Content Writing 101: How to Optimize a LinkedIn Profile for Recruiters

Are you telling the story you want to tell with your LinkedIn profile? You can when you optimize your LinkedIn profile for recruiters.

What exactly is your brand? Why should anyone choose your brand over others? How do you deliver on what you promise to those who use your product or service?

An ideally optimized LinkedIn profile will help you:

• Increase visibility
• Connect with relevant prospects
• Emphasize and establish the value of your brand
• Outline your skills to ensure potential customers of your abilities

Most recent statistics show that 50% of B2B buyers use LinkedIn when making purchasing decisions, while 74% of American users claim they would trust someone with a respected personal brand. So it’s no surprise that an optimized LinkedIn profile can draw millions of users’ attention. Statistics also show that when it comes to lead generation, LinkedIn…well, leads other social network sites by a wide margin; LinkedIn is more than three times more effective for generating sales leads than other major social media networks.

The good news: if you’re unsure whether you’ve successfully optimized your LinkedIn profile, you can always turn to the experts at Writer Army to help you create the profile you need to boost sales, reach wider audiences, and generate leads.

Start the Optimization of Your LinkedIn Profile

It might sound like a lot of work to optimize a LinkedIn profile, but it takes only a few simple steps to increase vital keyword usage, raise your credibility, make your profile more searchable, and help your brand to reach many more connections.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile Step One: A Picture Says a Thousand Words

No matter if you love that picture of you relaxing on the beach with a pina colada…don’t use it for your LinkedIn profile photo.

For your LinkedIn headshot, you want a clear photo that portrays your friendliness and approachability while maintaining a level of professionalism.

Your LinkedIn profile photo should be:

• High quality
• Taken in a well-lit area
• Void of a busy background; keep it simple!
• Filled about 60% with your face/head
• At least 200 x 200 pixels (any smaller and the image will be blurry)

Make sure you’re smiling in this photo; studies show that smiling for your LinkedIn profile photo provides notable gains in competency, likability, and influence by those who view your profile. Those are certainly key attributes when it comes to recruiting potential customers!

Dress either casual or business attire…most of that depends largely on how you dress in your professional setting. But even casual attire should be a button-down or collared polo shirt.

LinkedIn currently offers six filters you can use to enhance your photo. You can crop and edit, adjust the brightness, play with saturation, and more.

Customize, Customize, Customize to Fully Optimize LinkedIn Profile for Recruiters

Once your LinkedIn profile is picture perfect, your profile must be optimized, right?

Not quite. There’s still work to do to make sure recruiters don’t pass you by.

Start with a customized URL. Like the background of your profile photo, keep it simple; your URL should simply be your name (full name with middle name or initial if you have one).

To customize your LinkedIn URL:

• Click on the Me icon at the top of your home page
• Go to View Profile
• Select Edit Public Profile & URL
• Click on the Edit icon beside your public profile URL
• Type in your full name without spaces
• Click Save

Next is your headline.

It’s important to optimize your headline since it’s highly visible and searchable, which means you should utilize keywords that are most commonly used by those who would search for your product or service.

To optimize your headline, you’ll once again click on the Me icon, then View Profile, then Edit. The following Edit Intro dialog box that pops up will allow you to enter information for your headline.

When you’re done, simply click Save and viola!, your LinkedIn profile is nearly fully optimized.

Make Contact with Customized Contact Info

The final part of your LinkedIn profile that you can optimize through customization is your contact information.

Customizing your contact info again lets you use keywords most likely used by your target audience. Once you enter your website URL, you can customize the label using a keyword or two. For instance, if you are attempting to lure an audience searching for a marketing agency, you might label your website “content marketing agency” or “digital marketing firm.”

After clicking the Me icon and View Profile, select Contact and Personal Info. Choose Other from the drop-down box to the right of your Website URL; then, type in a description and Save.

What More Can You Do to Optimize LinkedIn Profile for Recruiters?

Two words: Skills and Endorsements.

A list of relevant skills validates who you are and what you do and fully supports your headline. Under View Profile, click Core then Add Skills. Choose skills in the dropdown list or from those Suggested. 

When other LinkedIn users endorse you by selecting specific skills from your list, your skills are substantiated and your credibility rises. 

Adding details about your services is yet another way to optimize your LinkedIn profile. You’ll find this section under View Profile: click on Providing services, then follow instructions. Once you complete your Service page setup, click Next. After reviewing the information, simply click on Publish.

To increase personalization of your LinkedIn profile, you might also add a video. This gives you the opportunity to have your voice heard and could make you seem more genuine and approachable.

The ability to upload video rather than embed it through the LinkedIn mobile app was introduced in August 2017; a survey in December of that year showed that marketers felt that this feature of LinkedIn was 28% in effectiveness among video marketing platforms. In 2019, it was reported that LinkedIn videos were three times more engaging than text posts.

Let WriterArmy Help You Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Ready to get started on optimizing your LinkedIn profile for recruiters? Contact Writer Army to see how we can ensure that you’re using target keywords, outlining your most relevant skills, and optimizing your headline to reach the audience you’re aiming for.