This is part of the Social Media Spring Cleaning series. Catch up on posts you missed!
Many LinkedIn users don’t take full advantage of the platform, but instead use it as an online resume. There are a variety of ways to get more involved with LinkedIn, but today we’ll focus on simple steps you can take to enhance your profile. If you’re actively using LinkedIn, you want to make sure your profile is complete and accurate. You can increase your chances of being found through LinkedIn by optimizing your profile with these 7 tips.
1. Add custom anchor text to URLs
Each profile is allowed to list 3 links. Typically, you see generic links like “blog” or “company website” since these are the default options. However, you have the ability to choose the anchor text for your link. Click on the “Edit” link next to your Websites. Instead of choosing “Blog” or “Company Website” from the drop down menu, choose “Other” and you’ll have the option to add your own description.
Search engines use this anchor text to understand more about the content and the affects your SEO ranking. Make sure to include relevant keywords for your links here instead of choosing the generic options.
2. Optimize your job titles
Your job titles for current and previous positions should include keywords. These show up as H3 tags. Other areas to include keywords in your profile include: your professional headline, summary section, specialities section and skills section.
3. Join appropriate groups
You want to belong to groups that are relevant to your industry and keywords, too. If these appear publicly on your profile, you increase your keyword usage.
Join local groups related to your industry (in my case, Denver Social Media Marketing), but also find national or international groups related to your field that you can participate in and add to your profile.
4. Complete your profile
Is your profile 100% complete? If not, make sure to take the necessary steps to have a full profile. Ask for recommendations, fill out every section and use LinkedIn’s guidance to improve your profile.
5. Build quality connections
LinkedIn searches order your connections by relationship. You’ll see your connections first, followed by second and third degree connections. Make sure to build your network with coworkers, clients, customers and others that you know to increase your chances of extending your LinkedIn network.
6. Fill out your job descriptions
Your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct. Don’t write full paragraphs describing your responsibilities. Instead, write targeted bullet points that include your keywords.
7. Create a vanity URL
Make sure to take advantage of the feature that allows you to create your own vanity URL. Use this to create a SEO friendly link that also displays better on business cards and websites. Instead of having a URL with a random string of letters and numbers, you’ll have something that looks nice and performs better.
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
Thank you for your article. Very useful. I would like to also know how to find out for what kind of keywords the HR uses. Any tips?
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
June 27th, 2012 at 4:52 pm
Silvie, Are you trying to figure out what keywords HR professionals use to look for candidates to fill job openings? If so, it depends on the industry and the job opening.
I would recommend doing some searches on LinkedIn to see what comes up. For example, I might want to see what types of profiles come up for “Social Media Consultant”. I would perform a LinkedIn search as if I were a business or customer that was looking for a social media consultant and enter keywords that might be relevant to see what types of profiles come up.
I hope that helps!
Lindsay
[Reply]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
This entire post is BEAUTIFUL. It makes complete sense now that you mention it, and i have made the suggested changes.
THANK YOU!
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
June 28th, 2012 at 7:46 am
I’m glad you found it useful, Joseph!
[Reply]
Thanks for the article.I did correct some of your suggestions,specially no.1 anchor text link. I did not know this before.
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
June 28th, 2012 at 7:44 am
You’re welcome, Chintana. The anchor text for links isn’t easy to find. It’s a bit of a hidden option, but I’m glad you were able to use the suggestions on your own profile.
[Reply]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
How can I make a vanity url?
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
July 5th, 2012 at 11:56 am
When you’re logged into LinkedIn and viewing your personal profile, the Summary Box has a link that says “Public Profile”. You’ll see a link there and right next to it is a box that says “Edit”. Click on Edit and from that screen (upper right, I think) you can set your custom URL.
Hope that helps!
[Reply]
thanks for sharing those tips … BTW I would have liked to have a glimpse of an example over point 6, job description!
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
July 5th, 2012 at 11:58 am
I’m glad you enjoyed the tips. I didn’t include a screenshot for point 6 because it will vary so much depending on your occupation or industry. I would recommend browsing some LinkedIn profiles to see how others have done it in your industry. It will give you some good ideas for your own profile.
[Reply]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] achievements and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your company. And don’t [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
Great article… thanks for sharing!
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
July 27th, 2012 at 9:40 am
You’re welcome!
[Reply]
Thanks for the article. One question on point 1 customer anchor text. For instance I put in text “Technical Consultant” to highlight my area of interest but I don’t have an URL in mind. So I use the profile vanity URL (kind of like circular reference). Does this even make sense and do anything to SEO?
[Reply]
Lindsay Reply:
August 3rd, 2012 at 9:11 am
Hmmm, interesting question. I suppose that you could use the anchor text to direct people back to your LinkedIn profile, but it seems confusing. If I clicked on it, I would expect to be taken to another site. Since the person who is click on it is already viewing your profile, there doesn’t seem to be a need to include the link. I would recommend leaving it out until you have another social media site, blog, website or some other external site to link them to. They’re already on your profile, so there’s no need to resend them there.
[Reply]
Hi Lindsay!
These could be great tips. LinkedIn offers great opportunities for various businesses and professionals finding for better jobs. Gonna take these tips into accounts.
[Reply]
[...] que has estado y una descripción de los trabajos que has realizado en ellas. No te olvides de optimizar tu perfil de búsqueda. La creación de un perfil rico de palabras clave ayudará a la gente a encontrarte más [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly long
comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m
not writing all that over again. Anyhow, just wanted to say superb
blog!
[Reply]
Oh kittens yes. This is the exact reason
I was born. To find you, my long lost blogging soul-mate.
[Reply]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your pursuit descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, detailed and succinct.” Instead of essay out full paragraphs, use a far-reaching accumulation of applicable keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also boost your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] Lindsay Hunt recommends that “your job descriptions on LinkedIn should be creative, truthful, descriptive and succinct.” Instead of writing out full paragraphs, use a wide variety of relevant keywords in bullet-pointed lists. Formatting your descriptions will also increase your profile’s scannability. [...]
[...] companies and a description of the results you achieved in the past. Don’t forget to optimize your profile for search–creating a keyword rich profile will help people find you and your [...]
Can you explain point 3 further? Thanks.
[Reply]
mjsteele Reply:
March 2nd, 2013 at 6:30 am
I mean point 2 about the H3 tags.
[Reply]
Hey! I simply wish to give an enormous thumbs up for the nice
data you could have here on this post. I can be coming back to your blog for
extra soon.
[Reply]
Hello there! I could have sworn I’ve been to this site before but after checking through some of the post I realized it’s new to me.
Nonetheless, I’m definitely glad I found it and I’ll be bookmarking
and checking back often!
[Reply]