Top tips for LinkedIn SEO and profile optimisation

If you’re a business owner, you will likely have heard at least one person suggest you look into SEO, otherwise known as search engine optimisation. Most people search for services online, so if you’re trying to get your business noticed and bring in new customers, you will want to implement an online strategy. There is no use having a website if no one can find it, so it is highly beneficial to your business if you take steps to enhance your search presence. 

What a lot of businesses don’t consider is applying those same principles to their LinkedIn profiles. An underperforming LinkedIn won’t be as discoverable, nor will it have the same reach. Even small efforts to optimise your LinkedIn can significantly improve your brand’s overall search presence. 

Benefits of an SEO-friendly LinkedIn page

Your LinkedIn profile is another opportunity, aside from your company website, to tell your story, highlight your employees, and share useful content with your followers.

An SEO-friendly LinkedIn profile is excellent for your visibility. It provides valuable social proof, which will be reassuring to potential clients and collaborators who have yet to work with you. 

An SEO-optimised LinkedIn profile will appear at the top of Google search results, making people much more likely to navigate to it. 

Like Google, which is most traditionally associated with SEO, LinkedIn has its own algorithm. This algorithm determines which posts appear at the top of a user’s Linkedin feed and also has a bearing on a page’s ranking in search results. The steps you take to make an SEO-friendly LinkedIn page will also positively affect your page’s performance in LinkedIn’s own algorithm, making your content more visible to LinkedIn users.

Increasing traffic to your LinkedIn profile, sharing content with followers, and including backlinks should drive traffic back to your company website. This will have a positive effect on your website’s search ranking, in turn.

Finally, most of the steps you would take to optimise your profile for SEO are just good practices, making your profile and content more focused and valuable for the people reading it. 

In short, the more optimised your LinkedIn page, the more you will widen your reach and grow awareness of your business and services — the very reasons you will have made a LinkedIn profile in the first place. 

Five easy ways to optimise your LinkedIn page

With more than 850 million members in 200 countries and regions worldwide, LinkedIn is great for connecting with and sourcing new company talent. It can also be an incredibly useful tool for marketing your brand, expanding your reach, and taking your business to new heights. 

You can increase your chances of your LinkedIn business page appearing at the top of Google by addressing a few simple best practices:

FILL OUT YOUR PROFILE 

Filling out your LinkedIn profile in full is one of the most straightforward things you can do to improve not only the discoverability of your profile but its quality. If someone views your profile to learn more about you and finds it incomplete, it can be frustrating for them, and you can miss an opportunity to convert a client or potential collaborator. 

You should explain your service offering, industry, professional interests and experience in clear, focused terms. This will get the most social proof and value from your LinkedIn profile. It will also improve its search ranking, particularly if you use this opportunity to take up the next tip. 

USE KEYWORDS 

LinkedIn SEO works the same way as optimising your website for key search terms. Strategically place keywords throughout your LinkedIn profile so relevant users can easily find you. This exercise should also help present your profile and business offering in the most focused, relevant way. 

CREATE BACKLINKS

Linking to and from your LinkedIn page and business website or blog will improve the ranking of your LinkedIn page in both Google and LinkedIn’s own search. This should drive up views and engagement, which in turn will improve your page’s ranking.   

Before you do this, it is also well worth customising your LinkedIn profile URL. LinkedIn typically automatically adds random numbers and letters to your name when you create your profile. This can make the link longer, scruffier and harder to remember than it needs to be. LinkedIn allows you to edit your URL, removing any random figures and simplifying it to your name and profession if you wish. 

EXPAND YOUR NETWORK

LinkedIn is a network; you will get more out of it the more professional connections you make. The number of connections you have and their quality and relevance to your field and career direction is a ranking signal that determines the visibility of your profile and content. 

SHARE RELEVANT CONTENT

Sharing relevant content connects you with your followers while improving the search ranking of your own page. You can demonstrate your expertise with an original article, comment on industry news, or share significant personal and company developments. Incorporating keywords and hashtags will make the content more discoverable, and regularly updating your profile and sharing fresh content will also push pages up towards the top of search results. The search engine will recognise the activity on your page, seeing that you provide fresh, useful content, indexing the page and driving up its ranking. 

How can we help?

Most people understand the importance of ranking highly on Google, but many are put off by the technical terms involved or uncertain about the steps you need to take to get there. 

Applying these optimisation tips to your LinkedIn will help with visibility, trust and brand authority. They will also make you look more polished and professional in front of potential connections.

If you need any further guidance or would like to chat with one of our SEO specialists, get in touch at hello@codemilk.co.uk or contact us to find out more. We can get you on your way to gaining the online presence your business needs.