If you’re reading this article, it’s clear you’re dealing with a common professional problem—trying to stand out on LinkedIn. Whether you’re looking to make your next career move or you’re simply trying to build an online presence, you’ve come to the right place.
While Instagram and Facebook focus on personal connections and staying in touch with friends and loved ones, LinkedIn is the most influential professional online network. That makes it ideal for building your professional network. However, with 1 billion users, it can be difficult to stand out. But, fear not! With the help of this useful guide below, you’ll discover top tips for making your LinkedIn profile stand out in no time.
Why you shouldn’t live without a well-structured LinkedIn profile
A LinkedIn profile is the new résumé and often serves as the first online impression for recruiters and business contacts. However,it also offers far more professional opportunities. In a modern workforce, LinkedIn is the foundation of personal branding. An optimized profile can boost your networking opportunities, lead to incredible job offers and speaking engagements, and establish you as a recognized thought leader in your industry. Meanwhile, a “complete” profile boosts visibility in search results because LinkedIn favors such profiles. That automatically helps you stand out from potential competition.
Still not convinced that you should invest some time in optimizing your LinkedIn profile? Here are some statistics from LinkedIn that might change your mind:
- Let’s start with the most obvious thing: your profile picture. Profiles with photos are 14 times more likely to be viewed.
- Straight to the next and most important part of a resume: your current job position. According to LinkedIn, listing your current position can lead to 10 times more messages. That means added opportunities.
- Here’s another fact that might make you reconsider leaving your LinkedIn profile blank: Nearly half of recruiters using LinkedIn to search for candidates use skills data to identify potential candidates for their roles. And when you list five or more skills, you are 27 times more likely to be discovered in their searches. That’s mind-blowing, right?
Convinced of the importance of taking action now and ready to do so? Then let’s take your LinkedIn profile to the next level and make it stand out with our LinkedIn profile tips.
Your LinkedIn checklist: An 11-step guide to LinkedIn profile optimization
Now that you’ve decided to update your LinkedIn profile, you may be wondering where to start and what to consider. To help you avoid getting lost in the jungle of LinkedIn phrases and features, we’ve compiled a checklist of the eleven most important things you should fine-tune.
Use this checklist to optimize your profile and ensure that it looks as professional as possible. Remember, though, that it’s still your profile, and these are only suggestions.
Step 1: Profile picture
Make sure your profile picture is professional and clear. Ideally, it should be a headshot with a neutral or clean background. (No vacation photos, please!)
Step 2: Background banner
Your LinkedIn profile contains a major visual element, the so called profile banner. As your images are the first things someone sees when they click on your profile, it’s important to take advantage of this space. Create your own banner or use one from your company that reflects your unique selling point, the topics you stand for, or the next event you attend.
Step 3: Headline
Create a compelling LinkedIn profile headline. But is the headline not just supposed to be my job title? Well, not necessarily! LinkedIn allows 220 characters for headlines, so make use of them. Tell people what you do and why they should follow you. For example, think about how you help your target audience get from A to B. Go beyond just your job title and company (although feel free to include them).
Step 4: Summary section
Write an engaging about section to differentiate yourself from the competition. Make it personal! LinkedIn describes the about section as the “most personal piece of content marketing” on your profile.
The best way to approach it is through storytelling. Talk about your professional journey, picking out key moments that led you to where you are today. Think of it like an author blurb—have you worked on a really cool project? Share it here.
Step 5: Education
This is where you add your academic milestones. Consider adding any relevant projects or coursework to give more context to your academic experience and its relevance to your career.
Step 6: Work experience
Now, add some details about each job. What did you do? Did you manage any projects? What skills did you learn? Use bullet points to make it easier to read. For each position, start with a brief overview of your role, then list your key responsibilities and accomplishments. This will allow the reader to easily scan your experience.
Step 7: Skills
You can add up to 50 skills, but it is recommended that you add far fewer. It’s better to focus on what you do best and make it relevant to your field or position. On LinkedIn, there are two types of skills: soft skills and hard skills. For an optimized LinkedIn profile, you should add a variety of skills across both types.
Protip: You can rearrange your LinkedIn skills. This allows you to highlight your most important skills. Click the “more” icon in the top-right corner of your skills section, then click “reorder” from the drop-down menu. Rearrange them however you like.
Step 8: Recommendations and skill endorsements
This is where your connections come in. You can ask for recommendations and endorsements from colleagues, managers, or clients to validate your skills and add credibility and social proof to your profile.
Step 9: Customized LinkedIn URL
You know those generic LinkedIn URLs? The ones full of numbers? We don’t like them, either. But don’t worry — you can customize yours! Doing so can make your profile look more professional and easier to share.
To change your custom public profile URL, navigate to your profile and select “Edit public profile & URL”. Then, click “Edit your custom URL.” Modify the end of your URL and save the changes. Note that your old URL will not redirect to the new one, so be sure to update it wherever you’ve shared it.
Step 10: Featured section
How can you really make your LinkedIn profile — and all of your opinions and shared posts — stand out? Use the featured section. This section lets you select a few pieces of content to highlight at the top of your profile. You can feature a LinkedIn post, an article you’ve written, a podcast you’ve appeared on, or a portfolio. The possibilities are endless! Ideally, choose your top three pieces of content to feature.
Step 11: Keywords
Make sure your profile is keyword-optimized to increase its visibility in LinkedIn and Google search results. Sprinkle these keywords throughout your profile, including your headline, summary, and experience.
Blank page syndrome? How to use AI to optimize your LinkedIn profile
Are you having trouble finding the right words or hitting the right spots when it comes to creating captivating LinkedIn content? No worries. Take your time. It may take one or two attempts to get it right. If you really can’t get started and suffer from blank page syndrome, AI could be your friend and helper.
It’s common knowledge that you can use generative AI tools to create content, such as text, images, and videos. But AI tools can do more than just create content for posts — they can also analyze your profile and help you optimize it.
To tap into the AI’s knowledge, you need to send a prompt to your chosen AI tool. If you’re new to AI usage, a prompt is the information, sentence, or question that you enter into the tool.
To get high-quality output, here are four tips you should keep in mind when creating prompts:
- Be specific. Clearly define your goal and how you want the output presented.
- Assign the AI a role, and keep your requests clear and concise.
- Use “do” and “don’t” and provide context for more tailored output.
- Break down complex requests into subtasks.
What’s next? Use precise prompts to take your profile to the next level. Below are a three tips based on the checklist above to help you reach superstar status on LinkedIn.
Begin by assigning the AI a specific role.
For the best results, be as specific as you can with your prompt. For example, you can write:
- Act as an experienced LinkedIn copywriter. …
- Act as an experienced recruiter who uses LinkedIn to find candidates. …
- Act as a LinkedIn power user. …
Be specific and clearly define the goal of your request.
To optimize your LinkedIn profile output, find a few precise prompt examples to copy and paste into your AI tool. Here are three examples:
- Headline: Craft a headline for my LinkedIn profile that effectively showcases my [expertise], grabs attention, and communicates my unique value proposition. It should be professional, concise, and tailored to my target audience or industry, while setting me apart from others in the field.
- About section: Draft a convincing and powerful “About Me” section for my LinkedIn profile. It should accurately represent my professional background, skills, and accomplishments while showcasing my unique value proposition. Tailor it to appeal to the [target industry], positioning me as a thought leader or expert in the field. The tone should be professional yet approachable to encourage networking and connection opportunities. Incorporate relevant keywords to enhance search visibility and align with industry trends.
- Skills: Identify and recommend relevant skills that align with my [profession] and [expertise] to enhance my online presence and attractiveness to potential employers or clients. These skills should be relevant and up-to-date to increase the likelihood that recruiters or industry professionals will discover my profile in search results.
Don’t forget to add context
As a final tip: context is essential! Doing so will help you receive a more tailored output that fits your needs and tone of voice.
One final recommendation: Try optimizing your profile yourself first. Originality beats copied content. If you use AI, customize its output to match your tone of voice. Let your personality shine through in every part of your profile. That’s what will set you apart.