4 Tips for Using SEO on Your LinkedIn Company Page

Every company should have a lively LinkedIn company profile. As the go-to B2B professional networking hub, LinkedIn can play a big role in your company’s lead and prospecting endeavors, in addition to recruiting and brand partnerships. 

But how do you make sure your company page is being found by the right people?
Easy – with a few LinkedIn SEO hacks. 

What Is LinkedIn Search? 

I bet you didn’t know that LinkedIn has its very own search algorithm. That’s right, just like Google, LinkedIn has a special recipe to determine how results appear for searchers. 

Have you ever noticed the “found you via LinkedIn search” line when you’re looking at your page views? Well, people can’t find you via LinkedIn search if you don’t pop up in it. 

LinkedIn search is also in charge of the sidebar that pops up with related companies, people, and positions when you’re looking at a page. Appearing in that sidebar can drive a ton of traffic to your LinkedIn company page. 

But if you want to make an appearance, you’ll first need to learn the art of LinkedIn SEO. 

How LinkedIn Search Works 

Just like with Google, SEO plays a big role in whether or not your company page appears in search results. However, there are a few core differences between regular search engines and LinkedIn. 

First and foremost, search results for a single query can vary greatly, as they’re tailored to individual users. This means that if two different people search the term “marketing company” in LinkedIn, they may end up with different results based on the history of their activity and preferences on the platform. 

Ultimately, LinkedIn’s search algorithm aims to provide the most relevant results to each and every individual user. 

While this might seem like a pain for companies, it actually creates for an excellent opportunity. If you carefully tailor your company page and content to your target audience, then you’re likely to land in front of a relevant group of users and potential leads more often, rather than a wider audience that will find less value in your page. 

What Is LinkedIn SEO? 

LinkedIn SEO is pretty simple – it’s taking all those SEO tips you already know for your company website, and applying them to your company LinkedIn page. Search engine optimization ultimately determines whether or not your company and content will show up in search results when people enter queries on LinkedIn. 

Establishing strong LinkedIn SEO can help your company page rank in these queries, both on and off LinkedIn, thus generating exposure for your business and traffic for your company page. 

Additionally, Google crawls your LinkedIn company page, so it shows up on Google SERPs as well. 

LinkedIn SEO Best Practices

Just like with Google SEO best practices, there are plenty of pathways for you to follow to enhance your LinkedIn SEO. 

Here’s a few key guidelines to follow to improve your LinkedIn company page for optimized searchability:

Use Rich Keywords. 

First and foremost, keywords are the golden pillar of SEO, and it’s no different on LinkedIn. Your company page should include a description that tells your audience who you are and what you do, integrating rich keywords that are relevant to your business. 

While people can search for your company by your name, you can also appear in search results for those certain keywords, just like with Google. And just as we already mentioned – Google does crawl your LinkedIn company page, thus another reason why you’ll want to use those juicy keywords. 

Ask yourself what keywords are relevant to your industry and your company’s specific niche.

You should also consider what terms users might be searching to find companies like yours. Doing keyword research can help you determine some of the best fit options for your company. 

Link to Your Page From Your Website.

If it doesn’t already, your website should have social links to your company page on LinkedIn. It can be something as simple as a button in the footer of your site that says “Follow us on LinkedIn.” 

This will direct people to your LinkedIn page, thus creating more traffic and indicating to the LinkedIn search engine (and Google) that it’s of value. 

Ensure Your Employee Pages Are Updated.

Make sure that all your employees have updated their own personal LinkedIn pages to list their role at your company. This will create more exposure for your business and direct people back to your page. 

Apart from the fact that all your employees should be loud and proud about working for you anyway! 

Share Relevant Content.

Content is a huge element of SEO. Whether you’re posting original content on LinkedIn, or simply sharing posts from the company blog on your website, the more content you share, the more active your page will be. 

When people find your content, they can also discover your page. But what’s more, offering value to your audience with LinkedIn content is a great way to gain more followers and even leads. Invest some quality time into developing thought leadership LinkedIn content, and your page could become a popular place on the platform. 

LinkedIn SEO Worst Practices 

You can’t have light without darkness. Just as there’s white hat LinkedIn SEO practices, there are also black hat practices. 

While you might want to try and take shortcuts to score some quick SEO wins for your company page, using these tricks are more likely to hurt you than help you. 

The LinkedIn search engine cracks down on these kinds of lowball moves, so make sure you avoid these practices at all times:

Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is one of the worst and most obvious black hat SEO practices you can engage in. It involves placing keywords unnecessarily throughout your content solely to try and rank higher for those specific terms. 

However, keyword stuffing makes for a terrible reader experience, and search engines are quick to slap penalties on pages and sites that use this practice. 

While it is important to incorporate keywords into your company about section, headline, and content, it should be done smoothly, seamlessly, and in a balanced manner, so as to create an overall positive user experience. 

Creating Profiles as Ads

Sometimes people use their personal LinkedIn profiles or even create fake profiles to act as advertisements for their company’s products and services. The ultimate goal of these profiles is to create connections and promote your business. However, it’s a very deceitful tactic, and often appears spammy. 

LinkedIn does not take kindly to these ad profiles – they’re often banned, and your company page is likely to receive a big slap on the wrist as well. 

LinkedIn Company Page Examples 

Just in case you need a little extra guidance, we've put together a list of a few LinkedIn company pages that do a darn good job of optimizing their pages for premium SEO. 

Patagonia

Patagonia’s company page is a great example of engaging in quality LinkedIn SEO. While their headline doesn’t include any keywords, the first line of their company description does – “outdoor apparel company.” 

They also include the phrase “environmental activism” which a keyword and cause that they most definitely want their company to be associated with. 

If you take a look at their people page, you’ll see that Patagonia has 2,288 employees listed on LinkedIn. This is a pretty good indicator that all their employees keep their employment information up to date. 

Finally, Patagonia stays relatively active when it comes to sharing content. While they don’t post on a weekly basis, the content they do share is impactful and relevant to their niche. 

HubSpot

HubSpot’s company page is a shining example of good LinkedIn SEO. HubSpot’s company description starts off with a few rich keywords, including phrases such as “growth platform” and “free CRM.”

They also keep a very active LinkedIn feed, posting at least once per day. While they may not be sharing long articles in every post, they do consistently post insightful and industry related thoughts, news, and queries to engage their audience. 

Finally, just as with Patagonia, HubSpot has a bunch of people who are listed as employees on LinkedIn – 3,874 in fact. This shows that all their team members keep up-to-date personal profiles, which can generate an immense amount of traffic for HubSpot’s page. 

Drift

Last but certainly not least, conversational marketing platform Drift is another great example of a company that has exceptional LinkedIn SEO throughout their page.

Their company overview includes important niche keywords such as “conversational marketing” and “sales platform.”

Additionally, they keep a very active feed, often posting videos every few days to grab and engage their audience’s attention. Video is amongst the most popular content online, so Drift is clearly using all of their resources to their advantage. 

Finally, while Drift is a smaller company than the previous two, they still have a few hundred employees listed on LinkedIn. Overall, it’s a very strong company page that makes for an active visitor experience. 

Strong Company Page, Strong Business

Having a strong LinkedIn company page can have immense benefits for your business. It plays a role in various areas of the success of your company, from recruiting and content marketing, to lead generation and sales prospecting. 

But in order for you to have a strong LinkedIn company page, you need to ensure that there are no weak links in the chain that holds it together. And one of the most important links in that chain? LinkedIn SEO.