Did you know you are missing out on a HUGE source of traffic?
This source gets about 60 millions visitors per month, has an Alexa Rank of 174, and is referred to as “The Quiet Giant of Content Marketing“.
AND you can get featured on its homepage without selling your soul.
This means that you can get lots of traffic.
There isn’t a real competition there, so you don’t have to worry about that.
This website is SlideShare and it’s one of the most undervalued social media platforms in the world.
Let me show you why you’ll love SlideShare.
Enormous Traffic Potential
This snapshot is of one of my presentations on SlideShare.
As you can see it received 31,436 views.
And the best part?
About 30,000 of those views came in in one day.
It received so many views because it was featured as Top Presentation of the Day by SlideShare.
Interestingly, when I was featured, I had neither a big following, nor a popular blog.
You can get featured on SlideShare homepage too.
What I Achieved with SlideShare
Before we go on, let me show you some numbers.
Take a look at my SlideShare channel, which currently has 5 presentations.
Each one has more than 1,000 views.
Two of them were featured as Top Presentation of the Day and one more was featured on SlideShare’s homepage in the Featured Presentations:
How to Get Featured
My experience taught me that you needed about 900-1100 views to get featured in the Featured box and 1200-1500 views to get featured as Top Presentation of the Day.
Update from Ana: since this post was published, Mauro and I have learned a thing or two about Slideshare and how to be featured on its homepage (the answer might surprise you).
You can find more information about it in this post: Slideshare Traffic Case Study: From 0 to 243,000 Views in 30 Days
Even though I don’t have any hard data to support my hunch, this is the conclusion I arrived at from experience.
Both “Top Presentation of the Day” and “Featured” will send you lots of website traffic.
However, there is a big difference between them.
With Top Presentation of the Day, you’ll get a five-figure number of views, while being featured will fetch you a four-figure number of views.
For this reason, our target is to reach the 1500 views in one day.
It may seem a tough task, but it’s not so hard if you know some “tricks” (and if you make a great looking presentation).
The Most Important Factor to Get Featured
Your presentation has to be great.
Don’t worry: it’s easy, if you follow some simple concepts.
You don’t need awesome content, but if you have something juicy, it’s even better.
The one thing that you can’t skip is the design.
If your presentation doesn’t look too good, there is no way it’ll get featured.
Some of the best guys who teach how to make phenomenal presentations work at Slides that Rock.
Watch their slides, follow their advice, and you’ll make great presentations.
Here are some simple guidelines:
1. Use Big Images
Beautiful images usually cost a pretty penny, but if you know where to look, you’ll find great images for free.
These are two interesting sources of stunning Creative Commons images:
Images are the cornerstone of your presentations.
They have to be wonderful and they have to be BIG.
Small images don’t work as well, as you can see from this example:
If you can communicate emotions with your images, it’s even better.
2. Less Text Per Slide
Remember that your presentation is a presentation, not a book.
Include only key points in your slides.
It’s best to break down lengthy ideas into several slides.
3. Don’t Use Bullet Points
Bullet points in a post are great.
Bullet points in a presentation are boring.
If you need those bullets, insert a bullet per slide.
4. Choose an Appealing Font
We see standard fonts everywhere, so they don’t hit us anymore.
Try other fonts, but don’t use unreadable ones.
5. Bonus Tip
In order to get featured on SlideShare homepage, we need to go one extra step: find a memorable cover shot.
Your first picture is the only picture that people see before they open your presentation, so you have to choose it wisely.
Get Help from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
If you carefully examine SlideShare homepage, you’ll notice the following right under featured presentations:
- Hot on Facebook
- Hot on Twitter
- Hot on LinkedIn
Your presentation can get there pretty easily and once it makes it, it will get many additional views.
Naturally, if you have a great cover picture, your presentation will stand out and get extra clicks.
I don’t know exactly what the metrics are to have your presentation there, but if you promote it with all your social media power, there’s a good chance you’ll get there.
That’s the very least you can do to make it to the homepage.
IMPORTANT: focus on one social media network at a time.
Facebook box will get you the most of views because its location right under the featured box.
In my experience, Twitter is the easiest box to get featured in.
Timing Is Everything
WHEN you upload your presentation is critical.
If you upload it in at the wrong time of day, you’ll miss out on a big chunk of potential views.
You don’t want to split your views into two days; you want to get them all in one.
Upload your presentation about 20-24 hours before SlideShare changes its Top Presentation of the Day.
I noticed that SlideShare changes its Top Presentation of the Day at about 12-2pm EDT (8-10 pm EST).
Upload your presentation at 3pm EDT (11pm EST), so you’ll have about 20 hours to collect your views.
How to Direct Traffic Back to Your Blog
If you skip the following part, you won’t get much traffic from SlideShare.
Insert a call to action at the end of your presentation.
Insert a link back to your blog in your last slide.
It’s a little known fact: you can add LIVE links into your PowerPoint presentations.
You can’t have live links in the presentation description (like on YouTube), but you CAN have them in the presentation itself – go figure.
Also, given that many people don’t know that those links are live, you should also include your blog URL.
This way, if your viewer doesn’t realize the link is clickable, they can at least type your URL in the navigation menu of the browser.
Your Turn
Getting traffic from SlideShare is one of the most under-utilized traffic strategies.
If you have any specific questions on how to make SlideShare work for you, just ask in the comments, I’ll be happy to answer.
Also, I want to help you to make a great presentation: tell me your idea and I’ll do my best to help you with it. 
Mauro D’Andrea
Mauro D’Andrea is the founder of Blog Growth, the fresh blog that treats internet marketing in the complete way. Take his free guide Increase Your Conversions and turn your blog in a successful business.
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