SEO Guide to Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile for More Connections and Better Leads (2023)

LinkedIn has the unfortunate reputation of being a platform for boring CEOs, spammers, and college students who needed to build a profile in their college skills classes.

For this reason, many business owners and marketers treat their LinkedIn profile (if they have one at all) like an online resume. They list their credentials, add a little comment about who they are, and hope someone is intrigued enough to network or hire them.

What they, and probably you, don't know about LinkedIn is that it's apowerful search engineIt has the power to generate a high volume of targeted traffic to your profile.

Not only that, but that traffic could very well turn into valuable professional relationships and new clients.

It's time to stop sleeping on this platform and start harnessing that power.

LinkedIn is not just a resume

With LinkedIn optimization, you'll build connections with some of the best and brightest in your industry and drive your ideal clients straight to your profile and inbox.

From profile optimization and SEO to content publishing and engagement, this guide covers everything you need to turn your LinkedIn profile into a branding and lead generation machine.

More than SEO: LinkedIn optimization at full speed

Many LinkedIn optimization guides begin and end with SEO, but I would say that SEO is just the tip of the iceberg.

As with your company website, the success of your inbound marketing through LinkedIn depends not only on traffic but also on conversion optimization.

If you focus all your efforts on SEO without fully optimizing your profile for conversions, you won't get the most out of the traffic you receive.

That's why I've put all of LinkedIn's SEO best practices to the test AND applied my own experience in conversion copywriting, sales funnels, and conversion optimization.

The result of that test is this guide, which includes sections on profile aesthetics, building a lead funnel, writing compelling copy in your profile, and more.

The LinkedIn Optimization Guide covers:

• profile aesthetics
• profile copy
• SEO do LinkedIn
• lead funnel
• connections
• Recommendations and Skills
• Publication and content
• Commitment
• Analyze

You'll also learn how to create a high-converting "welcome" message for new connections, drive your ideal customers directly to your profile, and build authority with LinkedIn articles.

Let's get into it, shall we?

1. Improve your profile aesthetics

One of the best things about your LinkedIn profile is how much headroom you have in terms of optimization.

Of course, the obvious places are the title, summary, and background sections, but you can also take advantage of the profile picture and cover photo sections. This is what I call optimizing your "profile aesthetic" since you're not addingSEO Keywords, but are adapting the look of the profile to the target audience.

Does appearance really matter? You tell me.

How important is your company's website design to attract potential customers/clients?

Exactly.

Optimize your profile's curb appeal

I'm a big believer in squeezing every last drop of juice out of a platform to make it work for my business. When it comes to LinkedIn, that means not just talking, but also looking good.

To optimize your profile's "external appeal", you'll focus on two assets: your profile picture and your cover photo.

profile picture

We're all familiar with the boring, grainy LinkedIn headshots. If you're serious about your LinkedIn brand, I say: dare to stand out!

You want a high-quality, professional image that highlights your personality and business. Something your potential customers will find affordable.

• High quality image: clear, not pixelated
• close up of your face
• simple background
• Appropriate clothing
• Smile!

LinkedIn suggests having an image where your face occupies60% of the frame🇧🇷 (I don't follow this suggestion, oops!)

For some industries, your appearance may include business attire and corporate background. For others, it may be more informal. The key is to appeal to what your target audience is most familiar with by working with people like you.

I'm an SEO content writer who usually works from my laptop around the world. My clients know this about me and don't expect me to wear pants and sit in a corporate office. But if I were trying to land high-end corporate consulting clients for my SEO company, I would probably choose a different aesthetic.

And please get rid of the selfie. I recommend investing in a professional headshot for this. It will make a big difference, taking you fromaficionadoonespecialist.

cape photo

The cover photo section also provides ample space to let profile visitors know what you (and your business) are all about.

LinkedIn's default profile cover photo is a blue background with geometric shapes and dots. As far as business owners are concerned, that's almost 17 inches of wasted desktop space.

Let's make it count.

You can easily create a custom cover image using Photoshop or Canva that includes a professional background and copy that appeals to your target audience.

Best practices include:

• Add a tagline that tells profile visitors what you do and who you serve
• Add your website URL and social media handles
• Have an attractive background image that appeals to your target audience
• Include a call-to-action or tell users how to reach you

In the example above, we see how this LinkedIn profile makes extensive use of the cover photo section, including a photo of the business owner at a speaking event, a bold description of what they do ("Grow! your FB group, grow your business !”) and a clear CTA to visit your website.

This lets users quickly know what he does, who he helps, and how best to contact him, all without having to search through his entire profile. Users can sign up for your free training and join your email list right away.

By optimizing your profile's appearance, you make the best possible first impression on your potential connections. It also makes it easier for potential customers to understand what you are about and how to get in touch with you.

Once your profile looks good, it's time to move on to the rest of the sections.

2. Write compelling profile copy

As an SEO content writer and copywriter, I was blown away when I realized that LinkedIn is a great place to implement converting copywriting. It really is a no-brainer.

Unfortunately, many of us treat our LinkedIn profile like a resume: concise and professional, but boring.

LinkedIn was built around the idea of ​​professionals connecting with other professionals. You won't do this effectively if your profile reads like the ingredients section on the back of a box of cereal.

Write with your target audience in mind

Instead, write your LinkedIn profile like you would your online dating profile, only more professional.

Make it interesting, add pizzazz, and write it to appeal to the type of people you want to attract.

There are a few main areas where you can do this, and these are yours.titular,resumeyexperienceSections.

Titular

Your title is the line of text just below your name on your profile. LinkedIn provides about 120 characters of space here to let visitors know who you are and what you offer.

Your headline should be a combination of LinkedIn SEO keywords (which we'll discuss in section three of this guide) and compelling copy. That's because it works both to drive traffic and to keep users engaged with your profile.

You want to be super clear about what you do. This is not a place for clever slogans like"He was probably going fishing"o"I sort, you bank!"Titles like these not only don't include keywords, they can leave profile visitors confused as to what exactly you do.

I suggest you keep your headline keyword-packed, well-worded ("I'm a digital marketing strategist helping small businesses reach more customers online"), or take the time to craft a compelling headline with conversion words .

In the example above, the owner of this business cuts to the chase by listing her job title and the services she offers. That's nice. Include appropriate keywords that might attract people looking for services like hers.

Instead, this business owner focuses less on keywords and more on attracting people looking for "business success" through a "best in class" partnership.

Note that both examples pad their title with text and keywords, ensuring no space is wasted.

Not a great writer? You can get in touch with a professional copywriter to help you craft a message that appeals to your target audience.

Later, we'll discuss how to find LinkedIn SEO keywords to include in your profile.

summary section

Your Summary section is by far the biggest space to add compelling copy and LinkedIn SEO keywords. With over 100 words of space, you can't help but optimize this section.

This is where visitors learn even more about you, your business and the services you offer.

I like to compare it to the about page on a commercial website. And all great copywriters will tell you that your About page is about your audience,It's not about you.

You need to create a summary that speaks to what your target audience is looking for. This is not a place to simply rattle off your accomplishments and services.

ask yourself,What is my potential audience looking for when it comes to working with someone like me?

Market research can answer that for you.

If you did some market research before adding copy to your company's website, the same concepts apply here. If you haven't already done market research to uncover your audience's struggles, pain points, needs and wants, you might want todo it first.

Once you have your market research in hand, you will write a summary that appeals to your ideal target audience/customers. It will simply address their main struggle and how you can help them in that struggle.

In the example above, you can see how I address the main difficulties of SEO agencies when it comes to outsourcing SEO content: poor quality and lack of SEO knowledge on the part of the writers. Then I explain how I do things differently, what to expect when working with me, and the best way to get in touch with me.

Your summary section shouldn't ramble; It should be concise, targeted and written with a purpose. Convey your message as efficiently and effectively as possible so you can move visitors through your profile funnel without delay.

experience section

The experience section is where I see most business owners get lazy and treat their profile like a resume. I used to do it myself. No longer.

Your experience section is another place to include LinkedIn SEO keywords and compelling copy that convince users you're the right person for them.

To do this, write down each experience in a way that highlights what you took away from working at that company and the results you got for them.

Above is an example of how a LinkedIn user used the experience section to include detailed summaries of the work they've done at certain companies, the projects they've participated in, and the results they've generated through those projects.

For your own profile, you could mention things like the percentage increase in traffic generated for an SEO client, an increase in conversions for a Facebook Ads client, or how you've grown a client's merchant revenue year over year.

Highlighting these results is a great way to show profile visitors that you're not justhave experiencebut how can you replicate these results for them.

I suggest writing naturally here rather than including a bulleted list of everything you've done. Select your best examples and make them super convincing. Talk about what your prospects are looking for and let them know how you can generate the results they want.

tips

• Add experience items for each of your top clients (and link them to your company profile), making sure to describe the work you've done and the results you've generated for them.
• Use simple terms whenever possible. Don't assume your audience knows what "CTR", "scheme markup", "KPI", "keyword cannibalization" or other industry terms mean.
• Remove any experience examples that are irrelevant to the audience you intend to serve. If you offer SEO services to law firms, they don't need to know you were a Boy Scout in sixth grade or the president of a party at your college fraternity.
• Include references to any publications you write for or industry organizations you are a part of.

3. Implement LinkedIn SEO

LinkedIn SEO differs from regular SEO due to the fact that the keywords users type to find services and companies on LinkedIn are not always the same keywords users type into Google.

That's because the average user doesn't think of LinkedIn as a search engine. They use it as intended, as a social media platform, and therefore use short-tail terms that match users' job titles.

While users might use keywords like “small business copywriting services” on Google, they are more likely to use terms like “copywriter” or “writer” on LinkedIn.

However, when users search for long-tail or short-tail terms on Google, LinkedIn profiles have a chance to rank in the SERPs. That's why I suggest optimizing your profile with SEO keywords and what I call "LinkedIn SEO keywords".

Finding SEO Keywords

To find SEO keywords to use in your profile, simply perform keyword research as you would if you were looking for keywords for your business website.

What do you want me to rate your profile for?

Do these terms get decent search volume with little competition?

Do they match the intent of your target audience?

These are all questions you'll want to consider.

Generate a list of terms that are worth ranking for and have a reasonable search volume. With this list, you'll start your LinkedIn SEO keyword research and optimize your profile with a combination of these terms.

Finding LinkedIn SEO Keywords

Unfortunately, I still haven't found a tool that provides search volume data for keywords used on LinkedIn.

So this is not a difficult science. But, if you are experienced in SEO, you can make some assumptions abouthow keywords are used on LinkedIn.

This is my process for finding keywords on LinkedIn:

1. Search for the shortest and broadest term associated with the services you offer.

Use LinkedIn's search box to search for the broadest term that applies to your business.

If you have an SEO agency, that would be "SEO" or even "marketing". As a Facebook ad specialist, that would be "Facebook ads" or "advertising", maybe "social media".

LinkedIn will automatically show you a list of the top results for that termin your network(More on that later).

2. View full results.

Below the list of results, you'll see an option to "See all results for [keyword]". Click here for the full results page.

This will take you to a page that shows all the results associated with that keyword, including the number of results, whether the results are connections, companies, groups, the location of the results, and more.

You'll notice that the best results are likely connections that are already on your network, identified by a '1', '2' or '3' degree connection annotation. What this means is that you are not seeing the ACTUAL search results, as LinkedIn prioritizes showing people and companies that you have some existing connection with.

Our job, then, is to determine which terms produce thelouder volumeybest matchresults in all areas.

3. Take note of the search volume.

Before moving on to the next step, note how many results your initial search returns.

You can do this by looking at the original total or filtering it by people and companies. Don't add any other filters yet.

Basically, you want to know how many results are returned when users search for that term to find people or companies offering services like yours.

4. View expanded results for first, second and third degree connections.

After recording the initial "volume", filter the results by checking the connection options.

This will open the profiles of people you are connected with, as well as those you are not connected with.

There's no good way to see what others see when they search for your target keyword, but it does bring you closer. It will show you which keyword profiles you are using inside and outside your network, as well as how those profiles rank on LinkedIn for those terms.

This “search volume” will be your guide when deciding which terms are worth using in your profile.

5. Analyze the keywords used in the results.

Much like running a competitor analysis of sites in your niche, you now want to identify which keywords are being used in "top ranking" profiles.

(Keep in mind these are not the actual search results as they are skewed based on how you are connected.)

Be aware of how your keyword is used in the resulting profiles.

Do profiles use "SEO strategist" or "SEO expert"? Are they just listing "SEO, SEM, SMM" or are they more specific?See if you can spot any trends here.

Finally, determine what are the termsbest matchfor the type of traffic you are trying to attract to your profile.

In the example above, we can see that most of these profiles use the term "SEO" near the beginning of the title, so this could also be something we want to implement. “SEO Strategist” was also used.

Make a list of these terms. Then enter those terms into the search box again and see what kind of results come up. Repeat this process until you have a list of the 3-5 most used terms related to your seed keyword.

6. Reference your SEO keyword list.

Finally, you should compare your LinkedIn SEO keyword list to your regular SEO keyword list.

Is there an overlap?If so, keep these terms.

Are there some terms that are used on LinkedIn but that might not sit well with search engines?Decide if you should replace this with a high-volume, low-competition SEO keyword.

Over time, you'll have a combination of terms that have the potential to drive traffic from both LinkedIn and Google searches.

Add LinkedIn and SEO keywords to your profile

Once you have a solid list of keywords, you'll want to incorporate them into your LinkedIn profile.

A positive aspect of LinkedIn compared to Google is that there is no evidence that keyword stuffing is penalized here. However, you want to keep your audience top of mind and make your keywords fit your copy in an attractive and natural way.

For my own profile above, I found that more profiles were using "SEO content", "content writer", and "copywriter" than "SEO copywriter", even though "SEO copywriter" was getting a good amount of traffic volume . Google Search .

I also saw the terms “freelance” and “ghostwriter” a lot. Finally, I included keywords like "B2B" and "SaaS" to appeal to the types of companies I work with.

Some areas to add keywords:

• Titular
• Resume
• experience section
• recommendations
• skills section

If there are some regular SEO keywords you don't want to ignore, your experience section is a great place to add them.

If you found trends in terms of where these keywords were included in top ranking profiles, try tracking this in your own profile. At the same time, don't compromise if you think your profile copy is stronger by taking a different approach.

In section six, I covered how to generate recommendations, skills, and endorsements, as well as how to add keywords to these sections.

4. Create a profile 'funnel'

Want to know why copywriting is so important for your LinkedIn profile?

Well, it's because your goal is to turn your profile into a funnel for new leads.

While many LinkedIn users rely on visitors to take the lead and reach them via direct message, you and I will do things differently. Let's make it stupidly easy for people to convert.

We'll do this by funneling visitors down the page, from your cover photo and headline, to your summary, your media section, and finally your inbox or landing page.

Photos and headline – Awareness

After visitors read your cover photo and headline text, they should have a good idea of ​​who you are and who you help. They will then make the decision to learn more about you.

Summary - Interest

The summary section is your opportunity to address any pain points they have, communicate what your unique selling point is, and briefly cover the types of services you offer. This is where it's very important that your messages are accurate, based on the market research you conducted earlier.

Means - Decision

The media section on your LinkedIn profile allows you to add links to your website and blog posts or upload videos. This content can make all the difference in convincing visitors that you are the right person for them.

When directing visitors to a page or postit couldTo be effective, this approach involves diverting visitors away from your profile. There is a possibility of creating a bottleneck here as visitors may drop out due to inconvenience or the fact that it takes them longer to read the text instead of watching a short video.

That's why I suggest adding a video to your media section. This video, again, should address the main pain points your audience is facing, communicate how you will help them, and include a clear call-to-action.

If you do this effectively, you will gain trust with your profile visitors and convince them to contact you directly.

Inbox or Landing Page – Action

The call-to-action in your video should tell viewers the best way to get in touch with you. This will likely be done via a direct message from LinkedIn or your website. You may want to include a dedicated landing page for LinkedIn leads.

Your call to action should sound like,"For x services, send me a message [on my website/via LinkedIn/via this link]."

Be specific about how visitors should contact you and what they should expect after contacting you.“Message me on LinkedIn for a personalized quote”is much more convincing than"Visit mywebsite.com for more information."

By creating a profile funnel, you are more likely to take advantage of the traffic coming to your profile. Without a funnel, visitors are left with the onus of finding out what you offer, looking up the details on your website, and figuring out how to get in touch with you.

A funnel makes the process straightforward, simple and easy to convert.

5. Create SMART connections

While LinkedIn SEO and creating a profile funnel harness the power of inbound marketing on LinkedIn, there is another way to attract your ideal customers to your profile.

This method involves building connections with your target audience and professionals in your industry.

As we learned in the SEO section of this guide, LinkedIn prioritizes showing your first, second and third degree connections whenever you search for a keyword. It works the same for your leads. If you are connected with people init isnetwork, your profile is more likely to appear when they search for one of your keywords.

So the more industry connections you have, the better.

Make the right kind of connections

Many LinkedIn users connect with every possible person they can find (aside from clearly spammy profiles).

While this has yet to be tested, I am of the opinion that this can weaken your profile as it will be matched to profiles outside of your industry, making your profile less likely to be matched to your keywords.

Is it beneficial to be connected with many graphic designers in India if you provide legal SEO services in the US?Common sense would say no. (Feel free to prove me wrong.)

My opinion is that it makes sense to build connections within your industry and within your target audience's industries.

As a legal SEO specialist, this would mean connecting with other legal SEO agencies, digital marketing experts, law firms, legal blog writers, and the like. You can still be quite wide.

Be smart about the types of connections you want to have and how they can benefit your business in the short and long term.

How to find your target audience on LinkedIn

While connecting with others in your industry is straightforward, you'll want to spend more time and energy connecting with people who fit your ideal customer profile.

If you've been in the business for a while, chances are you already know what these people are like. They could be small business owners, tech entrepreneurs, SaaS companies, Fortune 500 companies, law firms, etc. Knowing this, he will simply use these identifiers to find matching profiles on LinkedIn.

If you're just starting out, you need to find out what terms your target audience uses to describe themselves on LinkedIn.

You can do this by searching for some general terms you know about your audience (like "small business" or "contractor" or "blogger mom") and seeing what comes up in LinkedIn's results.

Search until you find people who fit your ideal customer profile and take note of the terms they used in the title and summary. Then use those terms to find other people to connect with.

Connecting and saying "Hello"

One of the reasons LinkedIn has a bad reputation for being boring and spammy is because many users use the platform to sell their new connections. We are not going to do that.

Every time you extend a connection request to someone, send a message introducing yourself and explaining why you want to connect with that person.

Remember: they are practically strangers. It will take time for them to trust you and determine if the connection is worth it.

Instead of jumping into the field, follow scripts similar to the following (which gave me a response rate close to 100%):

rede script

"Hello [name],

Thanks for connecting. I see we're both in the [niche] industry. I myself am an [industry title]. Are you working on something interesting lately? Talk to you later! - [your name ]"

This script implies that the person has already connected with you or may have extended the connection first. Create a sense of familiarity instead of making it seem like a random stranger is connecting with them.

It also gives a reason for the connection rather than leaving room for the person to suspect ulterior motives. They know what you do, so they can decide if the connection is worth it.

Finally, ask the person to respond by asking about themselves. This puts the ball in your court. And if they're working on a project you could help them with, open the door to having that conversation without sounding like a salesperson.

Script principal

"Hello [name],

Thanks for connecting. I see that you [run a small business/have a law firm/are a technology entrepreneur/etc.]. I wanted to get in touch because [I help companies like yours do x]. Perhaps there is potential for us to work together. Are you working on something interesting lately?

Similar to the script above, this script lets the person know who you are and why you want to connect with them, and allows them to respond to you.

There's no argument that you know how you can help them (you don't already) or you start rambling about the services you offer.

This keeps the conversation more open and avoids the risk of you asking for a service when they may have asked about a different service that you didn't think to mention.

Let the conversation flow more naturally and they are likely to ask about the services that are most relevant to them. Another benefit of this approach is that you avoid attracting leads that may not be the best fit for you.

A final note about connections.

Try to build as many connections as possible (following the process described above) or at least reach the "500+" mark. This helps you build a wider network and come across as a trusted person in your industry.

6. Gather recommendations, skills and endorsements

Again, LinkedIn SEO isn't as measurable as website SEO, but that's part of the fun. By optimizing certain sections for keywords, you can test what works and what doesn't and create your own lead generation strategy.

The recommendations, skills, and endorsements sections are areas where you can add LinkedIn SEO keywords, but they don't provide any solid evidence that they move the needle in terms of SEO. However, they can move the needle when it comes to conversions.

recommendations

LinkedIn Recommendations are your profile “ratings”. This is where references and past clients can talk about their experience working with you and the results you've achieved for them.

Your customers are likely to naturally include keywords here, which may or may not play a role in your listing's SEO. If you ask your network contact for recommendations, you can suggest that they include these target keywords, just in case.

In addition to SEO, recommendations are great social proof to show that you know what you're doing and are delivering amazing results for your clients. If visitors see a lot of positive endorsements on your profile, that might be the last push they need to hire you.

Skills

LinkedIn allows you to add a skills list to your profile that tells visitors what you're best at.

This is another area where it can be smart to include things that have your target keywords in them.

You can have three "main" skills, as well as a longer list of other skills you have. I recommend listing your core abilities in the first three sections, as they are most likely to be supported (as seen first).

endorsement

Recommendations are when other users endorse you for the skills on your profile. Again, this serves as social proof that you have the skills you claim to have.

You can reach out to LinkedIn members to support your skills in order to increase your numbers. You can also endorse users for their skills, which can lead them to contact you or endorse you back.

It's better to have many backups for a few skills than just a few backups for many different skills.

7. Publish the right kind of content, consistently

Posting to LinkedIn can be hit or miss as few guides have covered how to "hack" the algorithm. That's why I think your success on LinkedIn (in terms of posting) depends on what works best for you and your audience.

Test different content methods (lengthy posts, images, videos, shared blog posts, etc.) to see which gets the best engagement. Repeat what works, get rid of what doesn't, and soon you'll have a LinkedIn content strategy tailored to your audience and business.

One thing to keep in mind is that it's hard to prove your content's success without being consistent. You need to post different types of content, multiple times throughout the day, and then measure the results. If you simply publish one short post a day, you are unlikely to get any tangible data.

You might also want to see what your competitors are posting and what types of posts get the most engagement there.

LinkedIn articles

The exception to this "post and pray" method isLinkedIn Articles.

LinkedIn gives an extra algorithmic boost to articles published on its platform.

While a shared blog post may generate a small number of website visits, an article published on LinkedIn can easily generate 2x, 3x or 5x the number of visits.

For this reason, it might make sense to republish your existing blog content on LinkedIn. Just keep in mind the ramifications of having two identical pieces of content competing for the same keywords. However, if website SEO is not a major concern for you, it might be worth taking this approach just for social traffic.

Finally, be sure to include a call-to-action in your LinkedIn article to leverage that traffic.

8. Give Commitment, Get Commitment

While posting on LinkedIn can yield mixed results, interacting with other users on the platform seems to hold much more promise.

That's because every time you participate in a post, your comment and name appear in your connections' LinkedIn feed. It may also appear as a second or third degree connection to users init isnetwork, expanding its reach.

That is, the morepresenceyou have on LinkedIn, you're more likely to be seen by people both inside and outside your network.

So it stands to reason that most of your time on LinkedIn is spent interacting with other people's content rather than posting your own content (until you find a content strategy that works). It's the best way to connect with individual users and reach out to profiles outside your immediate network.

This isn't to say that you shouldn't post anything on LinkedIn, but in terms of numbers, it's clear that more new traffic is driven to your profile by interacting with other people's posts.

When users see your review, they're likely to click through to your profile to learn more about you. You can communicate with these new viewers through a connection request.

These views are reflected in your notifications and in your LinkedIn analytics.

9. Understand your LinkedIn analytics

No optimization guide is worth its weight without showing the results in terms of cold, hard numbers. That's why I made sure to try every LinkedIn best practice I could find, as well as any optimization hacks I came up with on my own.

I recommend that marketers and business owners do the same, as LinkedIn optimization is still not simple. The success of your LinkedIn strategy also depends on what works best for you.tuTarget audience.

Profile views, connections and search appearances

LinkedIn offers very limited (but sufficient) data to see how your profile is performing.

You can see how many people viewed your profile, how many viewed your posts, how many people you connected with, and how often you appeared in search results.

You can also see who has viewed your profile (unless you have a protected account) and examine trends over time.

Since implementing my own LinkedIn SEO strategy in January, I have seen a 173% increase in profile views over the 30 days.

As of March 26th, my average number of profile views has been around 50 per day. This with very little posting or engagement on LinkedIn (about 1-3 times a day).

I also increased my number of connections from 325 to over 900 in 90 days and generated at least 10 qualified leads in that time (no outreach).

These results come from a nearly constant testing process. I've told others to implement micro-optimizations and analyze their LinkedIn analytics to see what works and what doesn't.

track your conversions

However, the goal of LinkedIn optimization is not simply more traffic and connections.

If you're starting your own LinkedIn optimization journey, I recommend tracking how many leads you generate as a result of your efforts (LinkedIn doesn't track this for you). Only then will you really know if your strategy is working.

You can go into your Google Analytics to see how many visitors you get from LinkedIn and then set up conversion tracking there. However, if you're driving users to your LinkedIn inbox, you'll need to track this manually or with a bot.

The numbers don't lie. Stick with what works and you're sure to see an increase in connections, traffic and leads over time.

Turn your LinkedIn profile into a lead generation machine

By following the LinkedIn optimization tips above and testing your own optimization ideas, you can drive huge volumes of traffic to your profile and convert that traffic into qualified leads for your business.

The foundation of this strategy involves conducting SEO keyword research on LinkedIn, optimizing your profile's aesthetics, building quality connections, and driving visitors through your custom profile funnel. Then it's just a matter of tweaking based on what works for your target audience and business model.

Are you making the most of your LinkedIn profile? If not, start today.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily those of Search Engine Land. Team authors are listedon here.