How can I optimize a LinkedIn profile?
This is one of the commonest questions I get asked as far as LinkedIn marketing is concerned.
That being said, did you know that LinkedIn has actually been around longer than Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram?
LinkedIn is a great tool for business and personal branding. LinkedIn can also be extremely useful for lead generation, job search, and business networking.
With more than 350 million active users, becoming relevant on LinkedIn largely depends on how well your profile is optimized. In this post, I shall be discussing 9 simple ways to optimize a LinkedIn profile.
How Important is a LinkedIn Profile?
LinkedIn is a professional network and it is now more relevant than ever before because of unlimited network connections and thousands of daily job openings that are published on the network every day.
Apart from job openings and ease of connecting to other professionals from around the world, A LinkedIn profile also helps with personal branding, lead generation, and ranking on Google.
How to Optimize a LinkedIn Profile
Since optimizing your LinkedIn profile is key to your success on LinkedIn, we shall be looking at 9 easy ways to optimize your LinkedIn for success in 2019.
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Get Written Recommendations
Recommendations are very key to the success of any LinkedIn profile. Recommendations serves as proof that you are skillful at what you do and also shows that you’re a people person.
Generally speaking, employers don’t just want anyone that is good at his job but people with interpersonal skills which is what recommendations helps you achieve.
The way to go in getting recommendations on is to ask for it. Network with top profiles in your connection and ask them for a few lines of recommendations.
The more recommendations you have, the more visible your profile becomes
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Add Skills And Get Endorsements
Do you have relevant skills and endorsement? LinkedIn is the perfect place for you to list them.
Skills and endorsements are one of the few things employers and potential mentees will first look for when they visit your profile.
Incorporate Branding Into Your Profile Background Image
Another optimization tip to remember is to always incorporate branding into your profile background header image.
The branding should include your keywords and information about what you do.
Branding helps to better position your profile as a top professional.
Use Keywords in Your Headline
This is perhaps one one of the most important optimization step you must never forget to implement on your profile.
You keywords should include your skills and what you do and must always be included in your profile headline.
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Build Your Network
This is perhaps the most important element of any LinkedIn profile. The more your connection, the more exposure your profile has.
Whenever it comes to network, the more the better.
Start connecting with other professionals in your field, mentors, and influencers.
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Showcase Awards, Volunteer Experience, Organizations, and Causes You Care About
Showcasing awards, volunteer, etc is another way to optimize a LinkedIn profile.
Awards, Volunteer work, etc shows that you are selfless and who doesn’t want to connect to people like that? No one, I believe.
Hence, have you received an award in the past or volunteered somewhere? Then you should include them in Award section.
Create Your Vanity URL
A vanity URL is a domain name that points to something to which it is related and indicated in the name of the URL. For example, https://www.linkedin.com/in/omotayoaola is the vanity URL of my personal LinkedIn profile.
A vanity URL makes it easy for search engine crawlers to index your profile. Also, a LinkedIn vanity URL makes gives your profile a professional touch.
Go to Customizing Your Public Profile URL to learn more.
Add Work Samples
Since the main purpose of setting up a LinkedIn profile for many is to connect with other professionals for jobs, networking, or business.
An easy way to set yourself up for success is to add samples or portfolio of jobs you’ve done in the past. This gives you an additional credibility as the got person for the service or products that you offer.
Another way to optimize a LinkedIn profile is to add your work samples.
Read LinkedIn’s article on how to add work samples to your profile to learn how to get started.
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Complete Your Contact Information
Do not be shy to add your latest contact information to your LinkedIn profile. This can be an email address, phone number, website, or address.
Your contact information is important because its provides a direct channel your audience can reach out to you.
That being said, you might want to be mindful of who sees your contact information. Therefore, you can set up permission and restrict access to only your connections.
Final Thought
What drives success in any area of life is passion, commitment, determination, and the will to keep going when its tough.
Optimizing a few elements on your LinkedIn profile is a good start to getting more visibility but what drives success is your personality and engagement.
Don’t stop at optimizing but engage more, become truly interested in others and you will have the much desired success.