5 Ways To Get Found On LinkedIn

There are 120 millions professionals on LinkedIn today, and chances are some of them are looking to buy exactly what you are offering.

So, how can you make sure you are found by them when they do a LinkedIn search? By optimizing your LinkedIn profile and placing keywords strategically in five different areas of your profile.

I’ll start off by using myself as an example. I want to be known as the LinkedIn Expert. Now, I have close to 18 million people in my network. When I do simple search by entering “LinkedIn Expert” into the search box in the upper right next to “people”, I get 8,765 results for that term and I appear as number two. That’s not bad. As a result, I get media opportunities and consulting work just by people finding me.

Bear in mind that your search would be different. If you searched on “LinkedIn Expert” but I am not in your network, of course I won’t show up. But within my network, I do. Now we’ll cover exactly how you can appear on page one of LinkedIn searches so you become known as the expert, gain credibility and authority status, and get the sale or job or whatever you are seeking.

Here are the five main places you will want to put your keyword for your brand or expertise. Once you make these changes, you should see some instant results in how you appear in LinkedIn searches.

Headline
Let’s say you want to be found for IT Training. You could put: “I Provide The Most Comprehensive and Affordable IT Training In The State of Nevada”

Just be sure that you include your brand or keyword in the headline, as that is one the key places LinkedIn considers when ranking you in searches.

Current work experience
The second place LinkedIn looks is your current work experience, so make sure your current jobs have your keyword prominently displayed. I have “LinkedIn Expert” in my current jobs, and so that helps me with rankings.

Past work experience
Just like your current jobs, you want your past jobs to have your keyword so LinkedIn moves you up in the rankings. So, maybe you’re thinking that you don’t have a past “job” that had that keyword. Simple: The things you list as “jobs” don’t have to be full time jobs. If you did some consulting, or volunteer work, or anything in which you could put as a “job” on LinkedIn and has that keyword, you are all set.

On my profile, I have as past jobs some short term LinkedIn consulting and speaking work. That enables me to use the term “LinkedIn Expert” and move me up in the rankings.

Summary
Here is where you get to give your commercial for your brand, for You, Inc. Remember to make it value driven and benefit oriented, stating how you help people and how they reach you and hire you. You can also add a little bit about you personally in this section. For example, I have a short section that states what my philosophy on life is. People want to do business with those that they know, so adding some personal thoughts is helpful.

Your summary is where you need to add keywords, i.e. your branding, to make sure you show up high in the search rankings. Don’t “stuff” keywords, work them in so that your summary still reads correctly and flows. You have 2,000 characters to use, and I suggest you use them all.

Specialties
Add your keywords here when you list your specialties, and use the format where you stack them up one by one to make it easy to scan. You add your specialties in the “edit summary” section. Don’t just add a block of words. Some people have begun copy and pasting blocks of words to rank higher and to me it looks totally ridiculous. It is spammy and unprofessional. Yes, you want to rank high in searches, but you also want your profile to be readable and user-friendly.

There you have it. Try adding keywords – the phrases you want to be found for – in those five places today and then test it by searching for your keywords. If you keep on refining your profile, you will find you come up on the first page!