Tips to Optimize LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social platform that boasts over 740 million members in more than 200 countries - long gone are the days where this platform was just an online resume holder and a job seekers/headhunters directory. Look who is all grown up now?
So - are you on LinkedIn? Are you optimized? This is part of the service I offer my clients and today I am sharing my top tips to optimize your profile if you haven’t done so yet:
Profile Photo - a strong, high res photo of what you currently look like is needed - something that shows your face and ensures your networks and recruiters trust who you are. For best image quality and fitting, ensure your profile picture for LinkedIn is at least 400 X 400 px. Also, when you click your profile photo you need to select who sees your photos - select “All LinkedIn Members” or “Anyone” to allow search engines to find your profile more easily
Background Banner - this is great real estate to highlight your strengths and skills and is often underutilized - you can check out mine to see what an optimized banner may look like https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranimacinnes/ Your banner should be 1584 px wide by 396 high px (4:1 proportion) for best quality
Profile Headline - this is no longer relegated to just your job title and it is important to use the 220 character space to include relevant keywords and descriptions of your expertise/skills. Get creative and write various headlines and then switch them up occasionally and see which ones get more eyeballs
About Section - This is a great place to tell your story in 2,000 characters or less. Again - utilize keywords and update as often as you need to ensure relevancy and accuracy. The first 265-275 characters will show before someone will have to click “See More” for the rest of your summary content. Your opening lines should be how you “hook” a profile visitor in that tells who you are, what you care about, and what you aspire to do
Work Experience/history - Don’t add every previous job, if you have a long work history, focus on the best achievements related to your career and make sure to update consistency, even current jobs when new goals or projects are completed
Education & Skills - many recruiters and people in your network may be curious about your education and skills and some may start endorsing those qualities you select, improving your trust factor. These are the sections on your profile to add your knowledge: Education, Licenses & Certifications, Skills & Endorsements
Profile URL - One setting that is easy to neglect and overlook when optimizing your LinkedIn profile is your profile URL. You can edit your URL to be clean, like your first name and last name. Go to your profile and in the upper right corner, you’ll see “Edit public profile & URL.” once the page refreshes, you’ll see in the upper right corner the current URL and then you can change the URL to something cleaner. Beyond making the LinkedIn profile URL looking clean, it can help search engines index your profile and make it easier for people to find you on the network
There are some more advanced optimizations that are available but for now if you update the 7 outlined above you will be off to the races.
A final note is posting - don’t just put your profile up and then abandon your LinkedIn Profile - this is a fabulous networking platform so start using it. Aim to be consistent 2-5 times a week to start - quality over quantity is key. LinkedIn stats has shown that when you post weekly you will see a 2x lift in engagement with your content and connections!
My final tip is to engage on the platform by commenting, liking and sharing posts that are relevant to your search or field of interest. This can sometimes be more valuable than the number of posts!
Have fun optimizing your profile and if you need any help just let me know - I am a wizard on the platform ;]
If you are interested in talking to me about your search please email me at rani@livearebellife.com and we can set up a call! Remember you are not alone so find someone to be your cheerleader and advocate!
Hugs,
Rani xoxo