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Pimping your LinkedIn profile to be loved by LinkedIn and found on Google
Part 3 of my LinkedIn Series. How often do you do a Google search and see a LinkedIn profile? Answer: quite often! How do you get into that search? And furthermore, when someone is searching on LinkedIn, how do you make sure that your profile comes up? When creating your profile, think ‘SEO for LinkedIn’!
I’ve done a number of in-house training sessions with sales teams. It’s always surprising that I could be connected to some of them on LinkedIn, but when I do a search for the services they are selling, they don’t come up in my search results.
Why? They don’t have profiles that are loved by LinkedIn.
So how do you pimp your profile to be loved by LinkedIn and Google?
Keywords
The first thing you need to do is understand a bit about SEO and work on building a keyword list. Having a keyword strategy is the most important starting point (I will explore this later on).
Photo
Next to pimp your profile you need a decent picture. LinkedIn and users alike want to see a picture; most people wont engage with you without one. A selfie is probably not very professional! While there is no right or wrong, a picture tells a thousand words, so think carefully about the impression yours gives.
Headline
Next is a headline. This used to be job title, but now LinkedIn gives you the ability to write a headline. Keywords come into play here. It’s not about saying ‘solicitor’ or ‘lawyer’. It’s about being specific and meaningful, for example ‘employment law specialist’. It’s about having a headline with great keyword reach. ‘MD’ or ‘sales director’ wont cut it. You need to be specific about your industry, what field you work in etc. Use your keywords!
About
The next most important thing is your summary or ‘about’ paragraph.
I’d recommend at least 300 to 400 words of keyword-rich content – not stuffed with keywords, but nicely written and addressed to the user.
So imagine you are your target audience (potential client, collaborator, employer etc) coming to view your profile. Speak to them personally. Not about how amazing you are or your CV, but more about how you can help them solve their specific problems.
LinkedIn requirements
LinkedIn also requires you to have:
- A minimum of five ‘skills’. Personally I think the skills section is a load of nonsense! But you need to list five skills for LinkedIn to like your profile
- At least 50 connections
- Two previous jobs with descriptions. Now this is another great opportunity for using your keywords! Think about how you can talk about keywords in previous job
Links
Having a good profile that is likely to appear in LinkedIn and Google search results is about showing relevancy, and you do this through keywords and links.
LinkedIn gives you the opportunity to put three links in your contact details. Linking to your other online property (website, blog, social etc) is very powerful for SEO.
Detail and data
My advice when filling any social network profile is give as much detail as possible. Fill in all the boxes that ask for information. Going back to my previous blog, the more data you give LinkedIn, the more you will get out of it.
This is the foundation starting point for being found in Google and LinkedIn search.
Content
The next blog is about content, using LinkedIn articles, statuses and groups.
Other articles in the series:
- Part 1: Why LinkedIn needs to be part of your content strategy
- Part 3: Growing your network on LinkedIn
- Part 4: Rocking your LinkedIn content and getting to grips with groups
- Part 5: Exploring LinkedIn Premium and tools like Sales Navigator and LinkedIn Advertising
