Why optimizing your LinkedIn profile is important
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is one of the most important things you can do to increase your chances of getting a job or landing a job. The people who run the largest, most profitable companies in America have been doing it for years and years, and every day hundreds, if not thousands of people go out of their way to achieve the same.
Here’s why:
When it comes to HR, company culture, communications, HR strategy and marketing, everything is about culture. There are obvious reasons for this: a) you cannot recruit other people without them knowing you exist and b) if you do find someone who should be your employee they need to know that you are an outgoing person with a positive reputation.
This leads us to one of the most important aspects of optimizing your LinkedIn profile: being yourself.
We all have different personalities and often people assume that someone “like me” is the person who fits best with their own personality type (or at least has similar interests). But what if that wasn’t true? What if there were different types? What if I was actually more like you than like I think I am?
As humans we tend to categorize others according to how much we conform with our own opinions. For example:
“People like me are thoughtful” “People like me care about quality products” “People like me are good with money” “People like me don’t lie” “People like me don’t cheat on my spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/children etc…”
If all these statements were true then I would be more likely to say them than I am because I am thinking that they apply to myself more than others (hence why my attitude towards what others think about me is also biased). In fact it turns out that this does not work at all! When it comes down it is not even close! If everyone followed these exact rules then everyone would be trying their hardest to see everyone else as being just as intelligent as them (and there would never be any differences between any two people!). The only thing holding this up is that when ego gets involved – especially when we feel threatened by someone else – we start applying those rules anyway. For example: You are smarter than him or she because he or she doesn’t call back or writes back faster or better; we never bothered because they did not exude enough confidence in
Use a high resolution profile picture
If you want to get a job, you need to look like a great candidate. It’s not that hard to do. First of all, if you look professional, your LinkedIn profile will reflect this and make it easier for recruiters to find you. They have to know that before they will consider hiring you.
If your profile picture is blurry or low quality, it doesn’t really matter how good you are in person because no one is going to know unless they read your bio and decide for themselves. You should think about how LinkedIn can help you stand out from the crowd and see if there are ways the site can help you with this. You can use a “picture icon” that is higher resolution than your regular profile picture (so your normal photo viewable), or add some features to your profile such as “cover photo” (which will be visible when someone sees your title) or “background image” (which will be hidden when someone doesn’t see the title).
Make sure your head is focused and visible in the photo
If you want your head to be visible, use a high resolution profile picture with a simple background. The photo icon is small, so your head should be focused and visible.
Present yourself in the same way you would in a face-to-face interview
Why do you want to work at a company that you don’t work at? If you have a good reason, then fine. But if you don’t, then try to make it as clear as possible why there is no reason why you should work for that job.
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to interview for a senior position in a very busy startup in San Francisco. I was really excited about the opportunity and had all the right reasons to want to apply, but I realized my main motivation was the fact that I knew nothing about the company (it was not even publicly available). So when I met with the hiring manager and she asked me how long I had worked previously and if I was familiar with what it did, I lied: “I have worked only recently at an online travel agency.”
I was worried that she would be disappointed by my answer, but she didn’t seem to mind or call me on it; instead she said “Great! You can start working today.”
This is an example of what we call “not-so-good seo” — when your seo is not up to par with your actual intentions — and this happens all too often. The best way of avoiding this pitfall is by simply acting like your seo is already perfect. You need to present yourself in a way that makes it clear you are qualified for the job. This doesn’t mean dressing up expensively in business attire; it means not dressing down (too casually) either. Just go through your wardrobe such that there isn’t anything too casual or too dressy.
Dress for the job you want
So, you want to linkedin profile, but you don’t know where to start. You might be using a picture of your dog or a picture of your wife, and maybe not even them in the same photo. Maybe it’s your sister or your friend from high school. Whatever the case may be, we’ve got you covered.
There are many ways to decorate a profile picture and many people have different ways of dressing up their pictures, but the basic idea is that the more personal side of yourself should show through in your personal profile picture. I think we can all agree that dress sense is important for job interviews, but it is also important for clients and friends to see when they come across us online.
Optimize your headline
As you get your product into the hands of users, the first step is to make sure that people actually understand what you’re offering. Optimizing your headline for a particular industry and target audience can go a long way in getting people to read your content. But how do you go about making sure that your headline works for them?
There are two ways: first, be careful about what you choose as a keyword. A perfect headline would make it into search engines and give it more authority than the text on your website itself. But this doesn’t always happen (it’s an example of how much work goes into optimizing content), so by using keywords that aren’t often considered when writing headlines, you increase the chances of getting good results.
For example, if you are looking to sell software, then use words like “software”, “macintosh”, etc. If you are looking to sell filmmaking equipment, then use words like “camera”, “cameras”, etc. You want to be clear what the product is rather than simply giving away information about it or emphasizing features that may not be important to readers in those specific fields (e.g., “I have a Nikon D90 with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G Barrel Lens” vs “Nikon D90 with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G Barrel Lens”)
Use keywords in your profile
LinkedIn is the most important source of business networking for start-ups and small businesses. Among the many benefits, it’s also a great source for hiring managers to find talent for their organizations.
The problem is that most people don’t know how to do this, and even if they do, it’s a pain in the ass.
You can get away with using just one keyword (or even two), but if you want to increase your chances of getting hired, and eventually being promoted to a full-time position, you need to use multiple keywords strategically. Your website and social media profiles should ideally be littered with keywords that will help bring in new clients (and there are plenty of ways of doing this). Using keywords in your profile helps you search for people who have similar interests as yourself, so you can find relevant job opportunities and collaborate with other budding entrepreneurs on projects.
Add a call-to-action in your summary
All apps have a summary. Why does it matter? Because the summary is the first thing users will see when they come to your app. It’s classic bait-and-switch: if you don’t build it, they won’t come.
The way to build a good summary is to get people to click on the app and then get them to do something else. There is no one right way to do it, but here are some ideas:
1.) Segment your users based on their age and gender or location, so that you can target ads at relevant audiences
2.) Use search queries that don’t seem obvious (like “seo linkedin profile”) because people might not search for them unless they actually need an answer
3.) Use photos of yourself (or close friends) instead of professional images because users will be more likely to click if they recognize you
4.) Include any relevant information that makes sense to you in your about section, like a list of the skills you have, or who you are networking with (because this shows engagement too). The more information you have about yourself in your about section, the better chance people will read it and engage with your app — even if they don’t fully understand what it does
5.) Use different fonts for each part of your summary because people are more likely to read text than images (so use bold words like “Try out our new feature!” instead of italics)
Conclusion: How optimizing your LinkedIn profile can help you achieve your career goals
The previous article in this series was on how to improve your Google rankings quickly. In the second part, we’ll talk about how optimizing your LinkedIn profile can help you achieve your career goals. In our previous article, we talked about how to optimize your Google rankings so that they are relevant to those who are looking for the information you’re providing on your profile. We also talked about how a better profile picture can help you get more clicks on your links, and what a high resolution picture would look like.
Over the past year or so, I’ve seen all kinds of people tell me that their LinkedIn profiles have become one of their most important sources of information about people and companies that matter to them. And for good reason: LinkedIn is a great source of information about employers who need to know what you know. It also needs to be one of your most important sources of information about people and companies that matter to you (so don’t neglect it either!). So here are a few things I’d like to share with you:
1) A high resolution profile picture is one way to “go viral”
2) Keeping up with social media today means keeping up with social media tomorrow!
3) There is an old saying in marketing “one marketing channel builds trust, two builds loyalty”, but there’s no reason why a candidate should not be able to build trust on multiple channels (LinkedIn is one big one).
4) I’m not saying it’s easy, but once you start doing things right it gets easier and easier as time goes by.
These points were inspired by Peter Drucker’s famous quote “How can I make this job more interesting?” If the answer is ‘make it easier’ (or if someone asks) then this position will work well for you! But if the answer is what someone else asked me earlier in the year when we discussed optimizing my LinkedIn profile: “How do I make this job more interesting? How do I do it? What can I tweak in my profile?” then… well… let’s just say that optimizing your LinkedIn profile may just be part of making sure this job does become more interesting for YOU!