Chapter 2
IN THIS CHAPTER
Optimizing your LinkedIn search results
Determining your keywords
Creating a clickable search result
Increasing your search ranking
LinkedIn helps people connect with opportunity. Whether it’s a new job, a sale, a media interview, a business partnership, or something else entirely, many times the connection starts with a LinkedIn search.
LinkedIn has over 500 million users in over 200 countries. Making sure your profile sticks out and pops up is important. In this chapter I show you how people use LinkedIn as a search engine. I show you the importance of your search result and how to make it attractive and clickable. I also show you how to discover your keywords and how to infuse them into your profile for higher search engine ranking. By the time you finish this chapter, you will have a list of your keywords and the knowledge of how to dominate LinkedIn search results.
Getting views to your profile doesn’t always start through an Internet search. LinkedIn is more than just a professional network and profile listing. LinkedIn is a different type of search engine. Most search engines return websites. Searches conducted via a LinkedIn search return LinkedIn profiles, company pages, job listings, reader-published blog articles, and LinkedIn Groups. LinkedIn search is also used to find potential customers, vendors, service providers, and employees.
On the top of LinkedIn’s website is the search bar. This is where most people enter their search terms. When people search LinkedIn, they search in two different ways: name or keyword. A direct name search is typically performed after a resume has been received or when a person has met you and is looking to connect on LinkedIn. The person doing the search is looking for one, specific person.
Most times, people are searching not for a specific person but for a type of person with distinct skill sets and strengths. In this situation, the person conducting the search enters those skill sets as keywords into the LinkedIn search bar. For example, Figure 2-1 shows the results of a LinkedIn search for the keywords “LinkedIn Profile Writer.” The search results display profiles that contain those keywords. Your profile never displays as a search result listing if those keywords do not exist within the profile. Therefore, to get found in searches, your profile must contain the keywords a person is using in the search.
The LinkedIn search bar is not the only way to search within LinkedIn. When recruiters search LinkedIn, they often use LinkedIn’s Search filters. See what the People search filters look like in Figure 2-2.
The search filters provide additional fields to narrow your search to exactly your target results. You can search by location, current and past company, industry, school, and language. You can also drill in even deeper by searching by First and Last Names or Job Titles. Premium LinkedIn members get access to even more filters such as Years of Experience, Function, Seniority Level, Company Size, and more.
Recruiters typically search by the job titles they are trying to fill. If they are looking for a candidate in a specific area, they will add the Location to make sure they are only finding people within that area.
Follow these steps to use LinkedIn’s search filters:
LinkedIn.com
.From any LinkedIn page, click the magnifying glass icon, which is found to the right of the LinkedIn search bar.
The search filters sidebar opens on the right.
Enter your desired search terms into any of the open fields.
Filter the search results by the degree of connection you'd like to appear in the search results, selected geographic area, or industry.
Click Search, which is located at the top of the page.
The search results page appears to the left of the search filter fields.
In addition to searching for people, you can also search LinkedIn for jobs, content, companies, groups, and schools.
Your search result listing is comprised of the following:
Looking through pages and pages of LinkedIn search results is a daunting task. It’s important to make sure your search result listing showcases you in the best light. For example, many recruiters and hiring managers actually skip past profiles that do not have a profile picture. The omission of a profile picture typically means that the LinkedIn user doesn’t take the social network seriously, provides little detail to his or her career trajectory, and won’t respond when an InMail message is sent. (InMail is a message that you send to a member not directly connected to you. Only Premium members have the ability to send InMail messages.) By including a profile picture, you are proving that you are a serious LinkedIn user and networker. I show you how to upload a profile picture in Chapter 6.
Let’s see what your full search result listing looks like by performing a name search for you:
Type your name into the LinkedIn search bar and click the magnifying glass icon (or press Enter or Return).
While you are typing, LinkedIn may provide you with suggestions from a drop-down list. Do not choose any of these suggestions. Upon pressing Enter or Return, search result listings appear.
Find your search result listing.
Your search result listing may be the only result, or if you have a common name, your listing may reside farther down the list of search results.
Look at your search result and determine if it showcases you in the best light.
Did you upload a professional profile picture? Is your headline engaging? Read through the chapters in Part 2 of this book to learn how to optimize these different areas.
Look at Figure 2-3 to see the difference between an optimized and an unoptimized search result listing and the differences between a free and a paid user listing.
To appear in search results, you must identify what words people are using to find a person like you. What words would they type into LinkedIn search to find you? These search terms are your keywords.
How many keywords do you need? I suggest choosing five to ten main keywords to pepper throughout your profile. When you try to rank for too many keywords, you lose keyword density and you end up not ranking for anything.
Keywords don’t have to be just one word. A keyword could be a phrase. For example, profit and loss may be three words, but it is considered one keyword.
Keywords must be descriptive and exact. Problem-solver and dynamic professional are not good keywords. These words are too general and can describe anyone from a top executive to an office manager. Good keywords are specific and reflective of key skills, strengths, core competencies, specialties, and abilities that differentiate you.
Here are some questions to help you determine your keywords:
Answering these questions provides you with a starting point. Now that you have a few keywords, the next step is to use one of several online keyword tools to find additional, related keywords.
The following is a list of keyword examples to get you thinking. These are real meat-and-potato keywords. Highlight or star the keywords that seem to fit you and your role. Once you have that list, use the keyword tools described in the next section to dive in deeper and find more keywords that fit you.
Coming up with the right keywords is challenging. The good news is that there are tools designed to assist you in finding the right keywords.
To use a word cloud generator, you first need text for it to analyze. Use text from your current job description in digital format or find a similar job description online. If you are looking for your next opportunity, do an Internet search for a job description that fits your dream job. Don’t worry whether the position is in your location or already filled. Most job descriptions are the same — right now you are just after the text and not the actual opportunity.
If you are not a job seeker but instead looking to brand yourself more effectively or showcase yourself as an expert thought leader, use the content of your company’s website or marketing literature. There are also industry-related articles and whitepapers that you can use. Also check out the LinkedIn profiles of people you admire and copy their LinkedIn profile content into the generator. (But do not copy their content into your own profile!)
There are a number of word cloud generators out there on the Internet. Here are a few examples:
http://tagul.com
)www.tagxedo.com
)http://worditout.com
)www.wordle.net
)www.wordsift.com
)Wordle.net is my favorite free word cloud generator. I love it because not only is Wordle.net super easy to use, but also the resulting word clouds are visually beautiful.
Follow these steps to use Wordle.net to generate a word cloud for keyword discovery:
Open your web browser and go to wordle.net/create
.
A large, empty text box appears with the words, “Paste in a bunch of text:”. Figure 2-4 shows the text input area of Wordle.net.
Paste the text into the Wordle.net text box.
Copy and paste by using the right-click menu or by pressing Ctrl+C (Windows) or Cmd+C (Mac) to copy and Ctrl+V (Windows) or Cmd+V (Mac) to paste.
The resulting word cloud visually shows you what words hold the most weight. These words are typically your keywords. Check out Figure 2-5 to see what a word cloud looks like. I used a job description text to generate this word cloud. Clearly sales, management, business, and development are important keywords for this position.
Hopefully your word cloud provided you a good strong list of keywords. If not, I have another keyword tool, and this one is found right in LinkedIn.
LinkedIn includes a section on its site devoted entirely to skill development called Topics. LinkedIn collects and analyzes the skills that are listed on the Skills & Endorsements section of members’ LinkedIn profile pages. The most popular skills have Topic pages associated with them that present additional information. These Topic pages provide a description of the skill, the top companies where people with this skill work, other skills they share, and where they went to school. Additionally, you can see Lynda.com courses that help you develop the skill, posts members have written that deal with the skill, presentations on SlideShare that relate to the skills, and LinkedIn Groups connected to the skill. And at the very bottom of the Topic page, a list of related skills appears.
The related skills section of the Topic page is a great page to discover additional keywords. By visiting the Business Strategy Topic page, as shown in Figure 2-6, you’ll see that other members with that skill also know: Business Planning, Market Entry, International Business, Corporate Development and Management Consulting. These top, “related” skills may also describe your skill sets. If so, add them to your LinkedIn Skills section.
As helpful as the Topic pages are, LinkedIn doesn’t provide an easy way to access the Topic page directory. To access the directory, follow these steps:
Go to https://www.linkedin.com/directory/topics/
.
The LinkedIn Topic page directory appears.
Because LinkedIn doesn't provide an easy way to access such an important page, I recommend creating a browser bookmark.
In the Browse By Name category, click the first letter of the keyword you want to learn more about.
A new page displays with a list of keywords starting with that letter.
Click your desired keyword.
The Topic page for that keyword appears.
I have one more site in my arsenal of keyword tools to help you determine your keywords: Google AdWords Keyword Planner. This free online application helps you find keywords by utilizing Google’s search history to determine related keywords.
To use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find keywords, follow these steps:
Go to https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner
and sign into your Google account.
If you don’t have a Google account, create one by selecting “Create an account” in the upper-right corner.
Once you are signed in, under the heading, “Find new keywords and get search volume data,” expand the section that reads, “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website, or category” by clicking the right arrow.
The area expands and you see a number of new fields.
Click the Get Ideas button.
A graph displaying the average monthly search numbers appears.
Click the Keyword Ideas tab under the graph.
You see a list of related keywords.
By searching for the keyword, Conflict Resolution, Google AdWords Keyword Planner provides you with conflict management, mediation, and dispute resolution.
Once you determine your keywords, write them down. Don’t make the mistake of trying to remember them in your head. It’s important to keep these keywords in front of you so you can work them into your LinkedIn profile in an organic, natural manner. In Figure 2-7 is a blank form to use to jot down your keywords.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process of making certain strategic changes to a profile to boost its search ranking. By putting in a little effort, you can improve your profile’s ranking so it appears more often and higher in search. Certain areas within your profile are highly sensitive to the addition of keywords. When you add keywords to these areas, the LinkedIn search algorithm treats these keywords with more weight and your profile ranks higher on the search results page. These highly sensitive SEO fields are:
Make sure these five areas are rich in your chosen keywords. Don’t just list keywords in the summary and job description fields. Use your keywords intentionally yet naturally in your narrative. Write for your reader first and the search engine second.
The more times a keyword is repeated throughout your profile, the higher you may rank for that keyword in LinkedIn search results. Although repeating keywords is a good thing, it’s easy to become obnoxious, so be careful not to overdo it!
Figure 2-8 demonstrates the difference between strategic keyword usage and obnoxious keyword stuffing.
In addition to building a powerful profile enriched with keywords, another way to increase your LinkedIn search ranking is to have a large number of connections within your LinkedIn network.
When a person searches LinkedIn, they are not searching the entire LinkedIn database of users. They are only searching their LinkedIn network. Your LinkedIn network extends three degrees. Your first-degree connections are the people who have accepted your LinkedIn connection invitation and ones you have accepted. Second-degree connections are those people who are first-degree connections of your first-degree connections. Third-degree connections are the first-degree connections of your second-degree connections. Additionally, any people who are in a LinkedIn Group that you belong to are also considered part of your LinkedIn network.
Figure 2-9 is a visualization of your LinkedIn network. Your network increases exponentially as you add more first-degree connections.
When people perform a LinkedIn search, the resulting profiles are from their LinkedIn network. Every now and then you may see a person from outside your LinkedIn network; however, when that happens, you are prevented from seeing that person’s full name and that person’s profile may not be completely accessible to you.
LinkedIn ranks the profiles of people directly related to you first. This means the more people you are connected to directly, the higher you rank in a LinkedIn search.
In the next chapter, let’s see how to take your keywords and add them to LinkedIn’s Skills & Endorsements section.