8 Tips To Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Whether you're a salesperson, a recruiter or a job seeker, optimizing your LinkedIn profile is crucial to your professional success. Check out the tips below to help you get your LinkedIn profile completely optimized and looking like a pro.

1. Your Name - Is your name the same throughout every social media network you're on? If not, your missing out on valuable Search Engine Optimization or SEO juice on for your personal brand, both on Google and LinkedIn. Whichever name you go by, and as long it's professional/appropriate, make sure that you put that same name in every single social network that you have a presence on. This will make it much easier for colleagues, recruiters and prospects to find you.

2. Headline & Job Title - By default, your profile's headline is always your current job title. Take advantage of the 120 characters to influence the way people perceive you on LinkedIn. Ask yourself, "When a person or prospects reads my LinkedIn headline, does it stand out from the crowd?" If the answer is no, there is room for improvement. Remember that in groups, discussions and other places in LinkedIn people will first see your name, photo, and headline. Having said that, don't forget to insert keywords that you want to rank and be found for online.

3. LinkedIn Profile URL - Help your audience (and Google) find you by adding your first and last name to your LinkedIn profile's URL. Keep in mind that this feature is a first come first serve basis, so if you have a common name, chances are that your full name could already be taken. If this is your case, try changing the order. For example, www.linkedin.com/in/GabeVillamizar, or www.linkedin.com/in/VillamizarGabe. If those options are also taken, I recommend you add the first initial of your middle name in between your first and last name. Symbols, space, or any other special character are not allowed. In the end, your goal is to communicate and make it easier for the Google crawler or Googlebot to connect the dots and help identify who you claim you say you are online. (Pro Tip: Check out this step-by-step tutorial on how to do this: How to Customize Your LinkedIn Profile URL)

4. Complete Your Contact Info - If I had to guess the most incomplete section of anybody's LinkedIn profile, it would be their contact info. There is a ton of SEO value by simply completing this section. Begin by adding your work email, work phone number, Twitter account and three websites that relate to either your personal brand or the company you're currently working with. Under websites, if you choose the "Other:" tab, make sure you edit the label with a keyword that both stands out and describes the website you added. 

5. Professional Summary - Think of your summary section as your 60 second elevator pitch written down. Focus on a few action words that describe you, and once again, try to stand out from the crowd. Keywords are essential in this paragraph, so don't rush by just writing whatever. Take time to think of the specific verbiage you want to use to construct your summary paragraph that, which be 2-4 sentences long. 

6. Rich Media Types - Your LinkedIn profile is not your online resume, it's your online reputation. Don't make the mistake of having a really long, boring, and wordy profile. By adding rich media assets to your profile, you will make it more visually appealing to showcase the work you've done. These media types include images, documents, videos, and presentations. Ask your marketing team to help you identify your organization's top rich media assets that have been optimized for LinkedIn so it displays correctly. Think of how powerful rich media types can be if everybody in an organization had the same consistent branding video, gated asset or Slideshare displaying in their profiles. Money in the bank.

7. Professional Skills - When was the last time you checked or updated your professional skills? When done strategically, the skills you add and list will create what I like to call an instant "credibility trigger" to anybody who views your profile. Before adding or updating your skills, put yourself in the shoes of your buyer. What skills, keywords and pain points do they currently care about? Write down at least 10 of these keywords and those will become your skills. Once you've chosen your new skills, re-arrange them by simply dragging and dropping them to the top of the skills list to increase their visibility and endorsement count. If you have a skill that has been endorsed in the past, but currently does not add any value to your current position, delete it and replace it with one that is relevant. 

8. Career Experience - As you accomplish your personal and team goals, update your career experience section with both qualitative and quantitative results. Focus on keywords that you want to rank and want to be known for. Try be be as specific as possible, but keep it short and precise. Nobody wants to read a long testament :) This is also another area to create "credibility triggers" for your buyer or reader as they scroll through your LinkedIn profile. 

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About Gabe Villamizar

Gabe Villamizar is the Social Media Marketing Manager at HireVue. He has over five years of experience in social media marketing, social selling and social audience development in multiple industries. Prior to joining HireVue, he was the Social Media Manager at InsideSales.com where worked with Ken Krogue to build his social media brand and thought leadership in the social selling space.