With more than 30 million companies establishing a presence on LinkedIn, it makes sense to either start or optimize your own LinkedIn Company Page to stand out from the pack.

According to LinkedIn, four out of five users on the platform drive business decisions. This is definitely an audience your business wants to reach, especially if you’re a B2B (business-to-business) company. 

In addition, LinkedIn is almost three times (277 percent) more effective in generating leads than Twitter and Facebook.

Below are seven steps to follow to optimize your LinkedIn Company Page.

Step 1: Update the profile image and banner

This is about the basics. Company Pages on LinkedIn with profile images get six times more visitors than those without.

Because of the nature of LinkedIn (being the professional network it is), the choice of your profile image should be easy: your company logo. The ideal format is a PNG file that is 300 by 300 pixels, 8MB maximum and a square layout.

The cover image for the Company Page (or banner) offers more space for creativity. Other than the size (a PNG file that is 1536 by 768 pixels, 8MB maximum and a rectangular layout), the possibilities are endless.

The style direction you go in can range from simple and sleek to active and engaging, but the key is that it reflects your brand. Also know that you can update the banner image regularly to keep your page fresh and relevant.

Step 2: Treat your ‘About Us’ section as an opportunity

Don’t phone in your company description. The “About Us” section should tell LinkedIn users everything they need to know while also being efficient (fewer than 2,000 characters) and clear.

Make sure you answer the basic questions about your company: who you are, where you’re based, what you offer, what your values are, how people can contact you, and even an idea of your brand voice is helpful.

Include any relevant keywords in this section to improve the SEO (search engine optimization) of your LinkedIn Company Page to get discovered more in relevant searches.

Step 3: Fill out all other relevant fields

Complete LinkedIn Company Pages get more visitors than incomplete pages, according to Hootsuite. 

So, make sure you look through the entire Company Page and fill in all relevant fields, such as company website URL, the location of your headquarters, your industry, and company size.

Step 4: Publish and share content

Once thought of as a “resume website,” Microsoft (which owns LinkedIn) has been upgrading the platform’s features over the years to make it more of a content-publishing and thought-leadership website.

It’s important to be part of that conversation.

Think about the type of content your company should share. This can include themes of company culture, behind the scenes, how-to articles, event posts, etc.

Don’t forget to include relevant hashtags in your posts since hashtags function and can improve your discoverability on LinkedIn.

Step 5: Consider Showcase Pages

Showcase Pages are extensions of your LinkedIn Company Page. They highlight individual brands, business units and initiatives.

If you have something specific you want to highlight for you company, Showcase Pages have the same posting options and analytics as your LinkedIn Company Page. You can have up to 10 Showcase Pages.

Keep in mind that Showcase Pages do require upkeep with their own distinct set of followers, separate from your main LinkedIn Company Page. Posting regularly is beneficial. Depending on your resources, you may or may not want to increase your posting responsibilities.

Once created, you’ll find them under the “Affiliated Pages” section of your LinkedIn Company Page.

Step 6: Consider creating a LinkedIn career page

More than ever, LinkedIn is considered a platform for job seekers and recruiters. You can tap into this opportunity by enhancing your LinkedIn Company Page with a career page.

A career page enables you to better show off your company culture and open positions. It includes a “meet the team” section from employee profiles, features employee testimonials, and tracks recruitment analytics to improve your hiring process, among other functionality.

However, LinkedIn career pages are not free, so evaluate the cost-benefit for your company.

You also can check out this guide with tips for hiring the right employee.

Step 7: Encourage engagement as a course of business

Think Yelp. It’s common for businesses to encourage customers to review them on that website to strengthen their position there. 

On LinkedIn, you can encourage employees, colleagues and those you do business with in general to follow and engage with your page. 

Of course, this isn’t a take-take-take suggestion. You should, in turn, follow or engage back with those who do connect with you.

FInd out more about general best practices for your LinkedIn Company Page, or contact a marketing specialist today to get more direct assistance.