Whether you are a college student, or a working professional, I am sure you must have heard about LinkedIn. You end up hearing about it almost everyday in conversations. As some of you might already remember that in the early days the social platform was primarily used as an online resume. But, over the years, LinkedIn has not only become a way to get hired or find talent, but to build a professional network and a personal brand.
It has become the go-to platform to build new relationships with like minded industry individuals, showcase your expertise and knowledge, close more deals and grow your company’s employer brand. The evolution of LinkedIn has been fascinating to watch, as the platform now boasts over 740 million members in more than 200 countries.
With this popularity of the app, long done are the days when a generic profile used to serve its purpose to you. Today, you need to be more strategic and think about how you want people to perceive you on the platform. Below is our in-depth guide to an optimised LinkedIn profile and why you need it in the first place.
What is an Optimized LinkedIn Profile ?
An optimized LinkedIn profile is one where every part of your personal profile is filled out and shows audiences what you do, who you are and what is your area of expertise. This helps your profile rank higher in LinkedIn searches and build trust among those who might want to connect with you.
According to studies, you are 40 times more likely to get found and receive opportunities when you have a complete and optimized profile. In order to have an optimized profile, you should have a profile picture, an indication of your location, your education, skills and previous work experience, if any. An effective way to optimize your LinkedIn is by adding relevant keywords in your profile. These keywords help to increase your rankings at the front of the page when recruiters search for your profile there.
Why should you optimize your LinkedIn?
Reiterating the importance of an optimized LinkedIn profile, let me elaborate in depth because you should care to have a clean and well-thought-out profile.
- It helps recruiters know if you are looking for work opportunities, know who you are and your area of expertise. This can encourage them to reach out to you directly for job opportunities.
- Applying for a job on LinkedIn is easier than finding the HR details of a company and mailing them.
- An optimized profile helps in building a personal brand for yourself, build relationships with prospects and generate leads.
- It can also help you to connect with your customers and build more trust and credibility among them.
Whether you are looking for a job, searching for prospects and converting the leads, or wanting to be the next professional influencer – your LinkedIn profile is key to success. You may argue that not everyone wants to become the next professional influencer or build a massive personal brand, but still it is important to have an optimized LinkedIn profile to help you grow professionally.
Now that you understand the importance of having an optimized profile, the next question that arises is “How to make your profile optimized?” Keep reading because we have mentioned below a few basic tips that can help you improve your LinkedIn profile.
Basic Tips to Optimize your LinkedIn Profile
- Put up a Profile Photo
When setting up your profile photo, make sure to upload a strong, professional and clear profile picture.
Something that shows your face ensures your networks and recruiters trust who you are. For best image quality, ensure your profile picture for LinkedIn is as per the size of the frame. Also make sure to keep the profile picture “Public” to allow search engines to find your profile more easily.
- Utilize the background image
While your profile photo drives the focus on you, there is also the background image that you should optimize well. This can be related to your work or passions, but you can let your creative colours flow and put something about the company you currently work at.
This background image is also known as a banner image or the wallpaper for your profile. Ensure that this image is in the 4:1 proportion for best quality.
- Put up a Smart Headline
Your headline is the first thing that people see, and the first thing that recruiters get when they screen through the search results, so you want to have a headline that catches people’s attention. Try to be descriptive and creative in your headline.
To optimize your headline, start with including relevant titles that you are targeting. Also make sure to use relevant keywords in your area. Try to make your heading interesting and highlight those that you think are important.
- Write an Authentic “About” Summary
The “about” section is like a canvas that you can paint in any way you want to captivate the attention of the reader. Most people either don’t write anything or just have a brief sentence. This is a practice that should be stopped because there are various things you can include in your summary.
You can write a paragraph about who you are, what you are passionate about, and your areas of interest and expertise. You can elaborate on your areas of expertise and explain in brief what it means. Try using keywords while describing your area of expertise and your accomplishments. This will help in improving your search rankings. You can also add a call-to-action line where you invite people to connect with you.
- Mention your work experience
While LinkedIn profile optimization is more than just talking about your work experience, you should still pay attention to filling out this section. Mention your work-experience and focus on highlighting your main achievements. Mention your core responsibilities and duties. To stand out, you can add these in 3-5 bullet pointers.
In case you have a long work history, do not go on mentioning literally every one of them. Focus on the best achievements related to your career. Make sure to update your work experience section consistently, even when you just simply achieve a new goal in the same organisation you have been working in.
- Optimize your skills section for better
You can have up to 50 skills that you can identify to put up on your profile. LinkedIn allows you to pin at least three skills. You can highlight the three skills you want and add relevant keywords to it. Try to add hard or technical skills instead of soft-skills, as these are the skills that recruiters would search for.
For example: If you are a content writer, try adding skills like Copywriting, EMail writing etc in the skills section instead of adding your soft skills.
- Be active on LinkedIn
After completing and optimizing your profile, make sure that you are also active on LinkedIn to increase your visibility. Every time you like a post or comment or share a post that is featured in your feed, your profile will be highlighted and it’ll ensure that you are at the top of people’s minds in your network. This will help in creating a lot of opportunities for you,
Conclusion
Follow the above mentioned tips and strategies and you’ll find your LinkedIn profile is better than ever. While trying to optimize your profile, make sure to flow a similar flow of narrative so that everything ties up to your skills and the brand you are trying to build for yourself. By focusing on this, you’ll be building a harmonious and concise case of who you are an excellent fit for the particular role that you are targeting.
