How to Increase Your LinkedIn Profile Views

I was recently asked “How can I increase my LinkedIn profile views and have recruiters find my LinkedIn profile?”

If people can’t find you, you’ll never get approached with new job opportunities. You can only be approached by hiring managers and recruiters if you are discoverable. Why is this important?

When recruiters and hiring managers can find you, they can call you in for an interview (and that is a golden opportunity to get hired).

In this article I’ll share a comprehensive set of strategies to make your LinkedIn profile discoverable, position you as an authority in your industry and want to show you how to improve your LinkedIn Profile’s ability to show up when a recruiter searches for people like you.

Add Keywords to Your LinkedIn Profile

Insert keywords and phrases that pertain to your industry/profession into your tagline (area under your name), your About section (formerly called the Summary), and your employment title (without changing your title, obviously — but use a divider | and have relevant keywords after your title).

Additionally, add the LinkedIn Skills that pertain to the keywords of your profession and industry. You can use keywords and phrases from job descriptions you have held, jobs you are targeting, and the most popular/default skills LinkedIn suggests to you when you are completing your profile.

Find Relevant LinkedIn Groups

Join a LinkedIn Group that supports your industry or profession to increase the amount of searches you can come up in since your are now connected to the group members of these related groups.

You will also be able to connect with each other and share content. Although LinkedIn Groups aren’t as effective as they once were, you can still position yourself as an expert within your area of expertise and create visibility for yourself by answering questions and contributing valuable content.

Use LinkedIn Groups and you can expand your network with connections you’ve met online. You also have the added bonus of knowing that they are in your same field and share your interests. Since LinkedIn Groups come with every kind of LinkedIn subscription there is, you’ll have access to individuals you may not have been able to find using more traditional methods.

Become an expert in two different ways.

When recruiters are hiring for higher level positions they are looking for people who really know their stuff. Strategically using LinkedIn Groups us perfect way to position yourself as an expert yourself and show others your thought leadership.

The first way to do this is to answer questions within the groups. Oftentimes professionals will ask certain questions pertaining to their industry or an issue they are encountering on the job. These are the perfect opportunities for you to step up and share your knowledge with others.

The second way to position yourself as an expert is to start your own LinkedIn group. As the moderator you can set yourself up as a leader among a group of individuals in the same field.

Learn about the latest industry trends before they go viral.

By engaging with people directly involved in the industry within Groups, you’ll be getting information from primary sources. You’ll also have access to blog posts, articles, and research before bigger news outlets catch on. This can be invaluable for projecting authority in your field or pivoting and adapting to industry changes.

In short, LinkedIn groups are a solid way to build quality connections and become known as an industry expert. While it takes some time to use them, the investment is invaluable. You can find the groups that best suit you by using LinkedIn’s Group Search function.

Post Content Relevant to Your Industry

The LinkedIn Activity Feed, that resides on your LinkedIn homepage, is a treasure trove of information from connections and followed companies. Posting content to the Activity Feed is a great way for a LinkedIn member to stay top of mind to their connections. By posting interesting information of value on a regular basis to your LinkedIn Activity Feed, hiring managers and recruiters within your connection reach start to see you as a generous, knowledgeable resource to reach out for referrals and inquiries when open roles are available.

“What makes good content to post on LinkedIn?”

Not all posted content is created equal. You can certainly look like you simply like the sound of your own voice (or your fingers typing on a keyboard) if what you post is consistently cheesy humble-brags. This kind of content doesn’t build followers.

So here are some guidelines when creating content for posting on LinkedIn that will attract employees and hiring managers from quality companies:

1. Think “What would the person I want to attract want to read?”
   The answer to this question should get you to hone in on who your audience is, and what they want to read. What they want to read will populate your content idea list.
2. Aim to be of service to your audience.
   Are you looking to attract hiring managers? What questions would they ask when hiring people who do what you do? Create content that answers those questions.
3. Promote other quality content that follows points #1 and #2.
   This not only garners exposure for the person whose content you are promoting, it promotes you as the person who turned your audience on to an informative resource.

Here are some ideas for the types of posts you can create:

• Congratulate others on promotions and job changes.
• Promotions received; new projects awarded.
• Topics needing advice and insight.
• Announcements on accolades, testimonials and awards received.
• Conferences, conventions and networking events you’re attending.
• Informational materials, such as videos, publications, podcasts, slides and white papers.
• Articles written by others that you find interesting.
• Re-posting and sharing of information posted in other people’s activity feeds.
• Comments on other member’s posts; responses to comments on your own posts.

This kind of engagement is highly valued by LinkedIn, but exactly how it is measured and weighted is unknown. Sharing information with these types of informational posts cross pollinate one’s profile to generate more and more exposure well beyond the first degree of connections, which increases the likelihood of recruiters and hiring managers stumbling upon the candidate’s profile and ranking higher in search results, due to the engagement and common connections.

If you want help on how to work the keywords into your profile, find the right LinkedIn groups to join, identify the right people to connect with (and what to say when reaching out to them), and curate interesting information to post on LinkedIn, then you’ll want to register for my no-cost “How to Create Your LinkedIn Profile to Generate 6-Figure Job Interviews Faster” Master Class.