Mastering LinkedIn™ For Business: Optimizing Your Profile Part 1
LinkedIn™, if not the favorite, is certainly in my top 3 favorite social media. The only reason it is not always on top is because depending upon who I am trying to target, for example 18 to 25-yr-olds who are artists, as an example, there might be another site that would rank higher for a specific audience.
However, if you are using social media to drive leads to your business website and to drive more revenue, LinkedIn™ is generally very beneficial for most businesses. In fact, from information gathered from various studies,people trust the information they find on LinkedIn™ 2X more than information found on any other social media site. So, if you are a business or professional and your business is built on trust, LinkedIn™ is very important.
Most importantly if people do a Google™ search, your LinkedIn™ profile may appear higher than your website on the search results.
Therefore your LinkedIn™ profile may be the first impression people form about you and your business. So, make it the best it can be.
Electrify and Optimize Your LinkedIn™ Profile
LinkedIn™ is a people to people network. People search LinkedIn™ looking for people(and the jobs they do). Therefore, your LinkedIn™ profile is really important in getting found on LinkedIn™; much much more important than your LinkedIn™ business page.
And like any other internet search engine, LinkedIn™ has an algorithm to determine the ranking of search results. And naturally, you want to rank highly on the search results so people find you.
The key to doing this is to put yourself in the heads of your clients. What are they searching for? What kind of people are they searching for on LinkedIn™? As an example, for me, they might be looking for “social media coach” or “LinkedIn Expert”.
Step 1: Pick some keywords, actually, keyword phrases. And remember, people are looking for people on LinkedIn™, not things. So they are not looking for a couch on LinkedIn™, but for a “furniture seller”, or “furniture retailer”, as an example. So, Step 1, brainstorm on your keyword phrases. Just take a few minutes and free form thoughts on likely phrases.
Step 2: Using Keyword Phrases In Your Profile
So, now that you have brainstormed on keyword phrases, pick the ones that best describe what you offer, 2-3 ideally, and use them, the same exact ones, in 4 different places in your profile, as described below:
1) Profile Headline: This is the approximately 128 characters that appear next to your profile picture. Put your keyword phrases here - all 2-3 of them. And be sure one of your keyword phrases describes the value/benefit you offer. So, not only “couch retailer”, but “high quality leather couch retailer”, or “free delivery couch retailer.”
The profile headline is the most important place because the headline people see as part of the search results usually determines whether they will click on your profile. So, grab attention (or be left in the dust).
Note in the example below of my profile Headline, “Growing Sales Using Online Visibility” describes the benefit I offer. Also note that I have a location as part of a keyword phrase. This is not necessary unless people will be using location as part of a search phrase.
2) Current Experience: We are going to come back to this section later and further enhance it. The key here is to remember you are using this section as a resume to get a job, but as a place to describe your business and the value you offer.
So in this section, use the same exact keyword phrases. You probably have to be inventive to do this, so get creative. Do not use founder, manager, owner, president. No one is looking for these keywords other than someone trying to sell you something.. not the reason you are here at all.
3) Past Work Experience: Once again, this is not a resume you are using to find a job, but a way to attract attention for your current business. So, get creative and inventive again and find a way to weave one or two of your keyword phrases into your past experience.
To give you a fun example.. “while working at Woolworths making sundaes and being dog-tired at the end of the day, with little extra money, I realized that finding a free delivery couch retailer is really important to people with little extra money to spend.” Obviously, this is a stretch, but you get the idea. And you do not need to list all of your past work experience - once again we are not using LinkedIn™ to find a job, so listing all of the past employment is not important.
4) Summary: Same exact keyword phrases here. We will describe in detail in Part 2 of this article exactly how to create your summary to “get the most bang for the buck.”
Now, go get started, and then read Part 2 for more tips. Of course, if you have questions, please feel free to email me at info@ampurbiz.com
Tags: Social Media, LinkedIn
Filed Under: Social Media, Online Visibility, Marketing Tips