How Important is Your LinkedIn Profile?
The short answer to that question, according to the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts at Search Engine Watch, is “very important.” According to contributor Jessie Moore, a marketing manager at the London-based digital marketing agency Yellowball, LinkedIn is “the most popular platform for B2B companies to acquire new clients.”
A quick “ego-surfing” search on Google can demonstrate just how vital it is for any upwardly mobile career professional to optimize that frequently underestimated LinkedIn profile as part of an effective career advancement strategy. For those with existing LinkedIn profiles, searching your own name demonstrates just how much domain authority the popular social media site carries with the almighty search engine algorithms.
That top ranking in the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) ensures that you and the services and talents you can provide can be found by the enterprises who need them. Even a minimum strength LinkedIn profile will provide this inherent SERP advantage, but that only works when your name is being searched for specifically. To cast your SERP net with LinkedIn by your professional category or services offered some SEO savvy will be required.
Beyond Social Media: LinkedIn is a B2B Search Engine
Many who’ve gone through the steps of LinkedIn profile-building find that the process isn’t always the most user-friendly, or intuitive, which makes it tempting to take some shortcuts. But that’s about the only minor shortcoming about implementing LinkedIn and a bit of time taken to master the site is time well-spent. Considering the very significant impact LinkedIn provides on search engine results, it’s important to take the time to complete as much of the profile as possible.
An All-Star rated LinkedIn profile is 27 times more likely to be found by recruiters with up to 3 times more traffic generated from Search, Feed, and My Network. Keep these numbers in mind when you’re tempted to tolerate a mediocre intermediate strength profile. Time spent to include education, 5 or more skills, and a concise summary with the keywords the recruiters in your field are searching for can be the difference of between 8 times and 27 times more likely to attract offers from recruiters.
Once you have this basic LinkedIn foundation in place it’s time to build on that with some SEO enhancement to set yourself prominently in the rankings with all those other All-Star candidates by applying some basic SEO best practices.
Optimizing Job Titles and Keywords
Keyword research is critical for optimizing job titles in your profile to boost SERP rankings. Sites such as MOZ.com offer free accounts with 10 queries per month and a variety of SEO tools. Top ranking keyword combinations may not be as obvious as they seem, and subtle variations in the text you choose can have a significant impact. For instance, the job title “mining engineer” has a monthly volume of 201-500. But the subtle change to “mining engineering” boosts the volume number to 851-1.7K.
Once you know the exact format of the best-ranking keyword terms it’s easy to work them into meaningful content in your LinkedIn profile in both your job title and that all-important summary. At the LinkedIn article “7 Ways to Search Engine Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile,” expert Brynne Tillman recommends that top keywords should be included in your headline, summary, and job description. Headshots, banners, and images should all be tagged as well to ensure that you can be found in image searches.
Using the LinkedIn blogging platform Pulse can be a powerful tool for setting yourself apart from the crowd since the Google algorithms love quality content and rank accordingly. Combined with the inherent LinkedIn domain authority, Pulse posting can give you a significant SEO edge.
Optimized Links
Optimizing links in the LinkedIn contacts section is simply a matter of choosing “other” from the drop-down menu and customizing that default “company website” with more powerful custom keywords and phrases. A little attention to these LinkedIn details is well worth the effort and time well spent when you consider the benefits of optimizing on a site which is in the Top Five which Google indexes.
Treating LinkedIn as a Business-to-Business search engine which goes above and beyond the social media limits of Facebook and Twitter in terms of career advancement is a best practice for any professional seeking to attract the best opportunities.
About Resource Erectors
At Resource Erectors it’s our mission to connect the best qualified experienced professionals with North America’s best companies in the mining, civil construction, and engineering industries. If you’re one of those highly talented professionals seeking to advance your career we can help you put your best foot forward and match you up with the industry leaders who need your talent now so don’t hesitate to contact us.
