As a coworking provider with close to 4000 members working to grow their businesses, Hub Australia knows how essential it is to be discoverable on LinkedIn. Not only to find new job opportunities, but to also create a strong brand presence and attract new clients.
LinkedIn can be used in many ways: to gain knowledge, meet business prospects, find new jobs or career opportunities, build and develop relationships, and more.
The platform currently boasts over 660 million active users worldwide, and this number will only continue to grow as it becomes the frontrunner of professional social media.
With such a huge amount of users, business professionals are now facing the challenge of figuring out how to be found online.
Whether you’re a student, manager, or CEO, these tips can help you leverage social media’s impact on you and your business, helping you optimise your profile.
Read more: Want to Grow Your Business? Get the Basics!
1. Complete your profile
This is a simple one, however, many seem to fail at this.
Ensure there are no blank spaces in your profile, and there’s consistency throughout.
For example, if you’re using bullet points to list your past experience, don’t just do it for one of your previous jobs – apply it to all of them.
Your LinkedIn profile is essentially your online CV. Recruiters, potential employers and potential business prospects will be researching you online, so it’s worth treating your profile with the same respect you would your CV.
In order to achieve an ‘all-star’ status, you need to do the following:
- Add your location and industry information
- List your current position
- List at least two past positions
- Add your educational information
- Add a minimum of three skills
- Have at least 50 connections
- Upload a professional profile picture
- Have genuine recommendations for your skills
2. Create a unique URL
You are given a default URL which consists of numbers when you first set up your LinkedIn profile.
You need to change your URL to something SEO friendly to ensure you rank highly on search engines.
Creating one like this: https://au.linkedin.com/in/YOURNAMEHERE increases your profile visibility on search and looks more professional.
To change this, click here then click on the little pen by ‘your public profile URL’, type in what you want to have, and you’re good to go!
3. Search engine optimise your profile
Optimise your LinkedIn profile – don’t just say you’re a ‘Business Development Manager for a Marketing Agency’.
Add some personality and try to rank for key search terms.
For example, if you’re a Business Development Manager at a Digital Marketing agency, your tagline could say “Digital Marketing, PPC, SEO, CRO, Website Design and Development,” as these are keywords users will be searching for.
Those looking for digital marketing services won’t be searching for business development managers, but they will be searching for the keywords listed above, and you’ll likely rank higher for those search terms.
Think of LinkedIn search as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – you want your profile to rank highly for specific terms.
Once you have an understanding of your keywords, your profile should be built around them. You can then produce content and publish articles specific to your industry, and tailored to the customers you’re looking to attract.
4. Use keywords in your headline
Your LinkedIn headline is the first thing people see when they visit your profile, so it plays an important role in attracting the right users to your profile.
Your headline will usually show your current or previous position, but because your headline appears in almost all of your LinkedIn activity it needs to be modified to be descriptive.
The algorithm puts a huge amount of emphasis on the words your headline contains when ranking people. List your key skills and attributes and keep it simple, clear and to the point – no one wants to read an essay, and it will get cropped if it’s too long.
5. Get recommended
This is an absolute must! People trust people, and if you can encourage past and current colleagues, managers, customers, and people you manage to leave you a recommendation it will make you stand out from the crowd.
The internet is widely used as a comparison tool.
Think of your LinkedIn profile as a product. The more appealing you make it, the more the potential employer or client will want to engage with you.
If you want to join a coworking space with dedicated Community Leads ready to help you to connect to the people you need to grow your business, contact Hub Australia.
With locations in Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, and a custom online member network, Hub Australia is focussed on helping Australian businesses grow.
