5 Ways to Stay Ahead of the LinkedIn Algorithm (Legally!)

Do you get frustrated by the constantly changing LinkedIn Algorithm?

Many people do, and it's easy to fall into the trap of always trying to find that next hack that will give you an edge with your content and get you more reach.

This can be a mistake and end up wasting lots of your time because in the end, what gets rewarded the most by the algorithm is good quality, valuable content that people want to read, comment on and interact with. Content is king. Always.

Having said all of that however, here are 5 simple things you can do or avoid doing that will help your posts to get more reach:

1 - Do NOT Edit Your Posts Within the First 3 Hours of Posting

If you edit a post within the first 3 hours of creating it you'll kill your reach.

I knew this but did it anyway just last week and I can confirm that my reach dropped by ~60% compared to my average!

To avoid typos and errors, the best thing to do is to double and triple-check everything you’ve written before you hit the ‘post’ button.

The next best thing to do is delete the post and start again…

2 - Get Your SSI Score Above 75

Getting your Social Selling Index (SSI) score above 75 can extend your reach by up to 30%.

You can check your score using this URL: https://www.linkedin.com/sales/ssi

Basically, the higher it is, the more reach you get!

3 - Use Documents and Multiple Picture Posts but NOT Polls

Whilst document posts take a little more work, LinkedIn is the only social media platform that offers this option as a post and LinkedIn generally loves you to use them. Look out for another article on how to create them. 😉

Multiple picture posts also do well. To upload multiple pictures just put all the pictures you want to upload in the same folder and select all of them as you post.

These types of posts can 3x your reach when done well!

BUT, Don't use polls anymore to get more reach. The algorithm actually penalises their reach now. I guess they just got too overused by people and users got tired of seeing them!

4 - Do NOT Use Links in the Body Text of a Post

LinkedIn will slash your reach rather dramatically if you put URLs to external websites in the body of your posts.

The two exceptions to this are if the URL links to another part of LinkedIn, (such as an article) or a YouTube link.

Hack: If you want to link out to another web page from a post put the link in the comments, like the comment and reply to it at least 3 times with the same link (to keep it at the top of the comments list). Check out one of my posts with links to see how I do it…

5 - Use 3 to 5 Hashtags in Your Posts

Using less than 3 or more than 5 hashtags in your posts will reduce their reach. 

You should also research the hashtags you use. Find out if your audience follows them. If not, don’t use them!

Mix it up a little too. Use one or two with big followings (> 100K) and one or two with small followings (< 10K) and consider creating your own personal hashtag to group all your content together and make it easier for people to find more of your posts when they see one.