I’ve been trying to love LinkedIn — I really have. I’ve added my blog, I’ve added twitter, I’ve added slideshare. I’ve received and given recommendations, I’ve tried to network… and yet I’m still left feeling like it’s practically useless.
In terms of SEO, my LinkedIn profile doesn’t come up on the first page of a google search for my name. The design of LinkedIn is clunky, word heavy, and difficult to navigate. Slideshare is about the worst slideshow presentation of photos I’ve ever seen (you have to convert photos to pdfs and even then there’s no guarantee they’ll display properly or as a slideshow). If you post something on twitter and then remove it, LinkedIn will continue to post it unless you remove your twitter feed all together from LinkedIn. Even then, your latest twitter post will still show up on your profile when you’re logged in.
But worst of all, LinkedIn really sucks for networking. You can only connect with people you already know, which is pretty damn silly when it comes to networking. Hey LinkedIn– guess what? I want to meet new people and potential clients– not people and clients I already know!
Maybe I’m missing something all together but so far, my conclusion is that LinkedIn really is as useless as it seems. I predict LinkedIn will be joining myspace soon in the bowels of internet networking sites that just didn’t quite have what it takes to survive.
Far more useful just purely for SEO has been my google profile. It comes up on the first page of a google search (hey– imagine that– google actually likes it’s own profiles), the photo uploading and presentation was easy, and the design is clean and to the point.
[...] one place you might want to avoid is LinkedIn. As previously mentioned, I’ve tried my best to use LinkedIn to it’s fullest potential. But I think this is the [...]