Week 3: Nifty Tools and Ninja Tricks for Creating Your Keyword List
In a recent Tweetchat, one of the participants tweeted, “Thank you for telling us about keywords in LinkedIn. A recruiter found me and I was hired because she found my profile first.”
Whether you are a job seeker, entrepreneur, sales professional, or the executive director for a nonprofit organization, having the right keywords in the right places can help you get found by whomever you want to get found by on LinkedIn.
If you have a website, you (or your web guru) might already have a good idea of what keywords are being used in your website to get your company, your product, or your service found on the Web. Keywords are simply words or phrases people use to find websites, businesses, places, or products on the Web.
Don’t worry if you don’t currently use, or have access to, those keywords. I’ll show you some tricks that will help you gather all the keywords you will ever need for your social presence.
I want to be clear that keywording your social profiles on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook is much easier than performing search engine optimization (SEO) on your website. While the keywords you gather over the next week can be used to optimize your website, those strategies are more sophisticated than the keyword techniques you’ll explore in this chapter.
For more on search marketing and social publishing strategies, read Rob Garner’s Search and Social: The Complete Guide to Real-Time Marketing (John Wiley & Sons, 2012).
Monday: Use LinkedIn’s Related Skills
Do you remember seeing the Skills & Experience link on the More tab? Not only is it a great place to add skills (which is replacing the Specialties section in new LinkedIn profiles) to your profile, but also it is a great place to find keywords for your profile. Since this search originates within LinkedIn itself, it is by far my favorite keyword-finding tool.
Click on the Skills & Experience link and type in any skill that is relevant to your position, your education, your skill set, or your industry. For instance, you could start typing Turnaround if you do corporate turnaround or renewal consulting or management. As you begin to type, a drop-down menu should appear. If it doesn’t, choose a synonym of your skill set. From the Skills page, you cannot create your own skill (but I’ll show you how to do that later on), so choose the most pertinent one. For instance, you might choose from Turnaround Management, Turnaround, and Company Turnaround. Select the skill most relevant to your abilities—you can always come back to this page and other skills later.
Once you select a skill from the drop-down list, LinkedIn will take you to a new page. By clicking the blue Add Skill button, you will add your skill to your profile. Check out Figure 3-1 to see what the Skills page looks like.
Figure 3-1: Using skills to find keywords
The section of this page relevant to finding keywords is on the left side under Related Skills. Are there any of those related skills you might want to add to your profile as keywords?
When the list of Related Skills is in alignment with your skill set (meaning you could indeed offer all those skills or services in your business), you can copy and paste the entire list into a Microsoft Word document, Notepad, or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.
Once you have the list in a document, just delete the skills that don’t apply to you or wouldn’t work as keywords. You will be creating a master list at the end of the week, so you can either save this list to your LinkedIn Executive Profile Questionnaire or create a new document. I named mine LinkedIn Keyword List and put it in my Stuff for LinkedIn folder on my desktop. If you have not done so already, you can download the LinkedIn questionnaire at www.sybex.com/go/linkedinhour.
Once you’re done with one list, return to the More tab, click Skills, and add another skill to your profile. Or you can simply search using the Search Skills & Expertise field (right above Related Skills on the left side of the page). Keep diving down the rabbit hole until you have exhausted the skills you can offer. Copy and paste the list, delete unsuitable words, rinse and repeat.
We’ll look at skills again later in this chapter as well as in Chapter 7, “Weeks 19–22: Get Strategic with LinkedIn’s ‘Other’ Options.”
You can add up to 50 skills to your profile. Later in this chapter I’ll show you where to place your keywords for best optimization in “Week 4: Optimize Your Profile and Be Findable.”
Tuesday: Discover Keywords through Google Ads
Another great tool for finding keywords is the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. It’s free! You don’t have to have an account or place an ad to use it. To find this tool, go to https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS&__u=1657613616&__c=1078816536 or simply do an Internet search for Google Keyword tool. Google says this about its Keyword Tool: “You can search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your business or service or a URL to a page containing content related to your business or service.” What works for Google also works for LinkedIn.
If you have an AdWords account, go ahead and sign in. If you don’t, ignore the request to sign in (you can still use the tool) and select the Tools And Analysis tab. On the Tools And Analysis page, you will see a Keyword Tool link on the left side. Click this link to access the Keyword Tool. Figure 3-2 shows what the Google Keyword Tool looks like and how to use it.
Since you are not optimizing your website but are looking for the most powerful search terms associated with your industry or profession, use the Word Or Phrase box. Don’t worry about filling in the Website or Category section since doing so might limit the results.
Figure 3-2: Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Choose Advanced Options and then specify your location and language. (The defaults are United States for location and English for language.) Click Show Ideas And Statistics For - Desktop And Laptop Devices. Then click Search and your new keyword results will appear.
Select the keywords you wish to download and then choose Download Selected. You can export your list to a text or a comma-separated value (CSV) file. I usually choose the text option because I do most of my work in Word, but if you are an Excel genius, then by all means choose the CSV option.
Wednesday: Use LinkedIn’s People Search
If you know someone influential in your industry who has a LinkedIn profile, then look them up and check out their profile. To do so, enter their name in the simple People search field at the top right of your LinkedIn page and click on the blue magnifying glass to search. (Make sure the drop-down box reads People.)
What keywords and search terms have they used? Where have they used them? If they have been on LinkedIn for a while, they will have a Specialties section in their Summary. Often you will see keywords listed there, as well as in the Interests section.
Read through their profile and record relevant keywords. This exercise might also give you ideas about how to keyword and format your own profile. Feel free to take a look at my profile at www.linkedin.com/in/linkedinexpert.
Did you know you could download the profiles of your network’s members as a PDF? When you are on a profile, you will see a link that says Download As A PDF. When you find a profile you like, download it and save it in your Stuff for LinkedIn folder for later reference.
After you have viewed all the Influencers you are interested in (or if you don’t know an Influencer, or they are not on LinkedIn), search for a “type” of person: Accountant, CPA, Speaker, Trainer, IT Consultant, Attorney, and so forth.
This is one of the few times I’ll tell you not to bother with the advanced search. The simple People search field will do fine:
Thursday: Use Thesaurus.com and Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com will also have some great keyword suggestions for you.
Open your keyword list document. If you go to www.dictionary.com first, put your keyword in the top search field. I like using this tool, because sometimes I choose keywords I think are appropriate to my skill set and services, but after checking Dictionary.com, I realize they are incorrect.
Once you find your word in Dictionary.com, beneath the definition of your searched word, you will see a link that says View More Related Words. When you click that link, it will take you to www.thesaurus.com. Add the related words or keywords that are relevant to your list.
Don’t skip this step. It will help you create a more refined and accurate keyword list. Be sure to delete the keywords you find to be inappropriate for your skill set, service, product, or business.
Friday: Make Your List
Looking through your revised keyword list, make sure that you have the verb, noun, acronym (if applicable), and synonym for each word. (Thesauraus.com will get you your synonyms, Dictionary.com your verbs, nouns, and acronyms.) Are you a CPA? An accountant? Do you use QuickBooks? Business books? Prepare taxes? Make sure all your bases are covered!
Now you have a comprehensive (and possibly a very long) list in either a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet. Go through your list and prioritize your keywords, or number your keyword phrases from 1 to 20. If you have more keywords, great. You might be able to use them later. But most important right now is listing them 1 to 20. You’ll be using these keywords in your title fields.
Now choose your top three keywords. You’ll be using these top three keywords later in your professional headline.
Separate your keywords with a comma. Don’t worry if there is some duplication, such as business executive coach, executive business consultant.
You’ll be using up to 500 characters of this keyword list in Specialties (if you have access to it), and you’ll be using up to 1,000 characters of this keyword list in Interests.
Every few months come back to your keyword list. Are the top three still your priority? Do some keywords need to be added or deleted? Keep your list up-to-date.
Before we move on to the next step, if you have not already done so add those top 20 keywords to your LinkedIn Executive Profile Questionnaire under the Keywords heading.