How to Get Found on LinkedIn

Did you know that if you set up your LinkedIn profile in the right way you'll show up in more searches by the right kind of people? And when I say 'right kind' of people, of course I mean your potential clients.

Here are 5 actions you can take right now to start showing up in more searches on and off LinkedIn

This may sound obvious but you'd be amazed at how many people miss it! That's because, by default, not all the 'required' profile sections are added to your account.

You need to add the profile sections yourself to reach the much coveted but actually not so impressive 'All Star' status on your profile.

To further complicate life, once you reach the All Star status, LinkedIn no longer tells you about it and your profile status disappears altogether from your profile!

This may sound confusing, and it is. But basically, the goal is to get your profile to a point where you profile status is no longer visible to you when you go to your profile edit page.

If you can't see the section below on your profile then it means you have All Star status - simple! And VERY confusing... sorry, I didn't make the rules on this one... 🙄

If you do see the section below, the good news is that you'll be guided through exactly what steps you need to take to 'complete' your LinkedIn profile setup, become an All Star and have the 'Suggested for you' section disappear from your profile edit screen. 😁

Your job title is massively important in regards how LinkedIn sees you, especially your current job title. If you can, try to make it something that people might type into the search bar when looking for someone like you.

Also try to get something about your target audience in there, for example, mine is Founder, LinkedIn Expert and Chief Coach.

"LinkedIn Expert" is what people might search for when looking for someone like me and "Coach" is my main target audience.

Don't force it though. If you do you may end up with a very wacky job title that could just put people off working with you altogether!

There are 3 main areas of your profile that LinkedIn's AI picks up keywords and key phrases from:

• Your Headline
• Your About Section
• Your Experience

You need to have keywords and phrases in all of these sections.

How do you find which ones to use though? Well, it's simple. Use your empathy, become your ideal client and then start brainstorming things you might type into the search bar when looking to hire someone like you.

Try to come up with as many as you can - at least 10 though.

Then, start typing them into the search bar. Filter on people and look at who's coming up. Are they the right kind of people? Are they similar to you? Are they successful?

The answers to all these questions, whilst subjective, should guide you on which keywords and phrases are good and which ones aren't.

Don't stop there though. The trick is to find words and phrases that are used by the right people but not too much.

For example, I use "LinkedIn Expert for Coaches". When I do that 422 results come up. When I just use "LinkedIn Expert", 7,000 results come up so it would be much harder to make it to the top of the search list that way.

One more thing: if you get it right, you can also show up on the first results page in a Google search. Again, give it a few weeks for this to happen though as Google indexing can take that long sometimes...

Now, before you go and write out the 15 jobs you've had since completing your studies and tediously adding them to your profile, STOP!

Don't do it. You don't need to. Firstly, who cares about the previous jobs you've had? You're a business owner now, not an employee looking for a new job. If you can cover the last 3 - 5 years of experience, it's enough.

More importantly, if your previous career has nothing to do with your current business you'd do well to delete all the unrelated experience history completely!

That might sound extreme but I speak from firsthand experience. I was attached to my previous employment history for a very long time and it wasn't until I deleted anything that wasn't relevant to what I do now that I started to show up in the right searches from the right people using the keywords and phrases I wanted to be known for.

Before I did this I was being found by people with job titles like Product Manager, Engineer, and Technical Specialist. Now I'm being found by people with job titles like Founder, Business Owner and Public Speaker. This is exactly what I want!

There is a very important exception to all of this though... If you are a coach or consultant and you work with clients who are in a job that you used to do then you definitely want to leave that in your experience section.

Get rid of everything else though and in a few weeks you'll notice the difference it makes in your Search Analytics on your profile. It does take some time though so be patient. 😉

This might sound silly but if you don't tell LinkedIn what language(s) you speak you won't be shown in as many searches as those that do!

So even if you only speak one language (English, for example as us native English speakers tend to be very lazy when it comes to speaking more languages!) you should put that in the Language section of your profile. It will make a difference.

OK, that's it! Good luck showing up in more searches. I'd love to hear how you get on with this. Why not send me a message in LinkedIn to let me know... 😊