How do you craft a professional and engaging LinkedIn profile? Buckle up, cause you’ve got so many options, you would want to start right away and use them all! Below you will find our top 11 tips on how to improve your LinkedIn profile.
With over 800 million users and around 52 million registered businesses across the globe, LinkedIn is an effective and widespread social network in the world.
The network is the best whether you are on a job hunt, trying to make new and fruitful connections, or want to strengthen existing ones. LinkedIn has all the potential to expand your career horizons, but if only if you know how to do it.
In this read, we will show how to improve your LinkedIn profile to get the maximum benefit of it. If you know how to make a good LinkedIn profile, you can have various prospects and connections without doing anything.
11 ways to improve your Linkedin profile
We have compiled a list of best practices to improve your Linkedin profile. These are the most easy steps, so it should not take too much of your time to complete all of them. Nevertheless you are free to start with any of them.
Customize LinkedIn URL
The first thing to improve is your LinkedIn URL.
But most people don’t even know about it!
This is the first thing that you need to optimize to make your LinkedIn profile stand above the rest. And don’t try to skip it at any cost.
Here’s why your LinkedIn URL matters:
When you send your personal URL to your clients, it looks more professional. A customized URL makes it easy for others to find your profile. Similarly, if your LinkedIn URL reflects your credentials, others will be more likely to click on it.
On the other hand, your default LinkedIn URL is a long link containing your name along with random numbers and alphabets. Something like this:
linkedin.com/in/firstname-lastname-a6422891a.
It is hard to remember and looks not that great.
Changing your LinkedIn URL is simple. Go to View Profile, click on the ‘Edit public profile & URL’ and enter your customized URL. Also, feel free to check out our guide about Linkedin profile URL.
Add LinkedIn banner or cover image
The LinkedIn banner or cover image is the wide image displayed at the top of your profile. Moreover, it is the first thing visitors notice, and you can use it to lure and attract them. This is by far one of the easiest methods to improve your Linkedin profile.
According to LinkedIn support, the recommended banner image size is 800×200 pixels. However, you can crop and adjust the banner as per your preferences via the LinkedIn editor.
If you really want to stand out from the others, we recommend you go for the customized cover banner. Ensure that graphics are clear and the text is readable.
These minor things can make a huge difference. If you don’t know how to make an attractive LinkedIn banner, you can seek help from any graphics designer.
The perfect profile banner includes the following ingredients:
- Unique Selling Proposition for others.
- What makes you or your services different from the rest?
- Why should others connect with you?
- Testimonials.
- Your picture.
- Stats, results, or data of your services.
Try to use vibrant colors and attractive graphics to make it stand out. The best approach is to give the prospect a reason to connect with you or acquire your services via your banner. There are many online tools and sites like Canva that you can use and design a perfect banner for your profile.
Finally, you can also provide social proof by citing your partner agencies.
Update LinkedIn profile photo
As per LinkedIn, profile pictures with headshots are viewed more than those without a profile picture. The rule is simple; your photo should be clear, professional and don’t include irrelevant things.
On the other hand, buyers on LinkedIn like to connect with trustworthy people. And all this starts with your profile picture. So take your time and upload a perfect and smiling pic.
A few things you can do include:
- A high-quality and smiling headshot picture of you with friendliness and warmth.
- Upload a picture of yourself in a working environment to gain the trust of others.
- Try to create a customized background or digital illustration to make your picture unique and develop your brand identity.
The option you prefer also depends on your specific brand qualities. The point is to ensure that your picture gives the right first impression to visitors.
Some other vital things in this regard are:
- As per LinkedIn, the recommended profile photo size is up to 400×400 pixels.
- You can also add a custom color outline to your profile image to make it more attractive and stand out from the others.
- Consider using any tool to analyze your LinkedIn profile. These tools can also help you with editing, lighting of your LinkedIn profile picture.
Add LinkedIn profile tagline
Like the banner, your headline also provides a reason for prospects to view and visit your profile. The tagline helps them to understand more about what you do and what your offerings are?
This also improves your general networking on LinkedIn.
However, most people simply mention their job position, and this is a wrong practice. Instead, you should give a viable solution to others via the headline.
When writing a headline for your LinkedIn profile, follow this simple formula:
- ‘Title’ plus USP.
- ‘Title’ plus (USP).
- ‘Title’ plus benefits of working with you.
Besides, don’t forget to include relevant keywords in your tagline. If you have available space, you also include your company’s name or a CTA in it.
Here are a few examples:
Lead Marketer | Business Strategist | How to make your communication effective and fruitful to double engagement.
𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸? Click here 👉 ABC.𝗰𝗼 | We can turn your business into a LinkedIn lead machine | 300M+ Views Only on LinkedIn | 5X Author.
When a potential buyer sees your connection request, your tagline or headlines make them click on your profile. The headline also encourages them to do business with you because of your unique and optimized tagline. Professionals that follow these steps to improve Linkedin profile get substantially more engagement than the ones that do not.
View these examples to craft a flawless tagline for your profile.
Create LinkedIn summary
If your LinkedIn headline shows what you do, your LinkedIn summary shows others who you are along with your accomplishments.
In this part, you need to mention who you are and why people should work with you in detail.
Some vital things that you must include in the summary section are the following:
- A hook or punch line that keeps the readers intact and encourages them to read further.
- Who you are.
- What are your offerings and USP?
- Work results and achievements.
- Personal values.
- What is your ICP?
- Why people should work with you and how your services will benefit them.
- CTA.
Are you confused?
Don’t be.
It is simple to write an engaging summary. We will advise you to look at proven and relevant profiles on LinkedIn to write a perfect ‘About’ section or ‘Summary.’
Your achievements will be the highlight of the entire section and profile. Try to mention your role in leading projects and reinforced the achievements with stats if you can.
Besides, various online apps and websites can help you write a perfect LinkedIn summary. You can use those tools to your advantage.
Lastly, be clear, to the point, and don’t ramble.
Outline your work experience
If you want to portray yourself as an industry expert, you need to mention your work experience in the appropriate section along with your results and achievements.
For example, if you are an expert growth marketer, you should list your accomplishments instead of mentioning your routine job responsibilities.
Have a look at these examples:
- Boost up Company X from 0 to 50k only in a couple of months without paid marketing.
- Monthly organic traffic of Website X enhanced from 0 to 20k through best SEO and content marketing techniques.
- Managed successful outreaching campaigns with an average open rate of up to 50%.
- Designed and launched the business’s first app with an effective retargeting strategy that resulted in a $100K boost only in 3 days.
All the above-mentioned ways are ideal for listing your work experience. Some other things to remember are:
- Write clearly and concisely with all the relevant stats and details.
- Try to keep one sentence per subject.
- Don’t include unnecessary items or irrelevant data.
- Mention only reliable achievements and accomplishments.
When any potential buyer reads or reviews your previous work experience, most of them wonder what you’ve done earlier and how you can help them or their business.
In the end, results, stats, graphs, and specific data are worthy of mentioning in your work experience.
Mention your education
The education section of your profile is important, but not in all cases. It mainly depends on your industry. But the general rule is; fill out all the relevant educational details in your LinkedIn profile, especially if the details are related to your industry.
Here are some relevant details to include:
- College/University name.
- List your education program or Degree name.
- Relevant achievements and participation.
Transferable experience is extremely important here.
The best approach is to include relevant information that demonstrates your transferable skills even if your education is not related to your current work industry.
Certifications
Certifications also depend on your work industry and skill level.
If you’re a beginner, certifications are a great way to show your skill level and authority.
But if you’re a pro in the industry and know how to deal with your prospects, you can skip this step.
To keep things sweet and simple – try to include the following details:
- All information about license or certification that improves your authority.
- Don’t forget to mention the name of issuing organization.
- Include detailed work experience and other info that show you a skilled professional.
Skills & endorsements
Another important section in your LinkedIn profile is the skills & endorsements and the recommendations. Furthermore, these are the best way to show off your social media presence and improve your Linkedin profile.
As per LinkedIn, people who have five skills receive 17x profile views!
If a profile has 99+ skills endorsements, chances are much higher that people will trust this profile more than the others and believe that they’re an industry expert.
Below are some hacks to get more authentic endorsements on your profile:
- Take and pass LinkedIn’s skill assessment test to show off your skill level to others. Try to score in the top 30% as you will get a skill badge by LinkedIn, which makes your profile more trustworthy.
- Endorse your fellow professionals and get the same from them.
- Write engaging content regularly to grow your network and reach out to more people for trade endorsements.
- To can also request your connections to endorse your profile. Don’t hesitate to ask your colleagues, clients, or friends for endorsements.
Request Recommendations
Testimonials build authority and go a long way. For example, you don’t go to a restaurant without reading reviews, so why would prospects hire you if your profile has a few reviews?
Getting reviews is easy; request your colleagues, supervisors, or friends for reviews and recommendations.
As compared to the endorsements, buyers consider and trust recommendations more as they are more personal and state more about your work experiences.
Some of the best ways to get recommendations are:
- Reach out to people you know or have worked with.
- You can also use LinkedIn message automation to make things simple and to automate the entire process.
- If you’ve assist anyone in building their business, don’t hesitate to ask for their recommendation! Those people will love to write about you.
- Lastly, the best approach is to get a minimum of one recommendation for each role and skill.
Interests
The interest section in your LinkedIn profile might not be that important, but it comes in handy when you’re reaching out to prospects.
When adding interests to your LinkedIn profile, try to be as relevant as possible. Your interest should state how you want your audience to see you.
Additionally, the interest section can be a perfect conversation starter for you. If rightly used, it can boost your LinkedIn outreach campaign.
To Conclude
In simple words, ensure your profile contains all the essential information about you and your services. Fill all the above-mentioned sections adequately as they are relevant for your leads.
Don’t miss out your past work results, unique selling proposition, and how you can benefit others via your services.
It’s all about getting a perfect mix:
Lastly, it’s all about creating a mix of data and personality, and your profile will stand above the rest. No need to spend hours creating a LinkedIn profile, be smart and be creative.
After creating an attractive and optimized profile, you will be surprised to see its advantages, and you will witness the differences it can make to you and your business!
