SlideShare – Presenting Your Ideas Clearly

SlideShare is a place that you can share documents, videos, webinars, PDFs or presentations. SlideShare has been around since 2006 and is often compared to YouTube, except meant for slide presentations. SlideShare presentations are often crated with PowerPoint, Google Doc Presentations, SlideRocket, Prezi, or OpenOffice.org.
Anyone can sign up for a free account and add their slideshows of presentations or documents to the site. Currently, it is the largest presentation sharing site with 130 million views and 60 million visitors to the site every month.

5 tips for using SlideShare to your advantage

Avoid Being Text-Heavy

If all you wanted to present was long text, you could upload an article to your website. SlideShare should have a combination of text and imagery, preferably visual metaphors. Let your visitors see what you’re presenting, rather than having to read it. You need to capture the reader’s attention and keep it, so too much text is going to have the opposite effect. Find creative images to post on your presentation slideshows through SlideShare to keep them interested.

Use Keywords

Just like any other online content, you need to use the right keywords. Each description and slide in the presentation should have plenty of keywords for the niche market you’re trying to attract. It is helpful to do your research beforehand on proper keywords to use, being careful not to keyword stuff and get slapped by Google. A 2 percent keyword density is a good place to start.

Have Short Presentations

Nobody wants to sit through a presentation that is 40 slides. Keep it short, usually between 5 and 15 slides. After about 10 or 15, people start getting bored and no longer want to keep viewing the presentation. Get your most important facts in the first few slides, but don’t give everything away too soon. This way, you’re giving them a reason to finish the presentation but just in case they need to leave before it’s complete, they got some valuable information.

Write it on Paper First

Save yourself some time and create your presentation on paper first. Write down notes for what you want to put on each slide, including what images to use. This lets you get everything organized and ready to go before you actually need to create it digitally. This saves a lot of time and having to go back and forth, making sure you got everything.

Include a Call-to-Action

This is a step many new users of SlideShare forget to do. On your very last slide of the presentation, always include a call-to-action. This can be asking them to visit your website, include a link to your site, blog or social media networks, or have a button you created with html in order to then perform something further. The point of SlideShare is to provide valuable information, but also to give them a reason to learn more from you. For businesses or website owners, SlideShare presentations should end with you instructing the reader on what to do next.
SlideShare is a great way to provide information to your readers. You will be able to further establish your expertise on any subject with a well-made, clear and well-marketed SlideShare.
Final note:  Don’t be afraid to re-purpose Infographics by breaking them down into a SlideShare presentation like we did here: