Social media profiles appear in search engine results, which means that those profiles help with your company’s SEO. But can you use SEO to help you with your LinkedIn marketing strategy? That answer is a resounding yes.
SEO on LinkedIn
You can use Search Engine Optimization on your LinkedIn profile the same way you leverage SEO on your company website. Take the list of keywords that you are trying to use for your website, and use them in key locations on your profile:
- Name
- Headline
- Summary
- Experience
- Skills and Endorsements
Name
While the name field may be the first area LinkedIn searches for keywords,you should use this tactic with caution. You have 40 characters to use in your last name field, but if you add too many keywords it will look unprofessional and keyword-stuffed. Over stuffing your last name field also makes it harder for your prospects to find you by name. A third reason to refrain from being too keyword happy in the last name field is, when individuals use the “People You May Know” sidebar widget, your last name will cut off your Headline area, and your Headline area is prime real estate on your LinkedIn profile.
If you are going to use this tactic, be smart with the keywords you use. For example “John Doe, LinkedIn Expert” is an easy way to leverage this real estate without going overboard.
Headline
The Headline is another important area to use keywords. What’s more, they look more natural here than in your last name field. You can have up to 70 characters in the Headline, so use them to make sure you stand out from the crowd.
For example, if you are a copywriter, just putting “Copywriter, ABC Company” isn’t going to leverage your position when LinkedIn’s algorithms rank your profile. Adding something like “Helping SAAS companies create engaging web copy” is better.
If you can include your elevator pitch and keywords in your headline it makes it look natural and helps LinkedIn rank you. Another good option is to use your company tagline as an easy way to advertise your company. This type of headline also helps your ideal prospects understand what you do and who you help quickly and easily.
Summary
The Summary section of a LinkedIn profile is one of the most squandered pieces of real estate. Most people simply paste a copy of their resume in this section and call it a day.
Your Summary is a chance for you to have an intimate conversation with your ideal prospect. It allows you to tell them who you are, what you do, and why they should care.
The best way to attract your prospect and have them find your profile interesting is to use your top keywords in this section. As with your website content, you will want to use them in a natural way so that the text is easy to read.
And you won’t want to use all of your keywords here anyway, you have some other key areas of your LinkedIn profile left to optimize.
Experience
The Summary section should be about who you are and what you do. The Experience section is where you show prospects that you are an expert in your field. Add more keywords here in this section to highlight how your expertise can help prospects solve their problems.
Skills and Endorsements
Your Skills section offers you the opportunity to add all of your targeted keyword phrases as skills that reinforce your experience in your field. You have the ability to add up to 50 skills, so that is a lot of keywords that you can add to help your profile rank on LinkedIn.
Endorsements highlight skills that people have acknowledged you as an expert. Not only does this help with keywords, it also provides the social proof people rely on when making buying decisions.
LinkedIn Articles and SEO
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is only one way that you can leverage the benefits of SEO.
LinkedIn articles appear in Google search engine results. So these long form posts can provide you with the ability to create brand awareness, establish authority, and educate your network on and off LinkedIn.
If part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy includes publishing articles on LinkedIn, then you should use the same optimization strategies that you would use on your company blog:
- Include a main keyword in your eye catching headline
- Include header tags
- Use multiple subtitles that include keywords
- Include long tail keywords, related terms and alternate keywords in the body of your post
- Include video and images that are optimized
- Make the article high quality, engaging and shareable
Creating multiple LinkedIn articles allows you to focus on different sets of keywords, brings traffic to your LinkedIn profile, and increases your Social Selling Index, making your profile more visible to key prospects.
LinkedIn Marketing Strategy and SEO
Using Search Engine Optimization techniques as a part of your overall LinkedIn marketing strategy helps your social media activities provide you with benefits on LinkedIn and on Google. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile helps your prospects to find you and let’s you appear higher in LinkedIn search rankings. Creating LinkedIn articles attracts more people to your profile, establishes authority, and helps you rank for specific keywords on Google search results.
Do you need help implementing SEO techniques as a part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy? The experts at RevGrow can help. Learn more about our lead generation strategies by scheduling a call today.