SEOing for LinkedIn Helps Your Job Search

By Joshua Waldman from Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies

LinkedIn uses a search algorithm that delivers results based on keyword density, that is, what percent of the time that keyword appears among all the other words on the page. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the art and science of getting found when someone searches a term in a search engine like Google.

If you want recruiters to find you on LinkedIn, just follow this simple checklist:

Know which keywords you want to be associated with.
Make sure those keywords appear in the following locations in your profile:
- Professional headline
- Job title in current and three past experiences
- Summary
- Specialties
- Skills
Have at least six recommendations. (The person with more recommendations wins in a tie for matching keywords.)

Some people take advantage of the simplicity of LinkedIn’s search algorithm and do something called keyword packing, which is stuffing keywords into a paragraph as many times as they can. Because keyword packing looks horribly ugly, people often stuff keywords into the oldest experiences section in their profile, somewhat out of the way.

Yes, their profiles rank, but that's not playing fair. LinkedIn may start penalizing people who do this, so don’t take the risk.