There are 200 million people on LinkedIn and many of us are learning how to leverage LinkedIn to find jobs, hire new employees, solicit business, sell products and services, search for potential vendors and more and some of us aren’t even sure why we have profiles. Just like in search engines, we can optimize your LinkedIn profile for search so that people looking for you, can easily find you.

Why LinkedIn?

• It’s a large pool of educated people (74% have a degree)
• 82 of the top Fortune 100 Companies participate on LinkedIn
• 1 million users join every 12 days
• Average user has a combined household income of $109,000
• Over half of LinkedIn’s users are decision makers in the organization 

For me, I want potential customers looking for marketing services on LinkedIn to be able to find me easily. I wanted to optimize my profile for the terms “Marketing Wilmington NC.” What most LinkedIn users aren’t aware of is that the results displayed for these searches aren’t random. LinkedIn uses an internal set of algorithms to prioritize certain profiles over others, giving the businesses and individuals who have optimized their accounts correctly a leg up in using the service to find jobs, clients and more. If you’re using LinkedIn for any of these purposes, getting a strong ranking in its internal search results should be a top priority.

Today I’ll give you the run-down of how to optimize your profile for search so that you can be found for what it is that you do or sell. So ask yourself…what is it that you want you and/or your business to be found for?

Search results in LinkedIn

Let’s see how I measure up to the 2,374 other folks that have “marketing wilmington nc” in their profile. Number 3? Not bad! I’ll show you how I did it.

How I got there

First you need to determine the term you want to be optimized for. You should look around at your competitors profiles and see which terms they are using. Put yourself in the mindset of people that are looking for you or your services…what terms would they search for? Also, if your are location-based, it’s important to add that in there as well. I decided that “marketing wilmington nc” was a term people are looking for and it encompasses a lot of what we do at Little Wing Marketing.

The 5 magical sections in your LinkedIn profile that will optimize you for search

1. Headline 2. Current Work Experience 3. Past Work Experience

By editing your profile and adding your keywords to titles (assuming your keyword is in your title and description) and descriptions will boost your rankings considerably.

4. Summary & 5. Specialties

Make sure to also add your keyword phrase in your summary and under specialties. These sections influence where you will come up in search results for those terms.

 Making small changes in these 5 sections moved me from the 8th page to the number 3!

Conclusion

Just because you might be showing up on the first page of a search for the keywords you specified, does not mean you will get the results your want. Adding your key search terms is just part of developing a full, professional and successful LinkedIn profile. You must also leverage other tools  and tactics such as creating content, creating and sharing with groups, exporting connections and automation that will help you be more successful. You should complete your profile in its entirety and make sure its free of spelling and grammatical errors. Treat LinkedIn as your online resume and share content with your groups and followers regularly. Being found is just the beginning. The content of your profile will let them know if you are who or what they are looking for.

Make sure to connect with me!