It requires more than a compelling bio and a polished profile image.
Below, we’ll show you how to maximize LinkedIn SEO to enhance your visibility and engagement on the world’s biggest business networking platform.
Why You Need to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile with SEO in mind helps ensure you appear when the right people search for you. Both on and off the platform (more on that later).
This could be potential employers, clients, or even fans looking to follow you.
Without an optimized profile, it’ll be hard to appear for more than very specific searches of your name. And even then, there’ll be many people with the same name, so you need to make sure you stand out.
Imagine someone is searching for specific keywords or skills related to your professional background.
A well-optimized profile significantly increases the chances of your profile being featured in their search results.
On top of that, LinkedIn profiles can also show up in traditional search engine results pages (SERPs) like Google (as we’ve seen above), expanding your online presence even further.
Beyond profile optimization, the impact of SEO extends to your content.
LinkedIn posts and articles have the potential to rank within LinkedIn’s search engine, showcasing your expertise within the platform.
These articles, with their long-form nature and valuable insights, can also rank on traditional search engines.
This piggybacks on LinkedIn’s high level of authority for increased visibility both on and off the platform.
LinkedIn SEO won’t just help you appear when people directly search for you or things related to what you do. An optimized profile and content can also help you appear organically in people’s feeds.
But why does all of this increased visibility matter?
Because it can lead to:
An enhanced professional image: LinkedIn is THE professional network, and having a solid, optimized profile can make you appear more professional yourself
Networking opportunities: Appearing in searches and on users feeds presents opportunities to form new connections, growing your professional network
Appearing in job searches: This can make you more likely to be contacted by potential clients and employers
A boost for your personal brand: Having a fleshed out profile and increased visibility can boost your personal brand awareness and make you appear more trustworthy and authoritative in your industry
LinkedIn’s Ranking Factors
Like a lot of social media platforms, LinkedIn hasn’t openly defined its ranking criteria. But that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out some factors that could influence your visibility and ranking on LinkedIn search results:
Keywords
Much like traditional SEO, choosing the right keywords plays a crucial role in boosting your visibility on LinkedIn.
So, using relevant keywords signals to LinkedIn’s algorithms that your profile and content is relevant to the search query. Helping you appear in relevant search results:
Profile Completion
An “All-star” status on LinkedIn means a fully optimized profile. It tends to look more appealing and ranks higher in searches.
It involves filling out the following sections:
Profile Photo
Location
Industry
Education
Position
Skills
Summary
Spam
Whenever you post, LinkedIn sorts your content to determine whether it’s spam, low-quality, or high-quality.
Overloading your posts with bad spelling, irrelevant keywords, or fishy links not only deters users but also hinders your ranking, making your profile seem “spammy.” This can lead to your profile ranking poorly on LinkedIn.
Activity & Engagement
This is a key ranking factor for both search engines AND social media platforms. The more active you are (engaging, commenting, posting, and liking), the better your chances of being seen.
Similar to other social media platforms, LinkedIn also values the level of interaction your content receives. Like comments, likes, and reposts.
Recommendations and Endorsements
The more endorsements and recommendations you receive, the higher your chances of growing your profile’s visibility.
Profile Activity
What shows up in search results for members on LinkedIn is partly determined by their activity (such as the recent content they’ve shared and changes they’ve made to their profile) and the industry their connections work in.
So how active you are on the platform overall can affect your visibility.
How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile for SEO
Let’s explore the key strategies to supercharge the SEO of your LinkedIn profile:
1. Perform Keyword Research
Keyword research involves identifying the words and phrases your target audience uses to search for content or profiles.
There are a few ways you could go about doing keyword research for LinkedIn:
Using LinkedIn
Using keyword research tools like Semrush (which we’ll talk about a bit later on)
Let’s start with the first option: manually searching for keywords on LinkedIn.
Let’s say you’re a writer, and you’re looking to find keywords to optimize your profile for better visibility in the search results when people search for “writer.”
So, on LinkedIn, you’d search for the term “writer.” And then click on “People.”
This will give you a list of people (in this case it’s around 3,650,000) who are ranking for “writer” or some variation of it.
You can see that these users are targeting “freelance writer,” “content writer,” and “writer and proofreader.” This gives you more keyword ideas you can use for your profile.
You can also find more keyword variations if you scroll down to the bottom:
On top of that, you can also browse users’ profiles to get more keyword ideas.
Here’s an example:
As you can see, this person has targeted several keywords to increase their chances of being seen by people searching for these terms:
Content Writer
SEO Writer
Web Content Writer
Virtual Assistant
Writing
Blogging
Content Marketing
Copywriting
Technical Writing
Transcription
While this method does work, it’s a time-consuming process.
However, we could speed things up by using Semrush.
Head over to Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, enter your seed keyword, and hit “Search.”
You’ll then be presented with a list of keywords related to your seed term.
The Keyword Magic Tool can help you find thousands of keywords to target both on your profile AND in your content.
Start your keyword research
Explore the largest keyword database.
2. Keep a Complete and Updated Profile
LinkedIn stands out as one of the most comprehensive social media platforms. You can add a lot of information about yourself and what you do.
But so many people and businesses settle for a brief description in the “About” section and an image, missing out on a substantial opportunity.
Let’s take a look at what you should focus on to fully optimize your LinkedIn profile:
Images
When setting up your profile, ensure you have a good profile picture.
LinkedIn profile photos should:
Be clear and high-quality
Be PNGs or JPG
Be at least 400 x 400 px
Be under 8MB in size
Clearly show your face (and ideally be an up-to-date photo)
Have a simple background
Fit your industry (i.e., don’t use selfies if you work for a reputable law firm)
Background Photo
Background photos are like billboards. You can use this space to:
Make it clear what you do
Show your accomplishments and awards
Offer free resources
Just make sure you avoid placing any important information on the bottom left—it won’t be visible behind your profile picture.
Headline
Your picture and background are important to draw users in, but they don’t tell people much about you. That’s where headlines come in.
Headlines are limited to 220 characters, so you need to make sure you use this space wisely.
Your headline should include:
Your job title
Your area of expertise
How you can help the person viewing your profile
Your primary keyword and one or two other related keywords that you think are relevant
Think of it like an elevator pitch, and use it to make the best first impression as quickly as possible.
You should also include a link to your website, portfolio, or newsletter sign-up. This can be an effective method to drive targeted traffic to your website (where they can learn more about you, book a call, get in touch etc.).
Featured Posts
This is where you can display posts, newsletters, images, and articles. And you can add links that you feel best showcase your abilities and knowledge.
It’s a good way to direct users to your most in-depth and popular content.
If you want to add featured content, all you have to do is head over to your profile and click on the “Add profile section” button:
You’ll get a popup that lets you add sections to your profile.
Go to “Recommended” and click on “Add featured.”
Now, scroll down until you see the “Featured” section:
Click on the “+” button, and you’ll see a drop-down menu appear.
There are a bunch of options to choose from, but here are some recommendations:
For business owners: Prioritize links directing traffic to your site, articles discussing your company, or posts related to your products and services
If you’re looking for a job: Consider adding articles highlighting your achievements, linking to a PDF of your resume, or showcasing a certification you recently achieved
If you’re trying to position yourself as a thought leader: Add articles that showcase your expertise
Featured content isn’t permanent, so you can change it up to include new content as regularly as you like.
About
Your “About” section is where you can convince people to follow you, interact with your content, or become a client.
You have around 2,600 characters to play with here, so this is a great opportunity to really optimize your profile and stand out.
Note: You don’t need to use all of those characters. Only include relevant information that you think is useful for your target audience.
Let’s look at an example, and break down why it’s great:
First: your introduction should highlight what you can do for the reader.
The best way to do this is by targeting a pain point. In the image below, the pain point is that companies struggle to grow their online presence.
Your next few lines should showcase what makes you stand out above the rest. Making it a good place to highlight achievements or qualifications.
This is also where you’ll probably add the majority of your keywords.
In this instance, we can see that Neal Schaffer:
Is a company founder
Is an international keynote speaker
Has written 4 books
Created a popular blog
Hosts a podcast
Has experience as a teacher
He has also optimized the structure by breaking it up with arrows.
Using bullet points, arrows, and short paragraphs is a great way to make your content easier to read. And it subconsciously helps readers process information more easily.
Finally, you need to close off by letting users know how to contact you. You should add some contact details (in this case, messaging on LinkedIn, and an email address).
Bonus: You can add in some “Top skills” as a way to remind readers what your services are. (This also presents another opportunity to add in your keywords.)
Work Experience
In a sea of professionals, you must stand out.
Generic job titles can be good for search visibility. But you need to make sure you describe your job and role so that people can get a good understanding of exactly what you do.
This section is also an excellent place to incorporate your keywords.
Here’s a perfect example:
Reading this person’s description offers a thorough insight into their role and responsibilities.
You can also see that they used bullet points to enhance the structure of the content, making it more reader-friendly and digestible.
Skills and Endorsements
The Skills and Endorsements section is a great way to differentiate yourself from others in your niche.
Lots of recruiters and salespeople use this section to show why they’re trustworthy.
It’s also another good place to incorporate keywords that can improve your visibility in search results.
In the image above, you’ll see that some of the skills listed on this person’s profile have also been endorsed by others.
Endorsements are another great way to get some social proof of your abilities. Which backs up your skill set.
You can reach out to your connections and ask them to leave an endorsement. It might not majorly affect your rankings on the platform. But it can provide some social proof to boost your overall trustworthiness.
Recommendations
The Recommendations section is where you let others talk about you and your skill set.
There’s not much you can do in the way of optimization here. Those giving you recommendations may use keywords naturally, but the real value here is the social proof it provides.
When potential customers or connections see positive recommendations about your skills or business, they are more likely to reach out to you.
URL
A custom URL is great for:
Making your profile easier to remember and share
Boosting your credibility and projecting professionalism by showing your attention to detail
Giving your URL a cleaner look
Here’s an example of a clean, optimized URL. It’s simple, straightforward, and easy to remember:
You can customize your URL by clicking on the pencil icon next to “Public profile & URL.”
Products
Many of the tips we’ve discussed can also be applied to your company page.
However, there’s a unique aspect of your company page that deserves special attention—the Product page.
Showcasing your product should be top of the list for many companies.
Note: Product pages are only available for businesses in some industries.
Your product page provides an opportunity to convey what you’re offering. And, by localizing it all in your company profile, you can make it easy for people to find.
(It’s also another opportunity to insert some keywords to boost your company page’s visibility.)
Here’s a snippet of what LinkedIn’s Products page looks like:
Let’s scroll down and take a look at one of their products—LinkedIn Pages:
As you can see, LinkedIn has optimized this product page to promote specific features of their product, such as its ability to help grow your brand’s visibility and audience, all of which can speed up the decision-making process for customers.
They’ve also added a CTA to give people an extra push to check out the product.
Here’s how to set up your product page:
Click on the “+ Create” button on your company page:
From there, click on “Add a product”:
Enter your product’s name and hit “Get started”:
You’ll be taken to a setup page that looks like this:
From here, you can add your product’s name, category, CTA, website link, product highlights, featured customers, and community hashtags.
When it comes to describing your product, you’ve got 500 characters to work with, so make sure you identify your product’s USPs, and weave in your keywords like you would in your About section.
To describe your product and set your product category, click on the pencil icon next to “About the product”:
If you want to market your product to a specific audience, then go to “This product is intended for”:
Click on the pencil icon, and you’ll get a menu that looks like this:
From here, you can click on “My product is for specific job functions”:
If you click on the “Add function” button, you’ll be able to input a role and get a list of roles that you can choose from.
For example, let’s say your product is an SEO tool. You’d search for “SEO”:
You can see that “Search Engine Optimization Specialist” is on the list, so we’re going to select it and hit “Save.”
Now your product is targeted to show up for searches when anybody with the title “Search Engine Optimization Specialist” searches for an SEO product in the “Products” filter.
Once you’re done setting up your product, you’ll need to click “Submit for review”:
Once it has been reviewed, your optimized product page will go live.
3. Write Optimized LinkedIn Content
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, LinkedIn prioritizes displaying quality, relevant content in users’ feeds and search results.
So how do you create high-quality content for LinkedIn that’s also optimized for SEO?
Crafting Posts
Posts are great for boosting visibility and driving engagement on LinkedIn by providing tips and industry insights.
There are a variety of post formats, all with different benefits:
Text posts: Great for driving engagement by summarizing content and asking questions
Single-image posts: Effective at capturing attention and work well for content such as infographics and static visuals
Multi-image posts: Showcase multiple static images or tell a story in a visually appealing way
Native videos: Create a more personal connection between you and your audience
Documents: Let you easily share resources and information like reports and research as PDFs
Polls: Effective for generating engagement and provide a direct way to gather feedback and opinions from your audience
Newsletters: Let you publish a series of newsletters on the platform, notifying followers and subscribers
Once you’ve decided on your post format, it’s time to create some content.
Take a look at what kind of content and posts are popular within your niche, and see if you can replicate it. Or improve upon it with your own expertise.
Semrush has a tool to help you with that: Topic Research.
Normally, we’d use this tool for creating high-quality SEO website content. But it’s super useful for finding LinkedIn content ideas too.
Head to the tool and enter a topic:
Now, it will take you to a dashboard filled with content ideas:
You can prioritize these topics by difficulty or search volume. Or a metric that takes into account both, called Topic Efficiency.
By clicking on a topic, you’ll get a list of headlines, questions, and related searches.
One of the best ways to get engagement on LinkedIn is by answering questions.
Here’s one that could be a good topic: “Do SEO keywords need to be exact?”
After you’ve found a topic, it’s time to create content. To create great LinkedIn content with SEO in mind, follow these tips:
Write for your audience: Every post you create needs to have a point, and that’ll typically be to teach your audience something, provide them with entertainment, or get them to think differently about something
Use images and videos: You don’t need to use these for every single post, but they can be brilliant for driving engagement
Use emojis where appropriate: It’s not like every line needs one, but they can make your content more engaging and provide a friendlier tone
Nail your hook: Your users are scrolling through A LOT of posts, so your first few words are often the most important to catch (and keep) their attention
Use short sentences: One-line paragraphs are common on social media as they boost readability, so avoid long sentences and paragraphs
Make it personal: If you can add your own experience or opinion to what you’re saying, it can make the post more valuable AND more engaging
Add a CTA: Encourage users to take action (like clicking links, signing up to your newsletter, or simply engaging with the post)
With an app like Semrush’s AI Writing Assistant, you can generate entire posts and articles based on the topic you’ve chosen in minutes.
There’s even a dedicated “LinkedIn Posts” feature of the tool:
You just enter your audience, language, and post topic and the tool will generate your post:
While this post contains valuable information and serves as a great starting point, it’s crucial to enhance it with your own expertise, insights, and relevant keywords.
(It’s also important to keep in mind that posts are limited to 3,000 characters.)
Here’s a great example of a LinkedIn post:
As you can see, Neal Schaffer has broken his post up into smaller, digestible chunks.
He also added emojis, which makes his points more visible and easier to consume. And he added in a CTA.
Creating Articles
Articles are another great way to showcase your credibility and improve your visibility.
They are more suited for long-form content that goes super in-depth on a particular topic.
As a result, they present an opportunity to show off your expertise and position yourself as a thought leader.
Articles also provide a golden opportunity to drive more traffic to your website.
How?
By smartly linking to other relevant articles on your site.
But how do you come up with topics to write about?
You’ll need to pinpoint topics that really strike a chord with your audience and get them actively engaging with your content.
To do that, you’ll need to perform some keyword research to identify topics that your target audience is interested in. (And you can use the Topic Research tool we mentioned above.)
When you’re adding your article, you’ll get taken to the settings popup, where you can insert your SEO title and description:
Make sure to incorporate your keywords to enhance your chances of boosting the visibility of your article.
Once you’re done, hit “Save.”
When it comes to writing optimized LinkedIn articles, you should follow the same best practices as you would when creating content for your blog.
If you want to learn about the specifics, have a look at our Blog SEO guide.
A lot can be applied to your LinkedIn articles, but here’s the most important things to remember:
Article headlines are limited to 150 characters
Articles can be much longer than the 3,000 character limit on posts (100K+ characters)
You should optimize each article around one seed keyword
You should use your keyword in the title, description, and the body of the article
Use short paragraphs and sentences to keep your article easy to read
Incorporate images to highlight points and break up large walls of text
Use a compelling headline that grabs attention
Use links to guide users to engage with your other LinkedIn articles or posts you’ve written
When it comes to your posting strategy, you should aim to post at least 1-3 times a week. But what works best for you will depend on your own goals and audience.
4. Focus on Engagement
One of the best ways to get ahead on LinkedIn is through engagement.
As you begin to receive reactions and comments, make an effort to respond as quickly and frequently as you can.
You should also engage with others by commenting, liking, and sharing posts within your niche.
This is a good way to show up on other people’s feeds.
The more you engage and actively participate, the greater your odds of improving your visibility. And you can use it as a way to show off your expertise too.
5. Track and Analyze Your Performance Metrics
All of the points above are great ways to boost your visibility.
But you need to be able to analyze how your efforts are going. So you can do more of what’s working and identify areas you can improve.
And so that you can understand how your LinkedIn efforts are working as part of your wider social media strategy.
Here are two ways you can start tracking your analytics to gain insights into your efforts:
LinkedIn Analytics
Head over to your LinkedIn profile page, scroll down to the “Analytics” table, and click on “Show all analytics”:
You’ll be taken to the Analytics dashboard.
This shows you data about your posts’ impressions, profile views, and more.
You can click on each of these stats to get more information.
You can also see if your post impressions have changed over 7, 14, 28, 90, or 365 days. This is an excellent way to track trends in your post performance.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the other reports:
Followers: This shows the number of new followers, as well as the top demographics.
Profile Viewers: This shows how many people have viewed your profile. If you’ve got LinkedIn Premium, you can access more details such as names and companies, and get much more extensive data. You can also change the time range.
Search Appearances: This will tell you the number of times you’ve appeared in LinkedIn’s search results, the companies where the people searching for you are employed, and their respective job titles.
You can also find who’s liked, commented on, and shared your articles by scrolling down to the bottom of the article itself.
If you’ve got a company page, you can also check out your analytics on LinkedIn.
Just go to your company page and click on the “Analytics” section.
The data here is very similar to your personal page. You’ll be able to see your post analytics, your visitors, and your followers.
You can also include competitors you want to keep an eye on and measure your performance against them.
If you’re using a lead form, you can track its performance too.
Semrush
To get more in-depth insights into your company page, you can use Semrush Social.
The Social Dashboard feature lets you track your page’s activities, audience, and user engagement.
To monitor your company page’s metrics, such as engagement, followers, and post reach, head to the Social Analytics tool.
You can add your LinkedIn profile and it’ll pull through the following data:
New followers
Organic post reach
Organic post engagement
Organic engagement rate
If you click on “LinkedIn” at the top of the page:
It’ll take you through to your Audience dashboard.
From here, you can see where your followers are from, their industries, company sizes, and job functions.
Clicking the Engagement tab will give you a bunch of stats about types of engagement, engagement rates, reach, clicks, reactions, and impressions for your company page.
On the Posts tab, you’ll be able to see your posts, their engagement rate, likes, shares, comments, clicks, and impressions.
You can track all of this data (and more) with Semrush Social.
Boost Your Social Media Presence with SEO
Improving your LinkedIn SEO can enhance your visibility both on AND off the platform. Leading to new connections, better engagement, and potential work opportunities.
But LinkedIn isn’t the only social media platform you can optimize and use to grow your brand and business.
