Boosting your findability and presence on LinkedIn has never been more important in your job search.
After all, you can build your Profile, but unless it’s keyword-optimized to draw traffic, it will be the proverbial tree falling in the forest (with no one to witness your great skills).
To get interest from employers, your Profile MUST contain sufficient skills and terms that employers use in search queries. With more dense keyword content, more traffic and potential job opportunities will come your way.
Try these 3 simple-to-implement strategies for better LinkedIn Profile keyword strategy (and the attention you want from employers):
1 – Obtain the right keywords for your industry.
As more people join the site (240+ million at last count) and more employers post jobs, you have even better opportunities to locate prime keywords for your Profile.
First of all, read the Profiles of your competitors by using the Search window at the top of the page to look for others in your field (As an example, “CIO manufacturing” will turn up other technology leaders vying for leadership roles in production environments).
Next, use LinkedIn Jobs or a job board to find target positions in your industry. Make a list of the skills shown as requirements for each role.
Better yet, cut and paste several of these job descriptions into a Wordle text box, using Wordle.net, and then select the most commonly used terms (shown in large font).
2 – Add keywords in highly indexed LinkedIn Profile fields.
Now that you have a great mix of keywords, where should you add them?
Use the most highly indexed fields on the site (Headline, Company Name, Job Titles, Project Names), as this will intensify your findability for each keyword. You can (and should) add keywords in other areas such as job descriptions and your Summary, of course.
However, placing keywords in highly indexed fields will make a significant difference in traffic volume.
For example, if your keyword list includes “Energy,” “COO,” and “Turnarounds,” you can create a Headline with these terms:
COO, VP Operations | Production Turnarounds Impacting Millions in Profit | Lean Six Sigma & Continuous Improvement
You can also add keywords at the end of your Job Titles if relevant (”Project Manager – SAP and Business Intelligence”), instead of just “Project Manager.” Create Projects with keywords in the Project Name field (such as “Biotech Research Initiative”).
3 – Inject keywords into your Skills & Expertise section.
This section of LinkedIn allows you to specify sought-after competencies, with the option to receive Endorsements on them.
While Endorsements may seem superficial, they’re often reviewed by employers researching your Profile (especially if you gather more than 100 on a particular Skill).
In addition, keywords with the most Endorsements will bump up your rankings in LinkedIn searches for competing candidates. In other words, if you have 99+ Endorsements on “Product Launch” or “Project Management,” you’ll get more visits from recruiters for these terms.
You can, of course, reach out personally to your LinkedIn contacts and ask for Endorsements on an array of keywords – further accelerating the process.
In summary, getting more traffic to your LinkedIn Profile is simple! Start to put a strong keyword strategy into place, and you’ll benefit from additional inquiries and interest from employers.
