TL;DR
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile can significantly boost your visibility, credibility, and lead generation efforts on the leading social networking platform for B2B connections. With an optimized profile, you can get better search rankings, attract high-quality prospects, and effectively showcase your professional brand.
Snov.io experts share actionable steps, including creating compelling headlines, professional visuals, SEO-friendly summaries, personalized URLs, and CTAs, to turn your LinkedIn visitors into leads effortlessly.
So you want to start promoting your brand and selling your product on social media. You hop on LinkedIn, the most popular social platform for B2B networking, create a profile, and start messaging potential customers. Maybe you even close a couple of deals this way. But wouldn’t it be easier if the prospects came TO YOU?
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is the best way to make it happen.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through key steps to creating an outstanding profile. Use it to grow brand awareness among your prospects, attract the right connections, and generate leads.
Outline:
What is an optimized LinkedIn profile?
Even if you’re new to the concept of social selling, you’ve probably heard about profile optimization. Most marketing and sales professionals understand what it is intuitively, but let’s take a look at the concise definition.
Optimizing your LinkedIn profile means enhancing its visibility, credibility, and ability to attract a target audience. An optimized profile ranks higher in searches, strengthens your professional brand image, and helps generate leads. It is a crucial part of an effective social selling strategy.
What’s more, an optimized profile can greatly improve your Social Selling Index (SSI). The higher your social selling index, the more LinkedIn’s algorithm favors you. This means you will get a better chance of connecting with the right people and positioning your brand at the top of your niche.
10 key LinkedIn profile optimization steps
Each section of the LinkedIn profile helps you move closer to your social selling goals if employed correctly. Our experts recommend taking the following steps to make your page more discoverable and attractive to potential leads:
- Create a compelling headline
- Upload professional pictures for your profile and cover
- Write a powerful summary
- List up-to-date work experience and skills
- Get recommendations from other professionals
- Display relevant featured content and media
- Optimize for SEO
- Personalize your profile URL
- Add a custom CTA button
- Respect LinkedIn’s limits
Let’s review these components in more detail and see how they can contribute to your success on social media.
Create a compelling headline
Your headline is the first thing people see when they visit your page. Instead of just listing your job title, use this space to highlight your expertise and business offer. Focus on the essential information.
Use industry-specific phrasing and relevant keywords to ensure your profile appears high in LinkedIn search results. This will make it easier for the right audience to find you. Include emojis to catch your prospects’ eye, if it doesn’t go against your brand’s tone of voice.
Below you can see an example of an optimized headline. Oleksii lists his position, industry, and achievements very clearly and to the point. He uses statistics to enhance his message and includes industry-specific keywords like “B2B” and “SaaS.”
Upload professional pictures for your profile and cover
Your profile picture and cover images contribute significantly to first impressions. People want to know who they’re doing business with. A professional, clear, high-quality headshot helps establish credibility. The recommended dimensions for the profile picture are between 400 x 400 pixels and 7680 x 4320 pixels.
Similarly, a well-designed cover image helps showcase your company or reinforce your business offer. Choose images that align with your industry and personal brand.
Include a logo, a short tagline, or a key value proposition in the cover picture. The recommended dimensions for the cover are 1584 x 396 pixels, while the size must not be larger than 8 MB.
You can see in the example below how a branded cover photo and profile picture can enhance your profile’s look. Strategically chosen photo, cover, and headline provide the most crucial information about your brand at a glance.
Write a powerful summary
The About section is your opportunity to tell your brand’s story and also explain your business proposition in more detail. A strong summary should be more than a resume snippet or a description of your product. It should reflect real, tangible value you can provide your client– your expertise or your product’s capabilities.
Organically implement relevant keywords into your summary to enhance your profile’s visibility. Ending your summary with a clear call to action is also a good idea.
Just remember that LinkedIn is first and foremost a social networking platform, so it shouldn’t be overly salesy. Something along the lines of “Let’s connect to explore how I can help you achieve [Goal]” works best.
Below you can see two examples of the strong summary sections. The first one is more product-focused, while the second one establishes the author as an expert in his field. This goes to show that you have to write your summary based on what you want to achieve on social media.
List up-to-date work experience and skills
The work experience section isn’t only for employees or professionals looking for work; it is crucial for credibility. Adding key skills increases your profile’s discoverability and enhances your authority.
Rather than just listing work responsibilities, focus on your accomplishments. Let profile visitors know how you’re adding value in your role. Use bullet points within job descriptions to highlight achievements, incorporating numbers where possible. You can see an example of a clear and concise work experience description below.
🎁 LinkedIn profile optimization can work wonders for the platform’s algorithm. Learn more algorithm-boosting hacks here:
Get recommendations from other professionals
While we’re on the topic of experience and credibility, don’t overlook the Recommendations section. LinkedIn endorsements from colleagues, clients, and industry leaders make you appear significantly more trustworthy. Meaningful and impactful testimonials increase your chances of being approached by prospects.
Don’t wait for people to come up with the entire text on their own when requesting a recommendation. The best way to get the endorsement that counts is to mention specific achievements or qualities you’d like highlighted beforehand.
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💡 Expert tip: Use LinkedIn automation software to connect with more professionals in your industry and get endorsements faster. Save time on profile views, post likes, and connection requests, and focus on what matters most – meaningful conversations. With the Snov.io LinkedIn Automation tool, you can streamline initial interactions with other users. |
Display relevant featured content and media
The Featured section allows you to display content that helps visitors explore your business offer in detail. Add diverse informative content such as videos, PDFs, articles, and links to case studies or successful projects. This will make your profile more engaging and provide immediate value to potential customers.
Regularly update this section with fresh content. Adding thought leadership articles or client success stories will prove your expertise and help build trust with prospects. Take note of the exceptionally well-maintained Featured section in the following example.
Optimize for SEO
To make your profile an asset in lead generation, make sure to place strategic keywords in your profile and content. LinkedIn’s algorithm ranks profiles based on keyword relevance, engagement, and connections. Relevant terms in your headline, summary, work experience, and skills sections can position your profile higher in search results. This, in turn, ensures more traffic to your page.
Research competitor profiles and industry influencers to identify the best-performing keywords and hashtags.
Start by highlighting your professional experience in your headline and About section. Naturally implement key terms, variations, and related phrases to clearly communicate your expertise and the value you bring to your target audience.
SEO Specialist at Snov.io
Personalize your profile URL
Did you know that profile URLs are searchable? That’s right, a URL should be a part of your social media strategy. Besides, a customized LinkedIn profile URL is easier to remember. It makes your page look more professional and easier to find.
So, instead of a long string of random numbers, a good profile URL should contain your name or brand. Updating it takes just a minute, but the impact can be felt for months to come.
Add a custom CTA button
Every company needs traffic on its website. The custom button is an underrated feature that can direct visitors from your social media page to your website. Though it is a Premium LinkedIn feature, it’s worth including in your social media strategy. A clear and engaging CTA is a sure way to get your prospects into the sales funnel.
Respect LinkedIn’s limits
LinkedIn sets limits on profile views, connection requests, and messages to keep the platform spam-free. Pushing these boundaries too often can hurt your profile’s visibility or even lead to account restrictions. Meaning, all of your LinkedIn profile optimization efforts would be diminished.
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💡 Expert tip: If you’re using automation software, make sure it follows LinkedIn’s best practices. For instance, with Snov.io’s LinkedIn prospecting solution, you can:
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How to turn LinkedIn visitors into leads
After completing all of the LinkedIn profile optimization steps, you’ll have a powerful asset for lead generation on your hands. The most straightforward way to get immediate benefit from the optimized page is to track who visits your profile.
LinkedIn Premium users get more detailed insights, such as the number of views, the industry of the viewers, and how they found the profile. Regularly monitor this section to gauge interest and connect with potential customers.
Alternatively, you can scrape your visitors’ data with the help of the LinkedIn Email Finder extension. Simply download the extension, visit your prospect’s page, and download their data into your contact list.
Wrapping up
A LinkedIn profile can make or break your social selling efforts. Optimizing your LinkedIn profile is one of the first actions you must take before starting to generate leads on social media. Implement the steps mentioned above to build credibility, grow your network, and increase your social selling index. You’ll soon see the results of your actions, especially if you’re using the Snov.io LinkedIn automation solution to streamline the process.
➡️ Download our free LinkedIn profile optimization guide, and turn to it whenever you need to enhance your profile!