Creating an effective LinkedIn Professional Headline

Here are a few of my favourite, inspirational and quirky professional headlines from LinkedIn profiles.

Benefits of a powerful Professional Headline:

What do people find when they Google your name? Try it and find out. Google rates LinkedIn profiles very highly, so it is very likely to be one of the top search results when people search for your name on Google. Here are a few more benefits of spending time on creating a powerful professional headline on LinkedIn?

• Helps you stand out from the crowd
• First impressions count
• First step in controlling your identity online
• Authoratative resource on your career
• Helps you collaborate with others
• Higher position in LinkedIn search

Here are 3 tips to consider when creating your professional headline:

1. Remember to include your keywords
2. Make sure you stand out from the crowd
3. Explain how you help people and their businesses - don't just talk about yourself.

If you would like to share your own favourite LinkedIn professional headlines, whether it's your own or someone else in your network I would love to hear from you.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/rhysbmjones
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hrmking
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sharongaskin
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/denise-liebermann/4/939/a92

How to complete your LinkedIn profile to 100%

Before you can start building your network and developing business relationships on LinkedIn it pays to invest some time in providing a 100% complete profile.

Why?

To improve your online visibility and create a good first impression. Google values the information provided by LinkedIn, therefore when someone searches for you in Google it is highly likely that your LinkedIn profile will be at the top of the Google search results.

If you were looking for someone on Google and found a half filled LinkedIn profile with a bland headline, what sort of first impression would you create?

When someone searches for you in Google this is the information they will see:

Therefore, your name and headline are the most important things to get right to create a memorable, useful impression that makes the reader want more.

Get found in the LinkedIn results

In order to increase the likelihood of people being able to find you in LinkedIn, it helps if you have filled out your LinkedIn profile fully. People with 100% complete profiles rank higher than those with information missing.

How do I get a 100% complete profile?

Just make sure you have the following:

• A profile photo - Ideally professional headshot not a holiday photo
• A profile summary
• A current position
• 2 past positions
• Education
• Specialities
• At least 3 recommendations - How, write them for others or just ask politely!

Like to learn more about making LinkedIn work for you and your business? Attend our Understanding LinkedIn Workshop, just £25 per person.

How to use Twitter Search

Twitter is a fabulous business research tool. To understand the basics of using the information available on Twitter here are a few ideas:

• Market Research - You can research what your target market are talking about
• Competitor Analysis - You can research what your competitors are talking about.
• Enhancing your Expertise - You can search for the most relevant topics that just you’re interested in and differentiate yourself from other businesses.

Searching by your Keywords

• With any industry there will be a long list of keywords that might be relevant to you. I would think about 7 or 8 hot topics that are relevant to the products/services you offer and do a regular/daily search to see what people are talking about locally.
• You can search on popular topics in your industry, latest news, legislative updates, software updates, politics, offers and promotions, job openings, etc.
• Once you've found people who have something worthwhile to contribute, follow them. You want to follow people who are actively participating in Twitter conversations on your key topics.

Searching for the right people to Follow

• First you need to be clear who your target market is. Build up a customer profile for their likes, dislikes, where they hang out, who they follow and admire, what information is relevant and interesting to them.
• You can follow your clients and prospects, but also follow people that your target market like – so you’re building a similar ‘Following profile to them’ this way you may appear in their recommendations on who to follow.
• Reflect your own personality, develop yourself as a thought leader for your industry or specialism. To do this you need to follow people you admire, respect, leaders in your field etc. Also consider governing bodies and best practice organisations.

Searching for Competitors

• Don't obsess about what your competitors are doing, invest more time developing your own strategies, promotions and content. But it won't do any harm checking out who you're competing with locally and what they are talking about.
  

What are Twitter Trends?

Twitter's Trending Topics algorithm identifies topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the "most breaking" news stories from across the world. We think that trending topics which capture the hottest emerging trends and topics of discussion on Twitter are the most interesting.

About Twitter's Trending Topics

• To see a quick snapshot of the most tweeted-about topics on Twitter, look to the sidebar on the right of your homepage. You can also see trends in many of our mobile clients and on the mobile web.

• From news stories to the latest buzz about movies, music and more, the trending topics reflect what new or newsworthy topics are occupying most people's attention on Twitter at any one time.

Note: You may notice that some topics come with a number sign "#" before the word or phrase. This is called a hashtag and was put there specifically to mark it as a topic so that people can follow the conversation in search.

Localise

Twitter can either show you topics that are trending worldwide or those that are trending in one of more than 100 cities and countries.

To change views:

1. Click change next to your location name in the sidebar. A pop-up menu will appear, displaying a list of countries.

2. Click on the country of your choice. If that country has specific cities as an option, you’ll be able to choose a specific city.

- Clicking a location will automatically update your home sidebar and display topics from your chosen locale.

- The green checkmark signals your chosen location. Click on the X to close the location window.

3. You can switch locations at any point by clicking on change to bring up the full list of options again.

Please note:

• If you don't see your country or city, it means there aren't enough Tweets from that geographical area to create a quality list. Locations are not manually selected, but rather displayed dynamically based on tweet volume.

• When you click a topic listed under your local area, you will be shown the overall search results for that trending topic, not the local search results for that topic - to get an overview of the local Tweets on a local trending topic, use advanced Twitter Search operators.

These are just a few tips on how to use Twitter Search. This forms just part of your overall Twitter strategy which is what we'll be discussing in our next Blog.

If you're interested in learning more about why we think Twitter works well for business, sign up for our Understanding Twitter Workshop - just £25

How to create the best Twitter Profile

Summary - Creating the right first impression is important when doing any kind of business networking, so this blog will concentrate on getting the right look for your Twitter Account or Profile page.

Your Twitter Profile

The building blocks of any social network are user pages known as profiles. It’s a good idea to do whatever you can to reflect your personality and personal/company brand, without going over the top with bold colours that might put some followers off!

• If you work for a large organisation you can create a company Twitter Profile, using your company logo and information.
• If your company has a recognisable spokesperson, you can create a profile for them.
• If you are the owner of a SME, self-employed, freelance or a consultant it might be best to use a combination or your logo and personal information.
• Personal accounts. You can use Twitter to communicate with your friends and family.
• Multiple accounts. You can have more than one account. So it might be appropriate to have a personal and business account and make sure you’re logged into the right one when you’re telling all your friends what your plans are for the weekend!

What's an Avatar?

People will read your Tweets next to a small avatar 48 x 48 pixcel square image, this is called your Avatar.

For a Personal Twitter Account your avatar = Your photo

For a Business Twitter Account your avatar = Your logo

How to change your Avatar:

1. Log in to www.twitter.com

2. Click Settings.

3. Click on Profile on the fifth tab of your navigation bar.

4. Click the Browse button next to your profile image.

5. Choose which file to load.

6. After selecting the file, click Save at the bottom of the page.

2. Your Twitter Bio

You have just 160 characters to explain who you are. Having a Bio means you will have more followers on average. If you Bio contains the words, Official, Founder or Expert again you can expect above average number of followers.

3. Your Twitter Background

We recommend changing your Twitter background to reflect your corporate branding, this is what you need to do:

1. Log in to www.twitter.com
2. In the top navigation bar, click Settings (or go to http://twitter.com/account/settings)
3. Click the furthest tab on the right, labelled Design
4. Select a template by clicking on it, or upload your own background image by clicking "Change background image." (figure 1)
5. Save your changes when done
6. If you want to customise the sidebar and font colours of your page, click "Change design colours"
7. Click any of the boxes to change your colours; click Done when you're finished. (figure 2)

The standard background image dimensions for Twitter are:

• File Dimensions: 960 px by 720 px
• Horizontal position: 20 px from the left (to give yourself some padding).
• Vertical position: 14 px from the top (will line up your graphic with the top of the twitter logo. Our eyes like symmetry).

Note: Whilst these haven’t been officially documented by Twitter, but have been unofficially documented all over the web between graphic designers and the social network community.

Creating the right first impression is important when doing any kind of business networking, so once you've got the basics right, you'll be ready to start using Twitter yourself and making the right connections - which we'll discuss in my next Blog!

If you would like to learn more about Twitter Best Practise for Business, sign up to our Taster Workshop today, prices start from just £25/session.

How Social Media improves your SEO...

• Want to learn how social media improves your position in the search engines?
• Want to know why social media is relevant to improving your business sales pipeline?
• Looking for the missing piece in your social media strategy?

Why bother with Social Media?

In under 7 minutes this video answers this fundamental social media question using simple language and diagrams.

Thanks to SEO2020.com for their short & simple Youtube SEO explanations

Some of the key points:

• Locate the specific networks that you need to be involved in
• Listen to what their needs are, what questions are they asking?
• Answer those questions through the content you produce
• Find your content "Evangelists" or communicators who will shout about your content
• Build your community who are interested in your message
• Choose the right community for you

Want to learn how to engage and convert your website visitors into brilliant customers?

Attend our Internet Marketing

Taster workshop

For just £25

We will give you the right advice, tools and focus to attract more people to your website on a small budget.

Our Social Media Workshops are available in Worcester & Bromsgrove, to find out more please visit our website.

http://inventiveworkshops.com/

Choosing the right keywords for you

On Page Search Engine Optimisation

If you have been looking into improving your natural position in the Google search results (or any other search engines results) you'll probably know that the first step is improving your page content and one of the easiest ways to do this is by including the keywords that people use to search for your products/services, into the content of your web pages. My previous blog explains the two main types of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and improving your page content is the first, easiest step to take.

Beating the Competition

What we look at in this blog is after you've got your list of keywords, what's the next step?

Most of us don't have a completely unique product or service, there will be other people who offer the same or similar products/services that we do, and therefore use the same keywords (competition). It could also be the case that your competitors seem to rank higher than you in the search results, even though you think you may be including all the top, most popular search terms in your content.

Finding your Niche keywords or phrases

This article shows you how to use the "Google Keywords Tool" to find possible niche keywords and phrases that you could use, to improve your Google ranking. It is vital that you do offer the products and services and don't just include them in your page text (if you did this people would arrive at you page expecting to find a product, discover you don't offer it and quickly leave your page resulting in a "bounce"). Bounces form part of the algorithm that lowers your position in search engine results. The three things we will be trying to achieve in this order are relevancy, least competition and then search popularity.

How do we find the best/right keywords for us?

After carrying out your initial exercise to think of all your relevant keywords, you should have a list of around 20 - 25 keywords or phrases for each product/service that you offer. When you use the Keywords Tool - you enter keywords and phrases relevant to one product at a time.

Using the Google Keywords Tool

First of all search for the "Google Keywords Tool" using Google search.

1. Type in all your keywords and phrases - one per line
2. Tick the box - "Only show ideas closely related to my search terms
3. Open - Advanced Filters and Options
4. Choose you target audience location and main language
5. Don't include adult ideas - unless you're in the sex industry
6. Show ideas and statistics for - Most of the time how will they be searching? From their desk on a laptop or from a mobile?
7. Filter Keywords:
   Local Monthly Searches
   Here you want a decent online audience size, this is relative to your product/service. E.g. Here I have stated that I want at least 1000 local searches/month.
   Competition
   To find out what the niche search terms and phrases are for your business – you want to choose “Low” competition.
   Global Monthly Searches
   If you wanted to target foreign markets you could choose this to be high and local to be low. E.g. Here I have stated that I want at least 5000 local searches/month.

Select the picture to enlarge the Google Keywords Example...

Discovering the most effective keywords for your business and to maximise your online transactions is an exercise that needs to be done over a period of time. The best thing to do is choose your list, check you results each month and see which terms results in the best traffic/conversions for your business.

If you would like to learn more about Search Engine Optimisation and improving your own online marketing strategy we are offering Monthly Inventive Workshops in Worcester and Bromsgrove - Prices start from just £25 per taster session - Book your place today.

What is SEO or "What is Search Engine Optimisation"?

Definition of SEO
Search Engine Optimisation simply means improving your website so that it appears high in the organic (not paid for) search engine results.

The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo and Bing and good (best practice) search engine optimisation techniques are pretty similar across all three.

There are two main types of SEO, on-page and off-page. Generally on-page relates to having high quality, relevant content that meets the needs of your searchers (or the search queries that your target audience types) and is content generated by you or your company and therefore within your control. Off-page optimisation generally relates to links to your website made by you or preferably other people and therefore not in your control.

On-Page Optimisation

Search engines are so quick and effective, because we want people to find our information when they search for our products and services. So when they search for our products and services we try to meet that search criteria by including those "keywords" they are searching for in the content of our pages. Moreover, if someone (or our potential customer) asks us a question, we try our best to answer that question.

Search engines reward websites that are relevant by ranking their web pages higher in the search results. This ensures that the search engine is working effectively.

The algorithm (mathematical equation) that search engines have developed (and improve and change all the time) only have one aim in mind - to deliver relevant, high quality results for the searches that people enter. If you try and gain a foothold in the rankings that you don't deserve, the search engines will find you out and punish you, they can do this by excluding your website from their search results altogether. Concentrate on improving the information you provide to your customers and you'll be rewarded over time by high rankings. If you include keywords just to get people to your page and then the content is poor - people will quickly leave that page - this is a "bounce" get a high "bounce rate" and this will send you down the search engine rankings.

Off-Page Optimisation
While we can control some of our inbound links, the majority and the ones that search engines favour are links made by other people. This is a way of letting the search engines know that it's not just the person who owns the company that verifies this website has good, relevant content about the products and services it offers but that it had been recommended by a third party.

By getting more inbound links from other people, this improves the authority of your website. The longer your website has been established and the more inbound links that it has the higher it is likely to rank.

Where do I start?
If you are just beginning to learn how to improve your web ranking, start by thinking about what products and services you offer and who will be searching for these. Assuming your target audience are likely to search for your products online, next think about creating a list of keywords (words or phrases that people use to search for your products and services).

No two people search for things in the same way (or using the same words and phrases), so next ask all of your colleagues to do the same so that you have a comprehensive list. now you're ready to optimise your keywords - which is the next Coldicott Freelance Training SEO Blog - sign up and receive the next Blog in your inbox.

In the picture we can see an example of a keyword list for "Handmade Chocolates".

Search Engine Optimisation Taster Workshop?
If you would like to learn more about, website optimisation or search engine optimisation for your website - you might like to attend our Search Engine Optimisation Taster Workshop.

Click here to book your place