How often have you clicked the link “Company Website” on someone’s LinkedIn profile?
What about “Personal Website”? “Portfolio”, “RSS Feed”, “Blog” – do you actually click that one? Yet another one of LinkedIn’s hidden gems about to be revealed… It does make me wonder why LinkedIn even provides these options though.
Have you listed THREE websites on your LinkedIn Profile?
If you’ve been reading this blog from part one, you’ve come a long way in updating your profile. Your LinkedIn Profile Picture will send viewers the right message. You’ve got a Professional Headline that grabs people’s attention. The job titles on your LinkedIn Profile REALLY tell people something about the professional you are. You’ve cleverly described your education to add more keywords to your profile without favouring search engines over people and you have no fear GIVING and receiving Recommendations on LinkedIn.
Time to list some websites on your profile.
LinkedIn gives you the option to list three websites; you might as well use all three. In edit mode click ‘Contact Info’ just below the number of connections, to expand the contact area of your profile (see image above). Next hover your mouse over the websites area and click the pencil so you can edit.
You don’t want to choose the options “Company Website” – “Personal Website”- “Blog” and so on.
Why not? Because it does you no good when people view your profile and it does you no good when search engines crawl the page that your LinkedIn Profile is!
It doesn’t tickle my curiosity at all to read “Company Website”. Especially since the profile already told me what company you work for in the first place. However, if I was to read “Corporate LinkedIn Training” I know exactly what to expect and – if that is what I am looking for – I will click. Compare “Blog” to the following two options: “NL Blog LinkedIn Tips” – “EN Blog LinkedIn Tips”. The first one tells me nothing. The last one tells me the subject of the Blog and that it is in English! I know where to go now!
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Your LinkedIn Profile really is a Website! Search engines crawl websites. What would you rather they index? “Company Website” or some keywords relevant to your business? Or maybe even your business name. You get 30 characters to write a useful anchor text just by choosing “other” instead of any options LinkedIn lists first. How easy is that!
But I haven’t got three websites! I hear you say.
Truly? Not even one? Do you currently own or work for a company? It is quite all right to link directly to subpages of your site. It helps people go straight to where they need to go and it shows search engines more links to your site! Remember in SEO: links are given more importance by Google and other search engines if they come from “important” sites. Guess what? LinkedIn just so happens to be an important site!
>>> So… what sites did you add to your profile? I am curious about your choices and motivation. Do tell! <<<