Five reasons your profile views are going down and what you can do about it.

1. Bad Linkedin SEO
2. Incomplete profile
3. Not sending connection invites
4. Low platform engagement
5. Not posting

Linkedin provides user analytics for profile views. You can find the number of visits in the past week by looking at your profile. Clicking the link of your profile views will show you how many views your profile has received over a 90 day period.

For most users, profile view charts look like the horizon of a mountain range. It’s up, it’s down, it’s up higher, it’s down much lower. There is no real consistency. But, every now and then there is a ski jump drop that makes you scratch your head and wonder if your account has been ghosted by Linkedin. When that happens you can look at these five reasons to get your account pointing back to a mountain peak, instead of a valley.

1. Update your profile SEO and key terms. 

Like Google, Linkedin is a search engine. At the top of your profile you can search for all kinds of things, including, people, brands, groups, events, hashtags, and more. To understand how all of these are found you must understand how Linkedin approaches search.

There are a few criteria that are important to search which include:

• Vicinity. How many people are in your vicinity? Linkedin starts with those who are nearby in your local network. They assume that you want to find people who are within vicinity first, and then spread out from there if you don’t see what you are looking for.
• By level of connection. The second criteria is based off how you build your network. When searching, it would be pointless for Linkedin to show you all the people who match your search criteria who use the platform. They know that you need the highest likely candidates for the search. Starting with those closely connected to your network is the second way to ensure you are finding the right search results.
• Search Category. Based on your search criteria, Linkedin will show you results from potential connections, companies, hashtags, and job opportunities. You can narrow your results through the filters that Linkedin provides. Under the free version of Linkedin, there are multiple options for narrowing your search. If you pay for a premium subscription, you have much more robust search capability to narrow your results, including boolean search. With Boolean search, users can use keywords in conjunction with the modifiers “and,” “not,” and “or.”

By performing your own searches, you can begin to get a picture for what Linkedin is showing you and why. Understanding how to choose the right keywords significantly changes your search potential and how many people view your profile from week to week.

You will want to change your profile on a regular basis to keep your Linkedin coming back to register your changes. Changes can be as simple as a title update. You can use the title you have at your job but there may be other titles that are searched more frequently that you can try. For instance, if you have the title of “marketing director,” you could change it up and use “director of marketing.” If your title is “Vice President of Sales”, you might try “Sales director.” You can get a pretty good idea of what you should use for your profile title by searching the term and looking at how many search results there are for that term. Mix your title up monthly and don’t forget to add something of interest in your title. If you have the space, use it!

2. Complete your profile to “All star” level.

Linkedin does rank it’s users. One of the ways you achieve a higher ranking and get more profile views is to make sure you have fully completed your personal profile. Don’t leave any section of your profile unused unless it has no relevance to you or you are limited by your industry regulations.

On your profile page, in the first section, you will find the “add a section” button. Clicking the link will show you all the options you have for filling out your profile. In addition, if you haven’t achieved an All Star profile level, Linkedin will show you the sections you need to add in order to achieve it. Simply add the necessary sections.

There are a number of reasons to complete your profile in full. On Linkedin, less is not more. Add as many skills as you can. Linkedin will allow you to have up to 100 skills. Check your top three that you want to be known for so that people can endorse you. The more endorsements you get the better, and this will affect how show in search. Linkedin uses these skills as keywords and the number of times you’ve been endorsed will improve your value as a user to Linkedin. Once you have built one skill over 100 endorsements, move another skill in its place and keep building your endorsement count on multiple skillsets.

Recommendations are another critical component of your profile. Unless you are restricted by your industry it important to ask people you’ve done business with, or worked with to provide you with a recommendation. Linkedin makes this very easy for both you and the person you are requesting a recommendation from. Simply click the “ask for recommendation” button and put the name of the connection you’d like to send it to. You should make it a goal to always have at least one recommendation that is less than six months old. 

3. Invite people to connect.

One of the best ways to drive up your profile views is by sending connection requests. Linkedin allows members to connect with up to 30k people. For most users, that is well more than you will ever need. However, you should be making it your goal to connect with people each week. As you are sending out connection requests, make sure you add a comment. Adding comments to your connection requests will significantly improve your connection rate and most people will go view your profile before approving the request.

Be selective in who you are choosing to connect with and make sure you are growing a valuable network. A value-added network is one that you can do business in some way, will recommend you for jobs or opportunities, and engage with the content that you post. Many people make the mistake of connecting with anyone and everyone just to have a large number of people. While a large following or connection number may look good, it won’t help you in the long run. Be sure and know your target market and connect with purpose. Your network quality is also one of the things Linkedin uses to rank its members.

If you don’t send any connection requests or very few, it limits your profile to those who find you from search or engage your content. That will be a very slow gain and one that most people find very discouraging. 

4. Engage other people’s posts daily.

There is no better way to get people to view your profile than by engaging other people’s content with likes and comments. The highest level LinkedIn user is on the platform daily and they are active. The more activity you invest into other people’s content the more people will view your profile and the more Linkedin will promote your profile in search. Above all else, Linkedin favors active users of the platform.

When you engage people on the platform, don’t leave comments such as “nice post,” “thanks for sharing,” or “love this!” Instead, add valuable insight, ask thoughtful questions, and create conversation. Not only will the person who posted the comment appreciate it and likely view your profile, but others who come and read the comments will likely engage your comment and view your profile as well.

Engaging on the platform is a great way to gain visibility by other users in addition to Linkedin itself as a valuable member of the community. 

5. Post regularly

Along the same lines as engaging, posting is one of those must-do items on Linkedin to drive profile views. When you post, that content is distributed to a portion of your connections first, but as you receive engagement, can be seen by those in your 2nd and 3rd tier network. If you are posting quality content there is a very good chance people will come to investigate who you are.

At Abound Social, we encourage people to post once daily for maximum visibility on the platform. In addition to receiving more views to your profile, you will also begin attracting your target market and establishing your own tribe of people who will engage your content regularly.

In summary, if you only take away two primary thoughts from this article, it should be engaging Linkedin daily and optimize your profile if you want to drive as many views as possible to your profile. Those two key issues are what will put your account in a high-value status and while you’ll still see ups and downs in views, you should be on a steady path to improving.

Last, there are all kinds of gimmick hacks out there to promise thousands of profile views and connections. Be sure to check the date of those hacks. Most are typically very old and you can take it from us, there are no shortcuts to get to the front of the line!