SEO for LinkedIn Profiles

September 11, 2007 • Filed in: Thoughts & Relationships

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Over at LinkedIn, somebody asked this question:

Have you explored search engine optimization methods to help LinkedIn profiles rank well in relevant searches? Can you share thoughts on how to identify appropriate keywords? How to optimize a profile? Any good articles or other sources to recommend?

Social networking sites typically give people a profile page. If you can search engine optimize your profile, then you can pretty much give people an idea of your online reputation. This is the answer I gave:

It’s rather coincidental that you asked this just as I typed my own name and found my LinkedIn Profile at the first page of Google.

Using the linkedIn profile as a “landing page” for SEO purposes can have advantages. People searching for my name, for instance, can see my personal profile and professional background. LinkedIn allows me to control the amount of information shared. I have some measure of of my personal online reputation.

You could use keywords that would be related to the image you want to project. For instance you can use the keyword “SEO hunk” on your profile. Just put it somewhere on the editable text (perhaps on job titles). Just check if it uses any of the header tags.

Then use the word “SEO hunk” on other websites and have the link point to your LinkedIn profile. You have a personal blog? Make a blog link to your LinkedIn profile. If the competition is not too strong, you could rank quite high.

As of this writing there are only around 496,000 other websites with the word “SEO hunk” so there is a good chance you get to first page with a little SEO work.

However, who actually searches for the keywords “SEO hunk”? You might as well use terms that are searched a lot. Use tools like wordtracker to find these terms.

Given enough time and attention, I believe SEO can really work on LinkedIn profiles.