Whether you like it or not, your LinkedIn profile has become somewhat of a ‘digital business card’ over recent years. But it’s more than that… it’s like a business card, a landing page, a sales page, a website and a pitch deck for your personal brand all in one.
Safe to say, if you’re looking to build your personal or develop your reputation online, your LinkedIn profile is a vital piece of digital real estate.
Yet most LinkedIn profiles are underwhelming at best…
We see so many potentially amazing personal brands damaged by poor profile pictures, no bios and failure to utilise all of LinkedIn’s profile features.
In this definitive guide, we’ll show you how to create a standout LinkedIn profile that encourages visitors to follow you, screams credibility and helps you turn followers into paying customers.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
- Basic Profile Settings
- Profile Picture
- Cover Photo
- Tagline
- Key Information
- Featured Section
- About
- Experience
- Education
Let’s get into it.
Basic Profile Settings.
Before we get into optimising the front end of our profile, we need to make sure our back end page and privacy settings are giving us the best chance possible of having our beautiful new profiles seen.
Ultimately, your privacy is your decision, but here’s what we recommend.
Creator Mode
Your first step is to turn creator mode on.
Creator mode is a relatively new setting that opens up the opportunity of utilising more profile sections and having advanced analytics.
Turning creator mode on allows you to get more out of your profile and creates a more professional look.
To turn
Set Connect Button to Follow
Once you’ve turned creator mode on you will be able to change the usual ‘Connect’ option on your profile to ‘Follow’.
This means that when a user visits your profile, their default option will be to follow you, rather than connect.
The difference is that when they follow you, it does not mean you follow them.
We recommend this because LinkedIn has a connection limit of 30,000, but followers are unlimited, so you want to reserve those connection ‘slots’ for those that you decide to connect with.
Note - visitors can still opt to send you a connection request, but it is not the default option. A connection means that you both follow each other.
Here are some instructions from LinkedIn on how to turn creator mode on!
Personalise Your URL
When you set up your LinkedIn profile, LinkedIn gives you an automated URL. This is usually your name followed by a series of random digits, e.g. https:/linkedin/in/your-name-9w3ufb6.
To ensure your profile is optimised for search rankings, you should remove the random series of digits and change your URL to the name people are most likely to search for when trying to find you.
Note - you should use a hyphen (-) in exchange for a space when setting this.
To change your profile URL head to this page and click the pencil in the top right corner.
Ensure your contact details are up to date
If key contacts want to reach you, it’s important you haven’t got your old contact details from 2008 on your profile, or MSN email!
It looks much more professional if you have an accurate phone number and up to date work email.
(We’ll change who can find this information in the next step)
To change your contact details click the pencil below the bottom right corner of your cover photo and scroll down to ‘Edit Contact Info’
Profile Visibility and Discoverability
Now there’s no point in having a perfectly optimised profile if people can’t see it!
Your privacy is your personal choice, but we recommend having your profile as visible as possible and allowing the public to see your profile, name, content, etc. You may wish to hold back your contact details!
To make sure you’re making the most of your profile whilst protecting your personal information, head here and toggle the Show/Hide buttons on the right hand side to make your details public.
Summary Checklist
- Turn creator mode on
- Set connect button to follow
- Personalise your URL
- Ensure contact details are up to date
- Ensure the profile is fully visible and discoverable
Profile Picture
Your profile picture is a vital part of your profile as it’s the first thing people will see - first impressions count!
That said, you don’t need to overthink your photo. Just ensure it is a high quality headshot that reflects the brand image you are trying to portray (i.e. not suit and tie if you’re not corporate).
You might like to change the colour of your background to reflect your brand too.
- Clear, high quality headshot
- Ensure headshot reflects your image
- Use pfpmaker.com if you want to add a colour background
Cover Photo
Similarly to your profile picture, your cover photo is one of the first things visitors’ eyes will be drawn to when they land on your profile.
It’s a chance for you to show credibility and possibly convert them.
We recommend having a high-quality, on-brand image or graphic with a one line value proposition and some ‘credibility markers’. Your credibility markers should provide some form of social proof, such as publications you’ve featured in or awards you’ve won.
You might also opt to have a soft call to action (CTA), to encourage visitors to follow you, but you should not be trying to sell a high ticket product at this stage.
- High-quality, on-brand graphic or image
- One-line value proposition
- Show credibility (e.g. features, awards, photos on stage, followers)
- Optional: Soft CTA (e.g. follow for daily content)
Tagline
Your tagline is arguably the most important part of your profile.
Along with your profile picture, it’s the only thing people will see before they click on your profile when they view your content in their feed.
That means you have 2-3 lines to invoke curiosity, demonstrate credibility and convince your target audience to click through to your full profile.
To do this, we recommend adding 3 things to your tagline: Your job role, your value proposition and a statement that demonstrates credibility.
- Job role
- Value Proposition
- Statement of Credibility
Key Header Information
There are a few final details to add before the header section of your profile is complete.
Website Link
With ‘Creator Mode’ turned on, you are able to add a link to your website (or any webpage) in your header. This is a great tool for turning a profile visitor into a lead, newsletter subscriber, or potential client.
You can also change the text that accompanies the link, so you should include a creative call to action in order to convince visitors to click.
Hashtags
You can also add up to 5 hashtags around topics you talk about. This gives visitors an idea of what to expect from your content and can give them the nudge they need to hit follow.
Pick 3-5 hashtags that cover your most common content topics.
Summary Checklist
- Add website link into header with creative CTA
- Add #’s of common content topics
Featured Section
Your featured section should include links to your most important digital assets - this could be your website, landing pages, high-performing content, or press features. You should use it to establish authority and act as a conversion mechanism - i.e. it should convince someone to work with you and provide them with the next step.
You can add unlimited items to your featured section, but only the first 3 will be visible to profile viewers without them having to scroll, so make the most of the first three.
Choose 5-10 from:
- High performing content
- Notable content (e.g. lead generation piece)
- Link to website
- Link to press features
- Link to a landing page
- Links to other social channels
About
Your About section is an opportunity to go deeper into you, your story, your value proposition and your credibility.
Again, it’s another opportunity to speak to your audience and provide the proof they need that you’re someone worth following, engaging with and buying from.
Truth is, there is no such thing as the ‘perfect’ About section, but there are a number of things we recommend including:
- A 1-2 sentence value proposition addressing WHO you help and WHAT you help them achieve (this should be the first 2 lines and should compel visitors to read on)
- A few lines about the problems your audience are experiencing
- A few lines about how you can help them solve these problems/reach their goals
- A transformational story that shows your journey through these problems
- Your mission
- A call to action
- Examples of credibility or social proof (testimonials, awards, features)
- Links to other social channels
The order these are listed above is a good order to structure your About section.
Experience
Your experience section is a good opportunity to show your credibility and the projects you’re currently working on.
This section is not as important as those above, but it is a good opportunity to show your work and potentially convert visitors into leads via your company page or your website.
You don’t need to go overboard here - just a line or so describing each position you’ve had enough.
Do make sure that all relevant experience is included and that you have linked to the official pages of the organisations you’re involved in.
You should also add a link to the website of each organisation, particularly those you are still involved in.
- Ensure all relevant experience is included
- Link to company pages for each experience
- Add 1 line about the role or credibility from it
- Link to company websites where relevant
Education
This is not a vital section whatsoever, but much like the experience section, it’s important to have something up to date and organised to create a strong impression.
Simply ensure your education is accurate and linked to the official pages of the institutions you attended.
- Up to date education linked
- Link to respective pages
Your Profile Checklist:
Basic Settings
- Turn creator mode on
- Set connect button to follow
- Personalise your URL
- Ensure contact details are up to date
- Ensure the profile is fully visible and discoverable
Profile Picture
- Clear, high quality headshot
- Ensure headshot reflects your image
- Use pfpmaker.com if you want to add a colour background
Cover Photo
- High-quality, on-brand graphic or image
- One-line value proposition
- Show credibility (e.g. features, awards, photos on stage, followers)
- Optional: Soft CTA (e.g. follow for daily content)
Tagline
- Job role
- Value Proposition
- Statement of Credibility
Header Info
- Add website link into header with creative CTA
- Add #’s of common content topics
Featured
- High performing content
- Notable content (e.g. lead generation piece)
- Link to website
- Link to press features
- Link to a landing page
- Links to other social channels
About
- A 1-2 sentence value proposition addressing WHO you help and WHAT you help them achieve (this should be the first 2 lines and should compel visitors to read on)
- A few lines about the problems your audience are experiencing
- A few lines about how you can help them solve these problems/reach their goals
- A transformational story that shows your journey through these problems
- Your mission
- A call to action
- Examples of credibility or social proof (testimonials, awards, features)
- Links to other social channels
Experience
- Ensure all relevant experience is included
- Link to company pages for each experience
- Add 1 line about the role or credibility from it
- Link to company websites where relevant
Education
- Up to date education linked
- Link to respective pages
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