LinkedIn SEO: Steps to Proven to Optimize Your Profile

Mastering LinkedIn SEO is crucial to enhancing your clients’ LinkedIn presence.

When done right, LinkedIn SEO boosts audience engagement, leads, and conversions and improves your client’s brand visibility and revenue.

The tricky part is there is more to LinkedIn SEO than throwing in a few keywords in your clients’ profiles. 

Moreover, LinkedIn is saturated with numerous users implementing their own SEO strategies, diverting traffic and engagement away from your clients.

The big question now is, what’s an effective LinkedIn SEO strategy you can employ to increase your clients’ fighting chance in LI?

That’s what we’ll answer in this guide.

We’ll cover the nuts and bolts of LinkedIn SEO and essential steps to optimize your clients’ profiles. 

What you will learn 

• What is LinkedIn SEO and why is it important?
• LinkedIn SEO ranking factors
• How to optimize your profile and page for LinkedIn SEO
• Nail your LinkedIn SEO to boost visibility and reach

What is LinkedIn SEO and why is it important?

LinkedIn Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is optimizing LinkedIn profiles, pages, and posts to increase their visibility on the platform and search engine results pages. 

LinkedIn SEO can include adding keywords to content and profiles that clearly tell audiences about the company pages or posts.

Search engines such as Bing and Google use algorithms to show people searching for specific information the content that matches their needs. 

Social media platforms and their algorithms are now doing the same thing. 

Effective LinkedIn SEO helps ensure your clients’ potential qualified applicants or high-intent prospects find them. 

However, LinkedIn SEO goes beyond making your clients’ content and profiles appear in search results. 

It’s about ensuring the right people (potential hires, leads, clients, etc.) find them and achieve LinkedIn marketing success. 

[Must read: LinkedIn Marketing Tips for 2024]

LinkedIn is overflowing with brands, companies, and other users vying for attention from the same audiences. 

It is crucial to nail LinkedIn SEO, as this can lead to your clients’ profiles and pages appearing first in search results over their competitors. 

LinkedIn SEO ranking factors

Understanding how LinkedIn’s algorithm ranks content, pages, and profiles gives you the ammunition to supercharge your clients’ SEO strategies. 

Below are the factors influencing how LinkedIn ranks and recommends content and personalizes user experiences. 

• Member activity
• Page name 
• Public prominence or popularity
• Number of connections and followers
• Engagement quality and volume
• Similarity to other searches by like-minded members

How to optimize your profile and page for LinkedIn SEO

LinkedIn SEO strategies vary depending on your clients’ target audiences, goals, and industries. 

However, you can jumpstart your clients’ LinkedIn SEO with the following time-tested tactics and steps.

Include relevant keywords in the description or About section

Weave relevant keywords into your clients’ About or description section on LinkedIn. 

Doing so increases the chances of the platform’s and search engines’ algorithms putting your clients’ profiles in front of people searching for those keywords. 

For example, if your client runs a customer success software company, include keywords such as customer success platforms and customer success software for SaaS. 

Consider including alternative search terms that target audiences may use to help them find your clients. 

Using Vista Social, you can leverage the social media management platform’s social listening tool to get keyword ideas. 

The tool can help you determine what people are saying about your clients’ brands, including the related keywords they use. 

You can set up a listener in the social media listening feature by specifying the keywords you want the tool to look for in conversations.

The listening tool will capture all the social conversations across your clients’ linked LinkedIn and other social media profiles containing those keywords. 

Fun fact: Besides Pages, Vista Social now fully supports LinkedIn Personal Profiles. 

You can leverage the platform’s key features, such as social media analytics and reports, for personal profiles.  

Customize the LinkedIn URL

When you create an account, LinkedIn sets a default URL for your page, which often includes a bunch of numbers like this:

To improve your client’s LinkedIn page SEO, you can edit the URL to include a brand-related or industry-relevant keyword. 

Ilia Beauty’s branded LinkedIn Profile URL below is a classic example.

It makes the LinkedIn profile easy for algorithms and potential customers to recognize and find.

Don’t forget to include your clients’ LinkedIn URLs on their website and other social media pages.

You can use Vista Social’s link in bio tool called Vista Page. 

It lets you create and customize landing pages or micro websites to contain all your clients’ relevant product and brand information, links, and other conversion-related content and tools.

When you’re done, add your client’s Vista Page link to their Instagram, TikTok, and other social media bios. 

Regularly post content that has your target keywords

Besides your clients’ LinkedIn profiles, you must also optimize their content and posts to increase their chances of ranking higher in search results.

An effective strategy is to create relevant content that fits with and includes your clients’ target keywords.

Plus, the more relevant your clients’ LinkedIn posts are, the more they resonate with target audiences, boosting engagement and conversions. 

Plan and schedule your clients’ keyword-optimized LinkedIn posts with Vista Social. 

The platform’s social media publishing feature lets you upload content, customize the post, and schedule it for auto-publishing on optimal dates and times.

Automating optimized content publishing supercharges your efforts to boost your clients’ LinkedIn SEO strategies.

[Must read: Top LinkedIn Automation Tools for Lead Generation]

Use Vista Social’s AI Assistant to generate engaging captions for your clients’ LinkedIn posts quickly.

Handy tip: Ask the AI Assistant to include your clients’ target keywords in the generated text. This way, you’ll have an optimized LinkedIn post caption with minimal effort.  

Complete all the profile sections

A complete profile is crucial to making your clients’ easier to discover on LinkedIn.

Completing each section provides more opportunities to insert relevant keywords for better profile optimization. 

Also, filling out each section provides more information about your clients, which platform and search engine algorithms love (Say hello to ranking higher in search!). 

Ensure your clients complete the following fields in their LinkedIn profiles.

• Industry
• Website
• Products or services
• Location
• Specialties

Throw relevant keywords in each section when applicable or appropriate, but don’t overdo it. 

Keep each section classy and professional while optimizing them for better discoverability. 

Master LinkedIn SEO to boost visibility and reach

Seeing meaningful results out of your LinkedIn SEO campaign can take time and effort.

However, with the right profile and page optimization tactics and tools, you can shorten the amount it takes to succeed in LinkedIn SEO.

Instead of spending weeks or even months experimenting, you can use the proven LinkedIn SEO strategies that seasoned marketers use.

Additionally, remember to leverage top-of-the-line social media management tools like Vista Social to support and amplify your clients’ LinkedIn SEO efforts and overall marketing campaigns.

Create a FREE Vista Social account.