iWhether you believe in the power of LinkedIn or not, LinkedIn is so important for your personal brand and your business.
LinkedIn has very high-domain authority, meaning whether you use it once a week, once a month or once a year, it’s still the number one or two Google search result about you.
Think about that for a minute. If LinkedIn shows up at the top of your search results, shouldn’t you focus on it?
And make no mistake, people are googling you every day when they hear your name as a recommendation or when they are thinking of asking you to be on a panel or to work on a project.
So you might as well make sure it is optimized.
Let me explain what domain authority is.
Domain authority is a ranking score that tells how likely a website is to rank in search result pages.
The higher the score, the greater the likelihood that a site will rank on Google.
LinkedIn has a lot of domain authority. It is among the top five Google-indexed sites along with Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Its domain authority score is 98/100.
If you are recommened by someone for a piece of work, a speaking opportunity or a job, they will immediately go on Google and look you up.
Sometimes they will go right to your biography (if you have one) on your company’s web site. But other times they skip that and go directly to LinkedIn instead.
Here’s why – LinkedIn tells a much more robust story about your professional background than your web site bio.
And potential clients and employees want to learn all they can about you.
They also want to know who you know who they know and what you have in common. It makes them feel more comfortable about doing business with you.
Don’t be limited by a one-dimensional view of what LinkedIn used to be – a place where people went to find jobs.
Today LinkedIn is the most trusted social media platform for business professionals. It’s where people go to network, build relationships, learn and vet referrals.
Another important thing to increase your LinkedIn discoverability is to make sure that your public profile does not have high privacy settings on or Google may not be able to index it.
Confirm that your profile allows each section to be discovered by Google.
This is an easy change to make on your profile – just go to “Edit Public Profile Settings” and then toggle the button to the right to ensure it’s green for most of the sections.
This helps immensely with your discoverability and searchability on major search engines. There’s no reason to hide sections of your profile anymore.
Here‘s how you can make small enhancements to your LinkedIn profile that will have major benefits.
Ensure that your profile is up-to-date, with a new profile photo (where you look friendly please) and complete contact information (you can add up to three websites to your profile and feature one URL now prominently on the header of your profile so use that space wisely!).
Also, create a strong headline, cover image and about section and make sure you’re using keywords strategically throughout your profile to enhance your discoverability and to make it easy for people to understand what you do and for whom you do it.
Filling out all of these sections is usually what will propel you to earn all-star status. This is important because it also helps your discoverability on the platform.
The slower days of the summer are the perfect time to spend perfecting your LinkedIn profile. especially if you are about to launch a new initiative or speak at a conference or publish an article.
I would even encourage you to try out some of the newer features on LinkedIn, such as newsletters and the cover story and LinkedIn Live. (PS – You’ll need to turn on Creator Mode to use newsletters and Live.)
Here are some other blog posts to help you enhance your LinkedIn profile, presence and network:
