How long ago did you create your LinkedIn, Facebook or YouTube profiles? Do you remember? Did you know that certain aspects of your information profile have SEO value?

If it’s been a while since you created your social media profiles, things have changed a bit. The industry is evolving, and it helps to stay on top of how your favorite channels can be optimized for better search results. In the next few blog posts I’ll share some of the tidbits I’m learning in my International Social Media Association (ISMA) certification course to help you make the most of your online networking efforts.

Today I’ll start off with LinkedIn, because it’s one of the oldest networks. Most of us set our profiles up long ago and then forgot them! Here are a few tips to polish up your info:

Develop an Updated Keyword List

You should use your keywords in as many places as possible in your social media profiles to take advantage of today’s enhanced search features. Take a look at your current list and update it to include phrases around your:

·        Industry

·        Job title

·        Offers

·        Products

·        Services

·        Clients

·        Company name

·        Client’s industry

You’ll want to keep this handy for optimizing all your public profiles. For LinkedIn, you can use these keywords to optimize your headline, content, updates and summary, so strategize a bit about those items, and use terms that your potential clients may be using to find your services.

Pull up LinkedIn’s People and Company search options and study the fields available, then do some searching on your own with a few specific keywords and see what you come up with.

You can also use those keywords when writing answers to industry questions in LinkedIn’s Answers tab—or when coming up with questions of your own.

Customize Your Profile Link & Website

To can edit your website name, which defaults to “My Website.” Just click the little [Edit] tab next to the field and change the name. Mine currently says Apryl’s Writing Website, but I’m thinking of changing it again. Also, it’s a good idea to change your public profile link (from the default letters and numbers) to a name that will be easy to remember and share.  There’s a handy “Customize Your URL” example right on the profile page before your summary.

Once you get started, you’ll probably find several areas in your profile that could use improvement —but that’s ok. Consider it a work in progress, and make a note to stop back in and make updates periodically.

Over the next few posts I’ll concentrate on Facebook, but if you’ve come across more items on improving LinkedIn, please share!