Does your LinkedIn headline help you in landing in search results?

Three places in a LinkedIn profile need to focus on keywords:

• Headline
• Summary (About)
• Skills & Endorsements

It is good to splatter those keywords wherever else you can in your profile, but those three are the biggest spots. They are where people will look the most and where search algorithms come into play.

Think of keywords in your LinkedIn profile the equivalent of organic adwords.

Is your LinkedIn headline searchable keywords?

In other words, do the words or phrases that are in your headline include those words that people type into the search bar if they don’t know your name?

I see a number of my connections that have phrases or “cute” words. Think about what you enter when you are looking for someone other than their name. Do you enter “Enhancing Performance to Drive Business Results” or would something more succinct get better results. If you did changes yours to keywords, are they all run together without spaces i.e. keyword/keyword/keyword. Or do you just have your job title in the headline?

Whether you are looking for a job, own your own business, or are comfortable in your current job, consider using keywords in your headline that tell the story of what you do. If you aren’t sure what those keywords should be, look down at the skills section and start typing in your keywords. The suggested phrases will offer you the proper suffix to use i.e. trainer or training.

If all else fails, give me a call and we can work through your profile to optimize it to help you be found.