Every now and then someone passes something on to me that I really think is worth sharing and one of those was sent to me yesterday. I've been coaching folks for years to make sure the keywords that matter are repeated early and often (provided that all of the information is true) in their resume. One of my contacts, Selena Rushton, sent me a link for a 15-minute overview on how to optimize LinkedIn with keywords. I had thought about doing this, but hadn't quite gotten around to it. My profile had been based on what I set up when I was still looking for work as an IT Manager/Director.
Well I decided to put it to the test. First I did a search of "People" in LinkedIn for "career coach" and got 51,115 results. I got bored trying to find me after about the 40th page. Then I spent most of an hour reworking my profile to reflect what I'm doing now and optimizing my experience to reflect my real experience as a coach. Then I searched for career coach again and boom—I was entry number 10—last entry on the first page. This occurred by changing a very few things. I just replaced words like mentoring with coaching. On my summary I led with the fact that I'm a career coach and did the same with my profile. And I expanded my profile to focus more on how I have coached folks for years.
Worth noting, when I searched for "career coach" two hours later, I had already slipped to 12th, so lots of people are optimizing along with me, but I only invested an hour and I became visible. This is something that I will continue.
So here's the link again:
http://www.linkedstrategies.com/linkedin-keyword-optimization.htm
