The biggest missed opportunity on LinkedIn

By Joan Stewart

If you’re on LinkedIn, you’re passing up the chance to create “Google juice” if you aren’t paying attention to the way you link to your website, blog and social media sites from your LinkedIn profile page.

You can display up to three website links on your Profile. Website titles can and should be customized with keywords that link to your sites.

Don’t take the lazy way out and use one of LinkedIn’s suggested title options:

–My Website

–My Company

–My Blog

–My RSS Feed

–My Portfolio

–Other (reveals an additional field that allows you to enter your own website title).

For example, instead of “My Website,” use keywords that people would type into the search engines if they were looking for the kinds of products and services that you provide. I have three sites listed: my regular website, my blog and the website where I offer free press release writing tips as part of the course called “89 Ways to Write Powerful Press Releases.”

But rather than list them as “My Website,” “My Blog” and “My Website,” I used keywords that the search engines will recognize and give me credit for. The more inbound links to my websites that are attached to keywords, the more favorably the search engines judge my sites, particularly if those links come from authoritative, high-traffic sites like LinkedIn.

Here’s how I do it:

This one change will take just a few minutes, and it will help Google direct more people to those sites because the URLs are linked to keywords. That’s why it could well be the Number 1 missed opportunity on LinkedIn.

Here’s how to make the change:

Step 1: Log into your LinkedIn account

Step 2: Click on Profile > Edit profile

Step 3: Go to Websites

Step 4: Copy and paste your website address into the URL field. Or, if you already have a website listed under “My Website,” click on “edit.”

Step 5: Change “My Website” to a keyword phrase

Step 6: Click on “Save Changes”

What other opportunities are people missing on LinkedIn? Or what powerful tactics or strategies have you discovered on LinkedIn?