How to optimise your LinkedIn profile for the search engines
Ellie Wilbraham - 18 January 2016
LinkedIn has become so successful since its launch in 2003 that it now ranks third behind Twitter and Facebook in terms of the number of unique monthly visitors it receives. However we find that many businesses and professionals can underestimate how useful their LinkedIn profile can be. This means that they often don’t pay enough attention to their profile. In order to ensure that you are getting found by the customers and clients that you want to connect with it’s vital to make sure that your LinkedIn profile is professional, optimised and up to date.
We have found that lots of people don’t realise that you can actually optimise your LinkedIn profile so that you can get found more easily in the search engines – and look more professional online. It’s simple to do and it could have a really big impact on your business, so here’s how you can go about doing it.
Create a customised URL for your page
Creating a customised URL for your business or personal page gives a much more professional feel to your profile and it makes it much easier for people to share your page online. It can also improve your click-through rate as people can instantly see what the link is about and are more likely to use it to visit your profile.
A standard LinkedIn URL usually just has a number code at the end so anyone receiving a link to your profile or seeing a link on social media may be reluctant to click through to your page. However you can make a personal URL i.e. http://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsmith simply by clicking on your public profile settings then going into your public profile URL (found on the right-hand side) then customising it with your name or business name.
Use keywords to optimise your LinkedIn profile
Just as you use keywords to optimise your website you can use them to the same effect on your LinkedIn profile. Think about the kinds of words or phrases that people might look for when they are searching in LinkedIn with reference to your industry, product or service and make sure that these keywords are included within your page. It can be particularly important to place them in high profile areas of the text such as your headline and summary.
Make sure that anchor text for website links are optimised
If you have links through to your website or blog on your LinkedIn page you can make sure that these are optimised too so that they offer more information to people viewing your profile. This means that they are more likely to want to click through. Instead of using the default text links you can modify the anchor text by editing your profile. Begin by clicking Profile >> Edit Profile at the top of the page. Then click the Contact Info section, click the pencil icon next to your website links, and select Other in the drop-down menu.
Now you will find that instead of simply having the word ‘blog’ as your link you can add in keywords that are relevant to what your blog is really about i.e. ‘Wagada’s SEO blog’.
We think LinkedIn is a really valuable tool for businesses and it definitely makes sense to take the time to optimise your LinkedIn profile for the search engines. You might also want to make sure that your profile looks polished and professional by adding a custom background photo relevant to your business, making sure that your latest customers have endorsed you and keeping your details up to date.
