In the previous parts of this series we have seen what an excellent sales,marketing and networking tool Linked In is.I am pleased to say there is a further bonus and that of course is that it can really help boost your Search Engine Optimisation(SEO). As we are seeing with other Social Media Platforms like Twitter and Facebook,Google (and for that matter Bing ) place an increasing emphasis on Social Content. As you will know from other posts on the this blog authentic content is king and Linked In is a great source of content.Also using Linked In provides a credibility that most people look for when Googling, or researching a certain person,topic or Company.
So what are the key things you need to do on Linked In that will really help your SEO?
1. Use Anchor Text in Links
Every Linked In profile can list as many as 3 web links. The default options include “Company Website” and “Blog,” but these just aren’t very SEO-friendly. You can customise the URLs by selecting the “Other” option. Use a keyword-rich title, such as “My E-Commerce Bike Accessories Website.”
2. Finish Your Profile
As we saw in Part 1 this is obvious,but far too many people haven’t taken the time to fully complete their Linked In profiles.You can see here what you need to do more generally to optimise your profile but there are two SEO specific things to look out for.Firstly don’t be afraid to add your entire work history (may be not the paper round you had aged 13!).There may be individuals looking you up by previous jobs you have had.This is especially important if you have a pretty common name Secondly making sure if your profile is completed with key words your want associated with your name really helps too.
3. Keyword-Optimise Your Job Titles
Optimising your job titles slightly (though obviously don’t embellish) to include a few keywords is helpful. For example instead of “Sales Manager,” it helps SEO wise to clarify by saying “Software Sales Manager.”
4. Maximise Your Group Membership
Joining and participating in relevant groups obviously helps your networking but from an SEO point of view its also useful too as the group names appear on your profile, search engines have no choice but to crawl the titles and learn more about who you are and what you do. Not only will industry-relevant groups improve the keywords on your profile, but local groups like “West Midlands Engineering Professionals” can also help with Geo-targeted SEO. Joining a group related to your line of work is also very important. Not only does it give you a chance to network with colleagues, but it also allows search engines to associate your name with the group in searches.
5. Maximise the number of Network connections you have
Quite simply Linked In’s own search results elevate results for connections within a network (i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd level connections, groups).Therefore.the more people you are connected to the better.
6. Optimise Your Job Descriptions
Make your job descriptions on Linked In creative,truthful,descriptive and brief. Don’t write paragraph after paragraph use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. This also helps the reader when scanning your profile for relevant experience.
7. Claim Your Vanity URL
With Linked In you can customise both your and your Company URL with your name. This creates a better chance for your profile to rank with searched because search engines do look at key words in URLs.For example http://www.linkedin.com/in/janklin and http://www.linkedin.com/company/microsoft look so much better than the standard urls.
8. Don’t Keyword Stuff
Just like other areas of SEO so called keyword stuffing is a bad idea.This is where you repeat the same keywords ad nauseum throughout your profile.It doesn’t help SEO wise and its not very nice to read either.
9. Promote Your Linked In Profile Elsewhere
Hopefully obvious this one .Put a link to your Linked In profile on Facebook, Google+, and any websites you maintain to create inbound links.
10. Be Vigilant About Building Recommendations
When you have 10 or more recommendations it will elevate your profile’s search ranking.
11. Leave No Field Blank
Enough said hopefully
12.Keep Collecting Endorsements
While endorsements don’t yet directly help how well your profile ranks on Google they are a measure of ‘engagement’ with others.Google likes engagement as we can see from the development of its own ‘+1’ in Google+ so its likely this was and is changing.
13.Post Regular Updates
We know from other aspects of SEO that ‘content is king’ so regular updates are important a passive profile is less SEO friendly. I suggest one update a day to most clients ideally posted between 8.30 am and 11.00am.
Linked in was designed as a recruitment forum and then became a networking tool and now its a ‘Sales Tool’.As we have seen it can also really help your SEO which is just a bonus really isn’t it.
I hope this helps and get in touch if you need our help getting sales leads for your business from Linked In – richard@janklin.com
