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Complete Your LinkedIn Profile and Rise in Search Results
December 23, 2013 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
A quick tutorial (don’t leave, this is important) on what goes into LinkedIn search results. Three factors affect your appearance and ranking in search results on LinkedIn.
The first is your use of keywords and phrases. You should include relevant keywords or keyword phrases someone would use to find someone with your abilities and experience. And you need to do it in such a way that it doesn't look silly. Frankly, if you are an electronics technician, repeating the phrase “electronics technician” 60 times in the experience section of your profile does not make you look brilliant--it makes you look like a smart-ass.
Your use of keywords affects whether or not you show up in search results. The second and third factors affect where you show up in the results list. I just searched LinkedIn for the keyword phrase “electronics technician” in Greater Philadelphia. There were 615 results. What factors affect who appears where on this list?
The size of your network plays a critical role. This doesn’t affect whether you appear in search results of course, but it does affect how you look and where you rank in the results. Someone who is a "1," a first degree connection, ranks above a "2" who ranks above a "3" who ranks above an out-of-network “LinkedIn member.” The larger your LinkedIn network, the more likely it is that you will rank higher and get noticed.
The other factor affecting where you appear in the results list is that people with completed LinkedIn profiles rank higher than those who have not completed their profile. If you are one of 60 "2s" in the search results, having an incomplete profile will rank you lower than most of them.
Most people don’t realize that not completing their LinkedIn profiles puts them at a disadvantage and it is one thing you can correct in 20 minutes. According to LinkedIn, a completed profile includes your industry and location, your current position, and a description of what you do, two past positions, your education, a minimum of three skills, a photograph, and at least 50 connections (note how LinkedIn is nudging you into building your network).
Actually, these are all reasonable requests. Here’s an example: A peculiar phenomena on LinkedIn is people leaving their current job description empty. Maybe they updated their profile with a new position they hold and figured they would update their profile later, but they just didn’t get around to it. So, their profile has solid descriptions of their past two or three or four jobs, but just a title for their current one. the result is an incomplete LinkedIn profile and a lower rank in the search results.
What you put in does not have to be beautiful right away so don’t agonize over it. You can always fix it, expand on it, massage it, and perfect it later (just don’t forget). The idea is to have something there now.
Remember the example cited above? Say 100 people show up in my electronics technician search. Your profile is complete, except you have hummed and hawed over which photo you want to use so you don’t have one, which means your profile is 95% complete. That dithering costs you, as the 46 people with completed profiles (even that profile where the guy used a picture of him in a bar with his friends!) all appear ahead of you.
There are things that are good for your personal “brand” on LinkedIn that take time--things like building a large and diverse network or establishing your credibility through your participation in groups, but completing your profile is not one of them.Bruce Johnston is a sales consultant specializing in social media and especially LinkedIn. He has over 25 years experience in high-tech sales and management. He can be reached at brucej@practicalsmm.com or through his profile on LinkedIn.