Secure your URL
Update your headline
Create your profile summary with care
Show off accomplishments using rich media
Make your LinkedIn banner unique
LinkedIn now has 830 million members with over 58 million registered companies. A fully optimised LinkedIn profile has never been more important. And is really the at the very basic level of making the most out of LinkedIn.
It’ll make it easier for others to understand:
Who you hope to interact with
What you offer
How you are distinctive
How you wish to be remembered
LinkedIn has become the ultimate lead-generation platform for businesses and individuals. Hubspot found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter. BUT! You don’t just set up a profile and have the leads rolling in.
Ensure you and your team are clear on your LinkedIn objectives, a LinkedIn strategy document that can be shared amongst everyone is a good place to start. Essentially you need clear objectives that can be measured and analysed, so you understand what is going well and what needs improvement.
Remember, you can optimise your LinkedIn profile to a point, and after that it’s a continuous process. You may come across a feature you haven’t seen before or a new way to phrase your bio that sounds more effective.
Knowing where and what all the features are is what’s important, then you can continuously improve.
Check the URL for your current LinkedIn profile. You still need to optimise your URL if you see a string of letters and numbers that don’t make sense. You can change this to your name or business name so people can more easily find out and recognise you.
It takes a few minutes to customise your profile URL, improving your LinkedIn search-ability. Additionally, a personalised URL gives your profile a more polished look.
If you are editing a personal profile, LinkedIn automatically includes your most recent or current employment experience in your headline. However, if you are job hunting, you should modify your headline to reflect the position you are looking for. If you are a business providing services or products, don’t talk about the services you offer, but instead what these services do for people.
e.g. instead of ‘We work with businesses on their digital marketing’ you could say ‘supporting SME’s in reaching customers online’.
If you want to get found on LinkedIn, your headline is essential. Include the terms that members of your target market or existing customers use to find people with your talents, products, or services.
Don’t miss this step and invest the time necessary to thoroughly determine which keywords will assist you in being found. The impact of choosing the right keywords on the number of views of your profile may surprise you.
The first point to emphasise about your LinkedIn summary is that you should have one! It’s surprising how many people and businesses leave this section blank, probably because they aren’t sure what to put in it.
A couple of things to remember here is that where possible, people avoid and don’t like reading large blocks of text. So split up your summary into clear sections or points that are more easy to navigate. And again, remember to tell people what benefits you and your business bring to them, not what you are selling.
This is the only place on your LinkedIn profile where you can go into a bit more detail what your account is about.
Visual demonstration of what you do will be the most effective, rather than just text. Showcase examples of your work on your LinkedIn profile. You can upload pictures, movies presentation and other files, so take advantage of these features.
Now, you can even replace your profile picture with a profile video. If you have the confidence, definitely take advantage of this feature. If you don’t, consider if you can make a short animated video that could go here that represents you or what you do.
Ultimately, you might be the best person for the job, but if your profile doesn’t successfully convey what you can offer to your target audience, they are likely to overlook you.
Make your LinkedIn profile banner unique and use it again, convey to visitors what you’re about.
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