LinkedIn has firmly established itself as the professional networking platform and is an incredibly effective tool for lead generation. The platform is especially popular amongst ‘Bee-2-Bee’ marketers who rank LinkedIn amongst the most effective channels for driving high-quality B2B leads.
By optimising your LinkedIn company page with effective SEO strategies, you earn plenty of opportunities to generate warm leads for your business.
In this guide to LinkedIn SEO, we share the benefits of using SEO for LinkedIn, explain the implications of important changes to the LinkedIn algorithm, and finish with 7 SEO best practices for LinkedIn company pages.
Let’s get into it.
Jump to
- What is LinkedIn SEO?
- The benefits of using SEO for LinkedIn
- How does the LinkedIn algorithm work?
- 7 SEO best practices for LinkedIn company pages
- Continue your SEO learning
What is LinkedIn SEO?
SEO is an initialism standing for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO is about improving your web pages (such as your LinkedIn company page) so that they rank higher in the SERP.
LinkedIn has an advanced algorithm that powers the platform’s search and discovery tools. SEO for LinkedIn involves implementing strategies to improve the discoverability of your company page on both LinkedIn and external search engines.
Quick-fire glossary
Before we get into the ins and outs, it’s worth being familiar with a few of the key terms used in LinkedIn SEO.
- SERP / Search engine results pages: The list of results generated in response to a search query.
- Algorithm: The complex formula LinkedIn uses to determine the order of search results.
- Company Page: Your business’s LinkedIn page, like this one.
- Optimisation: The process of refining your content and settings to achieve better search rankings.
- Ranking factors: the metrics that are considered valuable by search engine algorithms.
- Search query: A phrase entered into a search engine to find specific information or things of interest.
- Engagement: The level of interaction and interest a post generates, such as likes, comments, and shares.
The benefits of using SEO for LinkedIn
You can think of your company page on LinkedIn as a second website for your business. And with over 930 million active users, LinkedIn offers serious reach, serving as a significant source of traffic for many small businesses.
However, traffic alone is a vanity metric — the real value of SEO for LinkedIn revolves around bringing targeted traffic to your company page. Remember, 5 targeted leads in your inbox is better than 50 meaningless likes on a post.
Using SEO for LinkedIn usually makes good sense. Effective use of these best practices brings 3 key benefits:
- Increased discoverability – LinkedIn SEO increases the rate at which your content or company page appears in search results.
- Improved engagement – If your content is discoverable on LinkedIn, it is likely to earn more shares, likes, and comments which further increase the reach of your content. As you’ll see below, engagement with your content is an important ranking factor.
- Relevant and valuable audience – LinkedIn SEO involves optimising your company page and posts with keywords that are relevant to your industry, putting your company page in front of your target audience.
How does the LinkedIn algorithm work?
Social media and tech companies are notoriously tight-lipped about the ranking factors that are considered valuable by their algorithms.
However, a 2023 interview with LinkedIn’s Editor in Chief Daniel Roth revealed fascinating details about recent changes to LinkedIn’s algorithm.
Interestingly, the need for tweaks to the LinkedIn algorithm was brought about by an increase in user activity. Between 2021 and 2023, LinkedIn saw a 42% YOY increase in content shared. But, with the merging of work and home life during the pandemic, much of the content being shared on LinkedIn had become overly personal. LinkedIn feeds had become littered with selfies, shameless self-promotion and virtue signalling.
Tired of content that they saw as irrelevant and unhelpful, huge numbers of LinkedIn users complained. These complaints are telling. They highlight the motivation of the majority of LinkedIn users: most LinkedIn users are professionals or entrepreneurs looking to learn and discover opportunities.
The LinkedIn algorithm rewards personal profiles and company pages that contribute to the community. Offering value is the way you feed LinkedIn’s algorithm and boost your company page.
Key Changes to the LinkedIn Algorithm in 2023
In response to the worsening user experience, LinkedIn introduced two major changes to the algorithm that took effect in early 2023.
- LinkedIn posts are more likely to be seen by followers and/or connections
- Posts that provide knowledge and advice are prioritised
The takeaway here is not that you need to build a huge following, but any posts you share via your company page should be informative with plenty of useful advice.
How does the LinkedIn algorithm evaluate content?
LinkedIn’s algorithm assesses content based on hundreds of ranking factors, but there are 4 key metrics to be aware of: relevance, authority, perspective, and meaningful engagement.
Relevance
LinkedIn’s algorithm starts by assessing the relevance of a piece of content. The system is essentially figuring out who a piece of content is intended for. For example, a post about the benefits of local SEO is likely to be served to LinkedIn users who have shown an interest in learning about SEO.
Key takeaway: Clearly signpost what your posts are about by using keywords consistently in the title, headings and throughout the body of the content.
Authority
In a similar way to how Google Search uses PageRank to determine the authority of a webpage, LinkedIn’s discovery system evaluates the authority of your company page.
Essentially, the algorithm is judging whether or not you are writing on a topic that you’re knowledgeable about, or experienced in. As well as evaluating the authority of your company page, LinkedIn uses data points from the author’s professional profile to gauge whether or not a post can be considered authoritative.
Key takeaway: Consistently write about topics you are knowledgeable about, where you can demonstrate your expertise and previous experience. It’s important to write posts that are related to the information included on your company page, your industry or the products or services you offer.
Perspective
This final metric is all about LinkedIn’s mission to encourage content that provides knowledge and advice. LinkedIn’s algorithm now rewards posts where authoritative authors offer some perspective or insights into their industry.
Key takeaway: Don’t just give generic information, offer some perspective that supports the knowledge or advice you are providing. Posts that give an insight into your thinking such as thought leadership pieces or valuable industry insights are likely to be boosted.
Meaningful engagement
LinkedIn’s algorithm now prioritises ‘meaningful’ engagement. This change was introduced in response to “engagement groups”, where users would leave comments on each other’s posts in an attempt to game the LinkedIn algorithm. LinkedIn’s system now looks for comments that truly engage with the post, and respond to the content in a non-superficial way.
Key takeaway: Don’t engage in shallow comment/reply spamming on other users’ LinkedIn content. Encourage deep engagement with your posts by posing questions or encouraging followers/readers to give their thoughts.
7 SEO best practices for LinkedIn company pages
The changes to the LinkedIn algorithm reflect the direction the platform is going: more than ever before, LinkedIn is focussing on quality over quantity. LinkedIn understands that the real value lies in helping its users connect with the right people.
Optimising your company page is about feeding relevant data points to the LinkedIn algorithm and consistently publishing posts that offer knowledge and advice.
Implement the following LinkedIn SEO best practices and begin boosting the visibility of your company page.
1. Optimise your keywords
You’re probably familiar with the importance of keyword research, and keywords on LinkedIn work much the same as keywords on search engines like Google. Keyword research is about identifying what search queries or keywords your target audience is searching for.
On LinkedIn, optimising your keywords involves matching the goods or services your company offers with high-volume search queries. The keywords you decide on will mostly relate to your industry and specialties, but they can be refined further by including keywords related to your location.
This brings us onto another point that relates to optimising your keywords — profile completeness. It’s vitally important that you complete every section of your company page — company pages that are 100% complete receive 30% more views than incomplete company pages.
2. Keyword-rich ‘About Us’ section
The ‘About Us’ section of your company page is where you turn prospects into leads. The ‘about us’ section is limited to 2,000 characters so you need to clearly communicate your offering. Think about what your target audience is looking for and communicate how your brand helps customers meet their business objectives.
This is where your understanding of your target audience’s pain points comes in. Be sure to include your primary keywords in your list of specialties. It helps to rank order your specialties with your core services or primary keywords being listed first.
3. Customise your URL
LinkedIn sets a default URL for your company page, which is usually just a random string of numbers. You can customise your company page URL to include a brand or service-related keyword. This is another opportunity to get across what your company is all about and ticks another LinkedIn SEO data point.
To customise the public URL of your company page, follow these steps: Edit Page > Page Info > LinkedIn Public URL.
4. Share content related to your core offering
As we’ve seen, authority is an important ranking factor within the LinkedIn algorithm. LinkedIn is scoring authority based on the keywords included on your company page, previous LinkedIn posts, and the professional profile of each post’s author.
To build authority on LinkedIn, ensure that the content you share is related to your company’s specialties and is about a topic that you have proven experience in. For example, here at WebHummel, we’ve been providing SEO services since 2018, we have SEO Services listed at the front of our specialties list, and we’ve previously published posts on LinkedIn about SEO. It’s fair to say we have some authority when it comes to the topic.
5. Encourage engagement
Another change to the LinkedIn algorithm is the focus on meaningful engagement. When it comes to engagement, LinkedIn now values quality over quantity. This is part of LinkedIn’s efforts to improve user experience, whilst also establishing the platform as a place where users can learn from one another. LinkedIn recognises that comments not only inform the commenter, but other users too. Posts that earn meaningful comments, such as questions or counterarguments that generate discussions are likely to be boosted.
The approach here is not to post controversial content but rather thought-provoking content that encourages readers to share their thoughts or ask questions. LinkedIn is incentivising the sharing of knowledge and advice so be sure to respond to any comments on your LinkedIn posts and try to get discussions going.
6. Inform with infographics
When many of us think of SEO, we think of long-form articles with plenty of keywords but your LinkedIn content strategy should include a variety of content formats. Infographics are a great option for sharing knowledge on LinkedIn.
Images tend to earn more engagement, so it’s essential you brand your infographics by including a watermark, such as your company name or logo.
7. Share content consistently
Authority is a major ranking factor on LinkedIn and a great way to build authority in the eyes of the algorithm is to share content consistently. According to LinkedIn, companies that post content on a weekly basis earn 2 times more engagement than companies who post less frequently.
As well as publishing content regularly, be sure to be consistent with the topics you’re talking about on LinkedIn. Consistency in post frequency and the topics you discuss is how you position your business as an authoritative source of knowledge in the eyes of LinkedIn.
Continue your SEO learning
Just like SEO, optimising your company page on LinkedIn is an ongoing process. Start by ensuring 100% completeness of your company page, then keep your page up to date with accurate (and optimised) information.
As well as providing certain data points and being clear on your keywords, the major success factor within LinkedIn SEO is sharing content that offers knowledge and advice. By providing value consistently, you position your company as an authority and significantly increase your discoverability on LinkedIn.
At beefound.agency we offer a full range of SEO services, including, PPC and a LinkedIn SEO advisory. If you’re a small business owner or someone just getting started on your SEO journey, we suggest you add this article on the importance of SEO for business to your reading list.
Of course, you’re welcome to ‘give us a buzz’ with any LinkedIn or SEO-related questions.
