LinkedIn is slowly introducing more and more options that have the ability to be optimized and help users improve their profiles for LinkedIn search. LinkedIn will even tell you the percentile you're in when it comes to views in your industry with their new How You Rank feature. This essentially means you can see if you're in the top 5% of views vs. the top 50%, and you can see changes to this number in real time. For many, this number wasn't what they had hoped (especially if you're hoping to look for a new job). This means optimization attention is on the rise, and it's time to, essentially, "SEO" your LinkedIn account.
Tips to Optimizing Your LinkedIn Account for Better Visibility
Once again, many of the LinkedIn optimization options are changing and becoming more advanced, so even if you went through and tweaked your profile a few years ago, it's a good idea to give it a second look. Below are a few tips to "SEO" your account:
  1. Use the publisher option.
The publisher option is fairly new and allows you to publish articles directly to LinkedIn. This helps you not only show your expertise, but it gives the LinkedIn bots more content and information to work with. This shows you're active, and it also helps your name and face show up in the newsfeed of your followers.
In an article on Search Engine Watch, Amanda DiSilvestro wrote about how the publisher option works and how to cater your content to LinkedIn. In short, all you have to do is visit your homepage and click the little pencil icon, which will be below your photo. You can then copy and paste, publish, and check metrics for the post once it's live. This post will show up in your connections' news feeds as well as be posted on your LinkedIn profile page under the Posts section.
  1. Fill out all of the information available and use keywords as often as possible.
This is oftentimes the only point that is made when it comes to answering questions about LinkedIn optimization. You have to make sure everything is filled out on your profile and detailed using keywords. This includes your description, experiences, special projects, and even down to extra features such as Volunteer history and Causes You Care About.
  1. Use standard job titles.
Piggy-backing off of the last point, sometimes people will create job titles for themselves to show personality or show that they are a jack of all trades. For example, the title "Editor/ Writer" is not a job title that LinkedIn is really searching. A LinkedIn article also gave the example of a fun job title like "Chief Janitor," which is also not something that will get your profile viewed. This might be more fun or more accurate, but the more standard you can be here the better. In a sense, using standard job titles is part of optimizing using keywords.
  1. Promote your LinkedIn profile elsewhere on the web.
Part of SEO-ing a LinkedIn profile is getting that profile a little bit of publicity. You should put a link to your profile in your email signature as well as on other social networking accounts so that you can start creating inbound links. If you ever publisher something interesting on LinkedIn, you can link back to that post on your Facebook profile. You have to be careful mixing social audiences, but as long as you're sharing something relevant, this is a great way to give your profile a little bit of extra visibility, hopefully form some new connections, and maybe even help you build links.
  1. Continue to collect endorsements.
It's tough to say whether or not this will affect your rankings, but they will help increase the value of your profile and help you stay connected to your network. Someassume that the new LinkedIn How You Rank means that they are moving toward ranking you based on popularity, and endorsements are easily a part of that. It's always good to be prepared just in case!
You can collect endorsements by endorsing other people or asking some of your closest connections. It also helps to focus on the skills you add in your endorsement section and make sure they are detailed and accurate.
  1. Customize your anchor text links.
You may have noticed that your LinkedIn profile can have up to three links, including Company Website and Blog. What most people don't realize, however, is that you can actually change the anchor text to be something more descriptive. All you have to do is select the "Other" option.
  1. Make sure your public profile is visible.
It sounds obvious, but make sure that your public profile is actually visible. In other words, you may think that you're posting things publicly (because after all, it's called a Public Profile), but this isn't always the case. Scroll over your account name, click Settings, click Edit Your Public Profile, and then make sure that the box next to Make My Public Profile Visible to Everyone is checked.