LinkedIn Profile is our topic for discussion today. Why? VAfromEurope works with lots of businesses, both start-ups and very successful ones. But increasing clients’ database and hiring qualified staff are the main focus for companies. A professionally refined LinkedIn Profile has a significate impact on lead generation of the company and building a professional database. Let’s start with analyzing what a Perfect LinkedIn Profile is.

By optimizing your profile you’ll kill many birds with one stone. Here are a few simple steps to make your profile do its job.

Analyze it

Analyzing your profile is the first step for you to make. The thorough analysis allows you to spot and eliminate its every possible downside. You might try to do it yourself or delegate it to specialists. What’s more, you’ve got an option to download and view your profile as a PDF document. Just log in to your profile and hit the “MORE” button and choose “Save to PDF”. That is it!

SEO is a must

Surely, you do this for your website, your LinkedIn profile needs it too. So, keyword research needs to be conducted, like for your professional website. You can use your LinkedIn profile search for that, though LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides more complex results. The key sections to enrich with those words are:

• Headline
• Summary (about)
• Experience
• Skills

Edit every section of your profile

Your LinkedIn profile is supposed to showcase your expertise at its best. The profile and cover pictures make the first impression, so the professional ones would be the right choice.

The dimensions required:

Profile picture: 400×400 px (up to 8 MB)

Cover picture: 1584×396 px

The white background is always a good idea, though you might play with it. If you’ve got difficulty taking a high-quality well-lit headshot, you could use external services like remove.bg and the remove a background from a decent one.

A good cover picture might contain your company logo, CTA or simply represent the industry you’re working in. Remember that both pics should match.

Creative headlines and summaries are of the same importance. LinkedIn’s default setting to use your current job title as a headline maybe sometimes limiting, especially if it is not what you would like to be known for. You may use some relevant keywords, a sentence or use a special formula to create a unique one, where USP means Unique Selling Proposition:

{Title} at {Company Name} – We help {Target Audience} with {USP}

Storytelling has the biggest influence on the LinkedIn algorithm, so your career summary should be done in the form of it.

Video is gaining more and more engagement. People prefer watching to reading, so if you could add one, it would significantly boost engagement.

Adding your website or CTA at the end of the About section would definitely add up to an overall impression.

Add relevant contact information, previous jobs or achievements as a professional

Your profile is sure to get more visibility if you fill out your contact information section. By the way, the default content labels can be personalized with your keywords to attract your target audience.

Surely, you don’t’ have to list all your previous job titles, only those that are relevant to your current position or future prospects all with appropriate years. Each position should include a description that explains your duties and achievements. Don’t forget to optimize the description with the relevant keywords.

Enrich your Skills & Endorsements as well as education sections with keywords

This section has to be filled with high search volume phrases. Add all the relevant skills and then choose top 3 to be shown at the top.

The education information is pretty important. You might even add a video there, if you’ve got a relevant one. Don’t forget about the certificates you have.

Customize your URL

The URL should consist of your first and last name or the name of the company.

Recommendations are really important

You may reach out to your former colleagues, employers or partners and ask them to recommend you. If you are not comfortable with that, you might do the same for them ask them to reciprocate.

To request a recommendation click the Ask to be Recommended link in the top right of the Recommendations section. Next, follow the on-screen prompts to fill out and send your request.

Accomplishments, Content and Articles

LinkedIn has a special section where you can add certificates, publications, awards, and other details of professional qualifications and experience. Add Projects, Awards, Courses or anything that is related to the positions that are on your LinkedIn profile or that you want to show.

Publishing and sharing original and audience-relevant content is very important on LinkedIn. Posting regular, industry-relevant articles and content to your profile will increase your professional credibility, both with your network and with LinkedIn algorithms. And who doesn’t love to please an algorithm?

Well, if you follow these pretty simple guidelines, your profile will be perfect and help you boost the lead generation. Got no time for that? You can always find an assistant to help you with that.