In the old days, before it went all sophisticated and semantic, LinkedIn searches were predictable in outcome. Your chances of being found were defined by your relationship with the person who was undertaking the search. The search priorities and rankings were based simply on the level of connection you shared, the number of connections you had in common, and then the number of groups you shared. Hence, the bigger your network, the more likely you were to be found close to the top of a search result
Now LinkedIn has changed it default search criteria, and although a large network still gives you better span and ability to connect, being found for what you know requires application of some simple Search Engine Optimisation – SEO – techniques.
Basic LinkedIn Searching:
The basic search function in the top right of the LinkedIn user screen, much like Google, allows you just to search a basic string: eg, Dave Smith or Architect. You can use the drop down menu to search: People, Jobs, Companies, Answers, InBox, Groups
Most often, you are looking for a person or a company, and you can add strings together, eg: Dave Smith Akzo. This is useful finding named people – or titled people – at a particular company. Which ever search system you use, LinkedIn will return the searches balanced on a priority of:
Search Criteria – eg: Dave then David Smith?
Relationship to you in your LinkedIn network – ie: first, second or third level contact, number of connections in common, number of groups in common
The reason for the second criteria is that LinkedIn Search now uses semantic criteria to create both primary and additional results. Hence, you will now tind you have a longer list of results, often running into multiple pages. The reason for a semantic search, is that it allows for people to spell their name in different ways, which is particularly common in North America where more people use middle initials and use nick-names as professional names, eg:
Dave or David?
Rob or Robert
Chuck?
The out coming number of people, and the complexity of reducing them to something more manageable by using techniques like parenthetic search, mean the need to occasionally use the more advanced in-built search tools.
LinkedIn Search Result Priorities
The default search results are now prioritised and sorted by LinkedIn according to their relevance. This recent change means that even though PersonA may fit the criteria you searched for and be a first level connection, if PersonB who is in your total network has more relevance to that semantic search term, then PersonB will appear above PersonA in the displayed search results. We will come back to this shortly, but understand that the standard default setting for searches on LinkedIn is based on relevance over connection.
LinkedIn provides both on the Advanced Search page, and after basic search results are displayed, alternate methods of ranking results, selected from a menu located in a grey bar just above the first result. The options are:
Relevance (default)
Relationship
Relationship + Recommendations
Connections
Keywords
You can set your default search setting differently to any of these criteria you choose.
Advanced People Search:
In Advance People Search, each field now becomes a separate table or drop-down menu. There are three parts to the Advanced People Search page:
Person – which you can define through the fields of: keywords; First name; Last Name: Location; School; Title; Company. The last two criteria can both be set for current or past
LinkedIn Relationship – in which you have the fields of: Industry; Language; and then two related to LinkedIn: Relationship; Groups
Sort Results – Relevance, and View for how the results are displayed
LinkedIn also allows you to undertake an Advanced Reference Search (employees at a company during a stated time period), and allows you to Save Searches you may use regularly, with an allowance of 10 saved searches for a free account.
LinkedIn SEO:
With LinkedIn’s default search criteria set to relevance, most LinkedIn users will leave this as the default setting. Only advanced users will understand the difference of priorities in the displayed pages, and how to change them. So, how do you improve your chances of being found? Is there a form of LinkedIn Search Engine Optimisation? Simply, yes.
Firstly, start out with the key phrases – know as keywords in internet SEO – that you want to be ranked for. Unlike in main stream internet SEO, only select three to five that are wholly relevant to human beings: no miss-spellings here!
Now take these keyword phrases, and insert them in your profile in the following sections:
Headline/title
Current work experience
Past work experience
Summary
Specialities
If you want to mention them more than once, then in each job you have held where you have deployed that skill, where relevant mention them there as well.
The result is that LinkedIn’s semantic relevance results will now place you higher in the searches of any person who searches for that criteria, than someone who has not optimised their profile. The secondary advantage is that external searches via Google where the user used a Boolean search string will also mimic these same search results.
A guest post by Ian McAllister. Read more...
