Whether you are connecting with colleagues or looking for a job, LinkedIn is the place to get found for all reasons and achieve your goals.
With more than 810 million members, there are many profiles to sift through.
People come across your profile in different ways. No matter why or how they visit your LinkedIn page, you need to make your profile stand out.
How do you make it real?
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is a key to attracting the right people and being visible in search engines.
Here is a step-by-step guide of ten tips to optimizing every part of your LinkedIn profile to appear in the search results.
Optimize Your Profile Picture & Background Image
Your profile photo and background image are the first things people see on your LinkedIn page, and they usually work in tandem as a joint visual asset.
It is essential to optimize them to make a great first impression.
Make sure to have a high-quality, well-lit photo with dimensions at least 200 х 200 pixels. With your profile picture, you can optimize the background image that allows people to tell a bit more about you.
A great background image can match your target audience, reveal your personality, and build credibility.
Try to follow the specifications: no larger than 8 MB with dimensions 1584 pixels wide x 396 pixels tall.
Pro Tip: Activate your profile for dark mode as this feature offers more comfortable use and internet browsing.
Customize Your Profile URL
To make people find your profile easier, customize the URL on your LinkedIn profile. This URL includes your full name with random numbers.
You can edit your name without spaces if you want to make edits.
It can be ideal to use just your first and last name without numbers. You can also add the industry you work in or a middle name.
Craft a Compelling Headline
Optimizing your headline is critical to attracting more visitors to your profile page. It should be highly visible and provide all the key information about what you do.
You will have 120 characters or less to do it.
When writing a compelling headline, try to include valuable keywords to help you show up in the search results.
Clearly explain what you do and highlight your industry experience to let recruiters define whether you’re a good fit. Add emoji to the headline to boost your chance to catch people’s attention.
Write a Killer Personal Bio
Your personal bio is the part of your LinkedIn profile where you can provide more details to people who want to find out more.
It is a great chance to show your personality, what you do, how you can help them, why they should choose you, and what makes you better among other people.
The main goal of this section is to make people click on it. Be short and include only persuasive bullet points that will make your audience take action with you.
I prefer to focus on a call to action and use storytelling to hold my audience’s attention.
Share Your Skills & Endorsements
One of the most crucial parts of your LinkedIn profile is your skills. Try to enter details about your soft and hard skills to view your capabilities comprehensively.
When choosing your skills, use high-volume search phrases, such as “web designer” or “content writer.”
Adding endorsements to your profile can act as professional social proof and show potential employers what you are good at.
You can also include organizations for which you become a volunteer or the workshop you participated in.
Even, you can even add a video if it is relevant to your interests.
Share Your Education, Certificates & Awards
LinkedIn is a great place where you can share all your strong points. You can list your education, awards, licenses, certifications, and other accolades to prove your professional experience.
It will help you appear in narrow search results that focus on particular achievements and awards.
Try to include all your unique talents, including special projects or languages. Add them to your profile whether they are related to your personal interests or from your company.
If you don’t have high education, you can reference your high school or college.
Showcase Your Best Posts & Links
Another step to optimize your LinkedIn profile is sharing your best posts created by yourself to demonstrate your expertise.
You can add your thought leadership content, links, PDF guides, or LinkedIn articles to get more traffic to your profile and convert it into leads.
Showing your successful posts can act as social proof. Potential connections can likely find this great content from the profile and return.
Request Recommendations
Clients’ testimonials and colleague recommendations can be great to highlight your expertise and build credibility on your profile.
It will look like reading a review from others before dealing with you.
Try to ask your former colleagues and past clients to give you relevant recommendations for your career goal. It will add an extra layer and confidence to your profile.
Update Your Contact Information
If you want to get more visibility on LinkedIn, try to add or update your contact information not to miss opportunities.
While some people prefer using the bill-in messaging feature, others want to use phone calls and emails.
Make your profile public, keep your contact information updated, and increase your chances of connecting with new employers or clients on LinkedIn.
Include your location to help companies narrow down their search results.
Pro Tip: While optimizing this area, change the contact labels to use valuable keywords that people might use to search for your profile.
For example, you can change a website label to “Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer” or “french bakery.”
Translate Your LinkedIn Profile
If your activity is international, having your LinkedIn profile in English is not enough, and you should translate it into different languages.
In addition, you will appear in more search results and get more international clients.
When optimizing your profile, make sure to choose the appropriate language. You and people landing on your page can switch between languages.
Add Hashtags in LinkedIn Profile
Adding hashtags in your LinkedIn profile can be a mighty boost and having this feature will surely optimize your LinkedIn profile for maximum exposure.
Here is the proper guide on how to add talks about in LinkedIn.
Optimize for SEO
The more you optimize the page for SEO, the higher your profile will appear in LinkedIn searchers and the more visibility you get from your audience.
Here are some valuable tips to follow:
- Include relevant keywords that people often use in your industry.
- Carefully choose preferred topics you want to be more visible.
- Link to your profile from other websites, social channels, or bylined articles.
- Add hashtags to your updates and posts to maximize your exposure.
- Post new content on LinkedIn about topics relevant to your personal interests.
- Connect with like-minded professionals, share advice, and answer questions in relevant group discussions where possible.
Conclusion
Your LinkedIn profile is the first point of contact you make with clients or potential employees.
It is worth taking your time and effort to optimize your profile properly. Try to highlight your strong points, offer value to visitors, and show relevance.
With a complete profile, you can stand out from the crowd, find new connections, and get better results in business.
