How to optimise your Linkedin Profile to obtain Freelance Work via Search Engines

"Google is no longer just a search engine. With your potential customers, future employers, and members of the media turning to Google for information about your business, Google has become a reputation engine." - http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2007/10/google-reputation-management.html.

As a freelance working servicing a certain area e.g Cork in Ireland is worth knowing that your Linkedin profile can rank well on Google for 'freelance' / 'interim' / 'contract' -related phrases. Here's some hints and tips on how to optimise your Linkedin freelancer profile for Google and other search engines:

1. Ask your happiest clients for recommendations and endorsements of your skills and expertise.
   
   
2. You can select your location (based around the area you'd like to target).
   
   
3. Use the words and phrases people searching for your services would search for. Use the Google Keyword Tool, with the exact match option switched on.
   
   
4. Make your name keyword-rich – mine is “Freelance SEO Consultant London area – C. Byrne”.
   
   
5. You should interlink all your online profiles. Make sure you link to the geolocated Linkedin profile URL e.g. http://uk.linkedin.com/in/emarketinguk/, not http://linkedin.com/in/emarketinguk/.
   
   
6. Adding Applications can make your profile more keyword-rich.
   
   
7. If you link to your Linkedin profile from your Twitter profile, linking to it from the 'Bio' field is preferable to linking to it from the 'Website' field as the website link is nofollowed (does not pass Google Page rank aka Google 'link juice').
   
   
8. Make sure your “profile completeness” meter is at 100%.
   
   
9. When you view your own profile whilst logged in, on the right there is a brief list “Who's viewed your profile" and you can click to see who they are.
   
   
10. Making yourself appear scarce in an online marketplace for candidates / professional service providers can be useful. I've a note at the top of my Linkedin profile saying "FAO RECRUITERS. I am not available for full-time (interim & contract) roles. Thanks!". This also has the perk of stopping me being pestered by recruitment agencies :)
    
    
11. Make sure have a public profile activated. This allows your profile to appear in search results on Google and other search engines for your target key phrases.
    
    
12. You can leverage content on trusted domains such as Linkedin to rank well on search engines such as Google. I consider it to be my main online profile (because it ranks better for more competitive phrases in more populous areas where businesses I'm trying to attract are based).
13. Interlink all your online profiles.
14. Your professional headline is displayed in Google results: mine is "01252 757562 | Integrated Content, SEO & PPC Strategy | Helping businesses make websites easier to find & use since 2006".

See my profile: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/emarketinguk for some more ideas.