How to Use LinkedIn to Help People Find your Business
Between the huge user-base of Facebook and the brevity of Twitter, many people see LinkedIn as social media only for job seekers. But if you are looking for customers, not a job, LinkedIn is a great tool for SEO and advertising your company. In about 15 minutes a week, you will be able to use LinkedIn to build your brand, help your people show their authority in their field, and drive traffic to your website.
People Are Searching LinkedIn for Your Services
Google and other search engines are crawling the content on LinkedIn and adding it to their index. Google might even be crawling LinkedIn more than your company website. If the SEO of your website that might get crawled monthly is important, how much more so is the content on LinkedIn that might be crawled daily? Get your co-workers together and spruce up your LinkedIn presence with this in mind. Not only are people using the search on LinkedIn to find people to help them with their problems, they are searching for solutions to problems that you can identify on your LinkedIn Profile.
Keep Your LinkedIn Profile Fresh and Clear
Before posts and shared links, give some attention to your personal LinkedIn profile. Remember that the profile isn’t for you. It is for people that are looking for someone like you, or a business doing what yours does.
- Use words that your clients use and try to define who you are, who you help, and how you do it.
- Put a good professional picture on your profile and look directly at the camera.
- Don’t include your dog unless you’re a vet.
- Don’t include your kids unless they are movie stars and your job is being their agent.
- Make your description search engine friendly. You know people are looking for a “Web Designer” so put that instead of “Jedi Ninja Master of the Internets.”
- Use the full space to describe several of the things you do and trim as much fat from that entry as you can. Efficiency of words is king when people are glancing at a profile.
Use LinkedIn to Promote Your Business As Much As Yourself
Look through the profile and see what points to the benefits of your company, not just you. Remember, you’ve moved on from using LinkedIn as a job search tool, and you’re using it to promote your business. Even though you’re not looking for another job, you’re looking for people to hire you as an employee of your company.
Use the Skills & Endorsements section to highlight reasons for people to pick you. You can drag to reorder skills, and add new ones. If it doesn’t already show a service you provide, add it to the list and move it near the top. Before long, people will be prompted to endorse you for that skill too. The skills that you put in that list are indexed by search engines, so they will help you show up when someone does a search for “Evansville Pardot Andrew” whether you are endorsed for that or not.
Keep SEO in Mind on Your Whole LinkedIn Page
Look up the standard industry definitions for what you do. Be creative and flashy in your art, but not in your descriptions. Get to the point, use bulleted lists, and speak directly to your client’s pain points. Use the name you use in public. If people call you Andrew face-to-face, don’t be Reginald A. Epperson III on LinkedIn.
The goal is for people to find you, so you want to make that as easy for them as possible. Being straightforward in your LinkedIn profile is one of the simplest ways to make that happen. Spend some time making your profile clear and understandable. It will help search engines to return accurate results to people searching for just what you and your company offer.
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