to try this out next week. I will focus on some of my older and most popular posts, then turning them into slides. Good stuff!
Ana Hoffman says
Thanks, Zac; let me know how it goes.
Mike says
Ana,
Wow! This was a mega-post to say the least!
I’m playing around with slideshare as we speak. I’ll have to make sure I follow now.
My big challenge is formatting say a blog post for slideshare.
Thanks again,
Mike
Ana Hoffman says
Let me know how it goes, Mike.
As far as blog posts are concerned, I’d simply copy and paste sections into PowerPoint slides or, even you want to just convert it into PDF and upload it that way, I gave a link to show you how to do that.
Mike says
Ana,
Is the link in the post?
So you can just merely upload a pdf to slideshare, and it not be a power point?
I definitely want to explore this much more asap.
Thanks,
Mike
Ana Hoffman says
Here it is again, Mike: https://trafficgenerationcafe.online/stage/how-to-convert-blog-post-into-pdf/.
Mike says
Ana,
I’ve been content marketing for 12 years now, and obviously have not kept up on all the new ways to repurpose content. Your blog is one of the best out there in showing readers what’s available.
Question.
When you turn a blog post into a PDF and upload to slideshare, do you also make a power point out of the same content, and upload that as well?
I don’t want to overdo it, nor waste any of my time.
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Ana Hoffman says
I wouldn’t bother, Mike; it takes more time and won’t yield better/different results.
Mike says
Ana,
So which would you do?
The PPT or the PDF?
I thought you were proposing repurposing in all formats for better distribution of content.
I’m confused LOL.
MIke
Ana Hoffman says
The whole idea of repurposing content is to make it easy and as least time-consuming as possible.
The best PPTs you can make are true presentations with images, etc. Those take time and it’s probably not feasible to do it for every post.
I suggest (and do it myself) turning posts into PDFs and submitting them this way because it’s easy, quick, and not time-prohibitive.
Bottom line: if you can create a presentation for a post, PLUS convert the content to PDF after the post is published, that’s ideal.
If not, just quickly convert your post into a PDF and submit it that way.
Makes sense?
Mike says
Ana,
What percent of your posts do you just convert to PDF and submit, as opposed to PPT?
Sorry for all the questions, but want to get a thorough understanding of this.
And, do you submit your pdf to all the pdf sites?
Thanks again,
Mike
Ana Hoffman says
I try to create a presentation for every epic post I write, Mike.
Ideally, I like to turn EVERY post I write into a PDF.
I submit PDFs one time only and vary the sites where I submit them to. That way, I don’t inundate the internet with the same content, but still achieve my goal of diversifying my links and overall online presence.
Mauro D'Andrea says
Ana, this an AWESOME post! You covered almost everything about SlideShare.
Thank you very much for mentioning me about 634 times in this post 🙂
By the way, my last but one presentation (about marketing quotes) made me record some huge results. It got 150,000 views in one week (pretty crazy, isn’t it?), sent me 3,600+ visits in one week and made me get 300+ new subscribers in one week. Ah, the most interesting part is that it was a recycled content which I spent less than 1 hour to make.
Currently SlideShare is my second source of traffic, second only to direct traffic (which is partially due to SlideShare too). It means that I’m currently getting more traffic from SlideShare than from Google.
Ok, now everyone will jump on SlideShare…I shouldn’t say these things 🙂
PS: I believe that your last presentation will be Top Presentation of the Day on SlideShare! Great one.
Ana Hoffman says
Are you trying to make me jealous on purpose???
150K views - that’s amazing, Mauro!
And thank you for teaching me everything I know about Slideshare…
Jennifer Woodard says
Well I generally am not the jealous type of person, but both of your stats are starting to make me jealous and going to make me have to work on the weekend. Shame on the two of you. 🙂
Jenn
Mauro D'Andrea says
Jennifer, I’m sure that those results will motivate you 😉
By the way, as always, when you see someone gets something great, you see the 1% of the entire process (the result). The remaining 99% percent is made by hard work and failures - usually over a long time.
Mauro D'Andrea says
A kind of… 😉
To tell the truth I got those 150K+ views because of you: I learned the idea of content leverage while working on your presentation about the Traffic Blueprint - without it, probably I wouldn’t have made that presentation.
My pleasure, Ana!
Ana Hoffman says
Fine; I’ll gladly take the credit. 🙂
Joe says
Hi Ana and Mauro,
It seems slideshare top viewed presentations are all in the business/marketing/blogging niches, so it seems it’s only beneficial if you are targetting that audience, would you agree?
I searched like fitness/nutrition/weight loss topics, and presentations only have say 50 views…
Ana Hoffman says
One of my readers followed our tips and published a Slideshare presentation about cyber-bullying and it became a featured presentation, Joe; here’s the link to her experience.
I think the problem is other niches haven’t figured out how to put out a good enough presentation to be featured.
Joe says
Hi Ana
No link there in your reply? I’m curious to read her experience!
Thanks.
Ana Hoffman says
That’s so strange… here it is again: http://www.thesparkleagency.com/my-experience-with-milking-the-slideshare-homepage-for-all-the-traffic-you-can-handle/
Joe says
Hi Ana thanks for that.
Do you know if backlinks in your presentation count in google indexing?
Ana Hoffman says
Yes, they do, Joe - Slideshare presentations are basically PDF files and that makes them fully crawlable, indexable, and the links count just the same as they would in any content.
Jennifer Woodard says
Ana,
Thank you for the great information that you provided in this post. You always share such great information and have me thinking about how use slideshare in my marketing efforts. You presented the information so clearly that is seems easy to accomplish, I sure hope so.
Thanks for the great work as always,
Jenn
Ana Hoffman says
You are so very welcome, Jennifer - Slideshare is definitely worth the work!