8 LinkedIn Optimization Tips That You Should Know

When did you last visit your LinkedIn profile? If you can’t recall already, then keep reading as you might find this article informative. If you’re on LinkedIn, chances are people are checking it. When you start giving out your applications, then best believe that the company you’re applying for is doing an intensive background check on you, and it’s guaranteed that they’ll come across your LinkedIn page. And that could surely backfire on you.

On the other hand, a well-maintained and optimized LinkedIn profile can help tons on your quest for a job. Imagine this, almost 530 million users are registered on LinkedIn, and out of that 530 million, there’s bound to be people who’ll come across your profile. You’ll never know when and where your next job offer may come from.

Even when you’re constantly updating your profile, you can still do some minor tweaks, and even major ones to further increase your chances of landing that job.

With that said, here are a few optimization tricks that you can do for your LinkedIn profile:

Use Professional Headshots

Remember that you are your own brand now, and you must present your “brand” to others professionally. On top of that, one key component to a brand’s success is the “look”. Get your headshot taken by a professional who enables you to communicate yourself to your audience best – it’ll be worth the investment.

If you don’t have the funds to do so, you can approach a friend or an emerging photographer and strike a deal with him/her. They provide you with their services, and you do the same to them.

Remove Your Headline

When you create your LinkedIn profile, the headline defaults into your main job. Which is very limiting – especially when your current job title isn’t the one you want to be known for. Conveniently for you, that headline can be changed, and it’s imperative that you do so.

Choose a more engaging title, one that is easily recognized from anyone, anywhere. Not just engaging, but widely searched titles are what works best such as “Marketing Expert with the main focus on promotion and strategy”. If you want to highlight one or two more skills, feel free to certainly do so, but more than 4 titles aren’t advised.

Utilize your headline as a way to capture any of your visitor’s attention and to increase your value – this will make them want to read more about you.

Make The Most Out of Your Summary – It’s Prime Real Estate

Think of your summary as a professional biography where you provide support to your headline, as well as expand on other things such as skills, expertise, and experience. Never forget to put your references and an overall description of your different qualifications. Keep your summary short and concise – three to five paragraphs at best detailing important information that would make someone visiting your profile want to hire or contact you.

Experience and Past Roles

Highlighting and emphasizing your past roles and experiences is what we call – the main dish of your profile. Make sure to follow the resume guidelines of writing your past experiences. When writing your key accomplishments, make sure to use numbers and figures to support your claims. For example, “increased sales from 50% to 65% in 2 years”. LinkedIn has a built-in multimedia platform that you can use to showcase your online portfolio, as well as your presentations, blogs, and articles.

Take Initiative and Establish Your Reputation with Recommendations

Instead of waiting forever for your references to sing your praises, take the initiative and do it yourself. Approach your key contacts and ask them for a recommendation on LinkedIn. Make sure that the focus of their recommendation is on a specific skill. This ensures that your list of recommendations will showcase your well-rounded abilities and skills.

Showcase Your Success

LinkedIn has an accomplishment section where you can feature and showcase each and every one of your achievements that had a significant impact on your career milestone as well as what made you proud. List all the awards you got, special projects, and being able to learn other languages.

Endorsements

Getting your profile endorsed is a fantastic way to have your skills verified, validated, and acknowledged by others. Just remember to not overdo it as well as keep your list of skills updated.

Custom URL

When you create a LinkedIn profile, you automatically get assigned a custom URL. You can edit that URL to make your LinkedIn profile easily recognizable, shorter, and can easily be typed.

You can do this by going to your profile, and clicking on the edit public profile and URL button. Your custom URL should be something related to you. The most common example is your name, nickname, family name, or an abbreviation of your name.