Tips for Writing Articles and Headlines on LinkedIn Pulse

It may look like writing a blog post and crafting a headline is easy, and that anyone can do it, but the reality is, it’s not.

It takes a lot of creativity and hard work.

Learning to hone your writing skills takes practice, discipline and time to become really good at it.

Below are some tips for writing articles and headlines on LinkedIn Pulse.

Crafting Your Article

Focus on what you know

The best way to start your blog is to write from what you already know.

Ask yourself:

• What hacks do you employ every day to make work easier?
• What failures have you had in your career?
• What successes have you had in your career?
• What inspired you to get into your career?

The idea is to pull details from your life and turn them into advice and insights for others.

It is also the best way you can be authentic with your readers, helping them connect with you in a deeper way.

Find a cadence

Don’t wait to get started. Get your thoughts and opinions out there as soon as you can. You will never have a perfect idea or post.

Once you start writing, try to find your cadence or writing rhythm. If you decide to post one blog a week, work your writing schedule around it.

Set aside a certain amount of time every day to do it.

The more you write, your readers will begin to notice your publishing patterns and eventually come to expect a post from you on that certain day.

Know your audience

LinkedIn is full of over 400 million professionals, ranging from executives, entrepreneurs, managers and entry level workers.

Is your content and writing style going to attract the type of readers you want?

In a general sense, remember to keep your post professional, but use a conversational tone, with the language they use.

Your readers are busy, so do all you can to keep their attention.

Give credit

Always give credit where credit is due. Whether you are using a images, surveys, data, or citing other people’s work, a reference back to them goes a long way.

By simply using a link back to the original source will save you a lot of trouble from the original owner contacting you to tell you to remove your post or stating in the comments you are stealing their work.

Crafting Your Headline

I can’t stress enough the importance of your article headline. Headlines are often considered the most important part of a blog post.

The way you structure your title will directly affect the success of your post. Why?

Every time you publish a post on LinkedIn, your network will receive a live notification in real time.

The importance of this is that the notification will only contain the title of your post, which means that if your headline doesn’t grab their attention and interest, it will go unnoticed.

In order to get the most out of the LinkedIn notification feature, you must learn what types of post work best.

A research study done by Noah Kagan and Search Wilderness, analyzed over 300 of the most successful blog posts on LinkedIn.

Here are some interesting insights regarding what makes LinkedIn headlines and posts successful:

Headline Findings

• Make your titles between 40 to 49 characters long
• Use How-to headlines – How To Get Started In Social Media Marketing
• Use List style headlines – 9 Ways Social Media Marketing Can Increase Your ROI
• Don’t use question headlines – Why publish a post on LinkedIn?

Post Findings

• Add visuals to your post – use 8 images, with the first one as your header image
• Don’t add video or other multimedia
• Divide your post into 5 sections
• Write long form content – 1900 to 2000 words
• Write in a language reflecting a neutral or positive tone
• Use simple vocabulary and easily readable by everyone
• Publish your posts on Thursdays

After Publishing

Once you have published your post, there are a few core channels that it will get distributed to on LinkedIn:

• Feed – your post will show up in your news feed for all your network and followers to see.
• Profile – your post will show up at the top of your profile, view-able by anyone who comes across it.
• Notifications – many of your network connections will receive a notification that you published a new post. There is of course a LinkedIn algorithm that LinkedIn runs to determine which notifications get seen by whom.
• LinkedIn Highlight Emails – any connections that are subscribed to the highlight emails will get an email about your post.
• Channels – There is a small chance your post can be featured on LinkedIn Channels, which is determined by a combination of algorithms and editors who monitor the published posts to find those are offer the most value and insights.

To try and maximize your reach, you can also share your post with your other social media networks by cross promoting with other social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit etc.

You can also join LinkedIn groups and promote to your specific industry or niche. Your goal is to get your content out there and build a strong following. The more you share, the larger impressions and engagement you will have.

Get Started

Now it’s your turn! Try out these tips and get started on your first blog post! Click here.

If you have a question, leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you. I read every comment!

For more community and LinkedIn writing tips, check out this Writing on LinkedIn Group.