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Search engine optimization entails by definition making your website better for search engines.
And your first SEO efforts should genuinely be focused on your website to increase your organic ranking.
But as you develop your business, your SEO efforts must grow alongside you.
That’s where LinkedIn SEO comes in.
But people use LinkedIn for job opportunities, while companies use the platform to increase their online visibility.
Few know you can use LinkedIn SEO to grow your website’s ranking and authority.
This article discusses:
- 5 methods to use LinkedIn for SEO
- Actionable advice to implement all these methods
- Solid examples, insider tips, and tools you can use
Let’s dive in.
TL:DR:
- LinkedIn for SEO: Utilize LinkedIn to enhance your website's SEO and online visibility.
- Content Distribution: Share high-quality content on LinkedIn for better indexing and traffic. Use paid ads, LinkedIn’s publishing platform, and SlideShare for effective distribution.
- Link-Building Opportunities: Leverage LinkedIn for backlinks by creating linkable assets, building relationships, and engaging in LinkedIn Groups.
- Profile Optimization for Organic Searches: Optimize personal and company LinkedIn profiles with relevant keywords and regular updates to improve search rankings.
- Local SEO Enhancement: Include business details on LinkedIn to attract local customers and improve local search visibility.
- Keyword Strategy: Use LinkedIn and tools like Google Keyword Planner for keyword research and testing.
- Content Strategy Development and Testing: Analyze your audience, competitors, and content creators on LinkedIn to refine your content strategy. Test content through engagement metrics and feedback.
- Implementing LinkedIn in Your SEO Strategy: Adapt the 5-step plan to your specific SEO needs, focusing on areas like profile optimization, content marketing, and connection building. Consider an SEO audit to identify specific needs and strategies.
1. Better Indexing and Traffic through Content Distribution
Social media platforms like LinkedIn allow you to spread content to a broad target audience of potential clients and content creators.
They key is to publish relevant content before it snowballs.
When someone in your LinkedIn list interacts with your post, that valuable content becomes visible to their personal connections. So, even a company or business owner with few LinkedIn contacts can see a massive increase in organic visibility.
But getting in front of that wider audience requires amazing content.
Insider tip: Social signals from LinkedIn signals (likes, shares, comments) are not a direct ranking signals according to Google.
However, the secondary effects can positively impact SEO:
- Better search engine indexing: You can increase the speed at which search engines index your website through social media, if it gets high engagement rates. And if search engines index your website correctly, they’ll rank it higher according to the keywords you’re trying to rank for.
- More website traffic: Higher search ranking translates into more search traffic in the long run. But LinkedIn articles with high click-through rates can direct people to your website immediately, thus increasing your organic traffic. And if LinkedIn users share your content, you’ll also get valuable referral traffic.
We recommend you to use three ways of distributing your content on LinkedIn
1.1. Advertise Existing Content Assets on LinkedIn
LinkedIn paid ads for business products or services can get ignored.
But imagine that instead of advertising your product line, you’re advertising a highly valuable blog post.
This could be a:
- A whitepaper
- An in-depth industry study
- A podcast on a specific matter with reputable guests
- A free tool your audience needs
This part of LinkedIn SEO can boost your digital marketing strategy.
Content creators are bound to repost this content to their audience, creating valuable editorial links and getting more referral traffic.
And your prospective customers are likelier to follow your links to a landing page. That means you can increase your organic traffic or generate more leads, depending on your goals.
Adobe sports a good example here:
1.2. Publish High-Quality Content
Use LinkedIn’s publishing platform to write and share articles.
Of course, ensure these articles are relevant to your industry.
Insider tip: Optimize this content for keywords, just like any other online content.
High-quality, optimized content can:
- Rank in search engines: Therefore, you can get more website traffic from organic searches
- Be shared across LinkedIn and other platforms: This increases your visibility and drives traffic to your profile, where people can see other links to your website.
Here’s a good example from George Brontén, CEO and founder of CRM Membrain. This article focuses on specific problems, offering specific solutions:
1.3. Leverage SlideShare
LinkedIn owns SlideShare, a platform for sharing presentations and infographics.
Think of it as a playground for content creation.
Creating and optimizing SlideShare presentations with keywords and high-quality information:
- Improves your visibility in search engine results
- Potentially earns backlinks
- Drives traffic to your website if you include links to your pages
- Boosts your visibility, reputation, and credibility on LinkedIn, all of which will help your long-term SEO through organic searches and referrals
2. More Link-Building Opportunities
Sharing high-quality content on social platforms attracts the attention of website owners and niche content creators.
If these people believe your content is valuable to their target audience, they’ll link to it.
Remember: Backlinks from authoritative websites are an important ranking factor in SEO.
Search engines view backlinks as votes of confidence. And editorial backlinks carry the most SEO juice, improving your website’s domain authority and search ranking.
Here’s how to leverage LinkedIn in a well-rounded link-building strategy.
2.1. Linkable Assets
We already discussed this method above.
The strategy involves creating relevant content and tools for potential link partners in your niche. They will deem these assets valuable for their website users and social network, so they’ll share them.
As a result, you can:
- Get high-quality editorial links that build your domain ranking, plus a traffic boost.
- Be invited to industry round-ups along other industry experts. And if every such expert reposts the roundup page, your backlink profile will be improved with multiple authoritative links.
Pro tip: Publishing good content is an essential profile ranking factor for LinkedIn.
2.2. Relationship Link-Building
Your link-building outreach efforts might be rejected if you’re reaching out to people who don’t know you.
But reaching out to people who know and respect you will increase your email response rate.
So, use LinkedIn for building connections with other professionals and influencers in your field:
- Engage with their content.
- Share their posts.
- Offer valuable insights.
As these relationships grow, you can collaborate on content or share each other’s relevant links.
2.3. Engage in LinkedIn Groups
Enroll in LinkedIn Groups related to your industry or niche. You can share your content, participate in discussions, and connect with other members.
Being active in these groups can:
- Establish your authority, expertise, and social proof.
- Keep you top-of-mind of your audience.
This helps your link-building efforts indirectly because:
- You may find potential connections for link-building.
- Essential content such as product releases may receive attention from a news outlet.
- You may draw the attention of reporters in your niche who might ask for quotes from you. And when they publish their articles, they’ll also include valuable links back to your website.
Pro tip: Avoid making the wrong connections on LinkedIn. Look at the personal profiles of the people you're interacting with, read their online resumes and check their profile photos. Even their background photos can show you if these people are trustworthy.
3. Better Website Ranking Through Organic Searches
Social media profiles often rank in search results for brand names.
A well-optimized LinkedIn profile helps your company occupy multiple spots on the first page of search engine results, leading to:
- Increased search visibility
- Increased click-through rates
- More control over your brand’s online narrative
Plus, more potential customers may learn about your brand from social media.
If your LinkedIn content is persuasive, they might search for your company on search engines. And increased organic searches are a factor that positively influences search rankings.
LinkedIn can increase your website ranking indirectly, so first you must ensure your LinkedIn profile is visible and has a high profile score.
3.1. Optimize Your Profile for Keyword Searches
Your LinkedIn profile should be optimized for the most relevant keywords in your industry and role.
So, use these target keywords in your headline, summary, and job title. You can even create a custom URL with these keywords to influence the search algorithm.
That way, your brand will appear in search queries both on LinkedIn and on search engines when people are looking for businesspeople in your field.
Pro tips:
- Avoid keyword stuffing because your main goal with LinkedIn SEO as well as general website SEO is to stay relevant, not trick search algorithms.
- Use your target keyword in your profile picture as well to appear in image searches.
3.2. Optimize Your Company Profile
Here's how to improve your company's profile for SEO:
- Add a professional profile picture because LinkedIn profiles with images appear rank higher on search results, both on LinkedIn and on Google
- Use target key phrases to create custom URLs, compelling descriptions, and original content
- Post regular updates that interest your professional network, such as industry news
- Share content that includes links to your company’s website, such as blog content or whitepapers
Pro tip: LinkedIn Analytics allows you to understand if your keyword strategy is performing well and how to improve it.
3.3. Consider Local SEO
Include your address, phone number, and other business details on LinkedIn to improve local SEO and attract local customers.
These details appear in local search results when people are looking for businesses in your area, both on LinkedIn and on search engines.
That means you can:
- Boost LinkedIn SEO to get a higher profile score that can appear higher on Google searches
- Connect with local content creators and niche journalists
- Attract more organic traffic from local customers
- Generate more potential leads from your area
Insider tip: If you own a local business, use Google Maps SEO to boost your online presence, and share that Google Map on LinkedIn.
Sadly, there’s no built-in feature on LinkedIn to embed your business’s location map.
But you can share the link to your map in your profile to get more visitors.
And keep an eye on any LinkedIn updates regarding this option.
4. Keyword Strategy Creation & Testing
Using LinkedIn to create and test a keyword strategy can be a smart approach given its professional user base and content distribution features. Here’s how you can go about it:
4.1. Keyword Research
Keyword tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Majestic or Ahrefs help you find relevant keywords so that you can make more search appearances.
But you can also use LinkedIn to get more ideas:
- Analyze trending topics on LinkedIn through its search bar suggestions to get more long-tail keyword ideas.
- Keep track of content posted by industry leaders.
- Look for popular and trending hashtags within your industry.
- Observe your competitors on LinkedIn, analyzing their profiles and the content they post for additional keywords.
4.2. Keyword Testing
You can leverage LinkedIn not just to get more search term ideas, but their worth.
- Use LinkedIn Analytics to analyze your keyword performance: This tactic shows you which keywords and topics interest your audience. And these are valuable insights for keyword optimization.
- Join industry-relevant LinkedIn groups: Actively participate in discussions and use the exact terms you've zeroed in on during these talks . Notice the responses and engagement, and use this feedback to refine your keyword strategy.
5. Content Strategy Creation & Testing
After refining a list of keywords, you also use LinkedIn to create and test a content strategy. Here's how you can go about it:
- Audience analysis: Use LinkedIn Analytics to get demographic and psychographic data of your followers. Understanding their interests helps you tailor your content strategy to their needs. You can also interact with your audience within specific LinkedIn groups to get more insights.
- Competitor analysis: See what type of content your rivals typically post on LinkedIn. Evaluate their content quality and overall performance. For example, you may notice different types of content on their profile that you're missing out on.
- Content creator analysis: Follow important content creators on your niche on LinkedIn. Read their posts and comments to see which topics are more relevant to your target audience.
- Content creation: Develop content that incorporates the keywords naturally and aligns with your audience's interests. Consider various types of content formats available on LinkedIn, such as posts, articles, video content, and infographics.
- Content testing: Analyze key metrics such as views, likes, comments, shares, and click-through rates to evaluate your content performance. High engagement rates don’t directly improve your SEO. But, they can lead to increased dwell time, lower bounce rates, and more repeat visitors. And all those factors will increase your SEO.
- Feedback: Use LinkedIn Polls to engage with your audience and learn their opinions on certain topics. You should also engage with your audience when they comment on your posts to gain valuable insights on their interests. These insights should weigh heavily on your content strategy.
According to DevriX CEO, Mario Peshev:
How to Implement LinkedIn in Your SEO Strategy
If you want to use LinkedIn for SEO effectively, follow the 5-step plan above according to your SEO needs.
For example, your content marketing strategy may already be great. And in that case, you might not need to use LinkedIn for keyword research.
In this case, you can consider LinkedIn profile optimization for increased online visibility of your website, personal branding, or building meaningful connections.
To identify your SEO needs, start with an SEO audit.
Blue Things can do that audit for you and help you with a tailored SEO plan that includes LinkedIn. Let’s schedule a free strategy call and get started.
