In today’s information age and more so the B2B arena, establishing solid relationships with prospects and clients on LinkedIn and optimizing your LinkedIn Profile matters more than ever. Professional service buyers dislike irrelevant or promotional messages. Instead, they want to engage with professional service firms that focus on sharing relevant and useful content.

As a result, professional service companies are increasingly leveraging LinkedIn and using it to build solid relationships with their clients and potential prospects by providing them with informative and engaging content through the platform.

However, based on our extensive research, we’ve seen that most firms’ LinkedIn profiles are not optimized, and as a result, they are missing out on some huge potential.

Consider this- LinkedIn is the number one B2B social network online today with more than 562 million users in more than 200 countries around the world.

In fact, according to a study of more than 5,000 businesses conducted by HubSpot, the traffic from LinkedIn had a conversion rate of 2.74 percent while traffic from Twitter and Facebook had conversion rates of 0.69 percent and 0.77 percent, respectively.

In other words, the conversion rate for leads from LinkedIn is 277 percent greater than it is for leads from both Twitter and Facebook.

Not optimizing your LinkedIn profile has several implications.  You will not make a good impression with potential prospects and clients, you will not be found in searches, and you will not grow your connections.

We want to provide you with tips on how you can optimize your LinkedIn profile in a way that will enable you to connect with more clients, establish a stable relationship with them, and ultimately grow your business.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

Here’s a look at five secrets that you can use to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

  • Choose a Standout Headline

The headline is the essential part of your profile, along with your name and profile picture. That’s why you need to use a standout headline. Choose a headline that captures your firm’s personality.

For instance, instead of using a headline such as “provider of data analytics software solution,” you can use a more inspiring headline such as “we help you figure out how to make sense of your organizational data.”

  • Make the Most of the Summary Section

One of the most critical sections of your profile that is often underutilized is the summary section. This section allows you to promote your business. Make sure that it is evident at the beginning of the summary, the types of clients you work with, and the value you add.

Like any online writing, if you have a lot of text, break it up into short paragraphs or bullets. To add a bullet, go to a website like https://coolsymbol.com and copy and paste a symbol into your profile summary.

And last but not least, ensure you have a call to action (s) in your summary.

  • Think About Keywords

LinkedIn is the largest social media channel in terms of search queries. Most professional service buyers search for companies using LinkedIn’s Boolean or business-specific search.

For LinkedIn to generate accurate search results, it mostly relies on the keywords you’ve used in your profile. Make sure you think about the keywords that will drive traffic to your profile since they impact your visibility.

One specific area you should review is your skills section. By default, LinkedIn highlights the skills (only the top three unless a visitor wants to see more) that have received the highest number of endorsements. Make sure those are the ones you want to be highlighted in your profile. If not, you should rearrange them.

  • Link to the Right Website Page/ Social Media Channels

You already know that prospective clients are coming from LinkedIn. Make sure you take advantage of this; introduce them to your firm with a unique landing page that will convert them into paying clients.

LinkedIn provides you with three areas to put in URLs, and you’ll want to maximize this feature. If you have multiple websites, add them.  You can also add your social media URLs. If you want people to connect with you, show them how!

  • Use Videos

You need to utilize videos as 60% of the top 100 companies on LinkedIn actively post videos. You can place a video on your profile page, and this can ensure your prospective clients stay longer on your profile page.

The Takeaway

LinkedIn is the world’s premier B2B social media platform that is empowering enterprises like never before.

To capitalize on these ever-evolving opportunities, professional service firms need to establish a solid strategy that can improve their ability to harness the power of LinkedIn and thus reach more professional service buyers.

The tips we have outlined above can help optimize your LinkedIn profile and as a result, win and keep more clients.

So what’s preventing your firm from reaching its full growth potential? Put your firm on a path to healthy growth. Ask for a FREE assessment today!