LinkedIn Profile Optimization For Dummies

Give your LinkedIn profile the makeover it deserves—and get the attention you deserve  Look at your profile: you know it could be a little better. Too many LinkedIn users are just posting a basic resume and hoping for the offers to come flooding in, missing out on the incredible opportunity the platform offers to properly showcase their talents, products, and services to 610 million professionals in over 200 countries. LinkedIn is way more than a resume tool—to display your professional past and present—it’s also your career future and personal brand. Used to its fullest extent, it helps you demonstrate the unique value and culture you provide, the skills and aspirations that make you different, to get the outcomes you truly want. But how’s it done? Profile branding expert Donna Serdula pioneered the concept of LinkedIn Profile Optimization and through her Website, LinkedIn-Makever.com, has helped over 5000 professionals use LinkedIn to achieve increased success. In this guide she applies that experience to help you use all of LinkedIn’s capabilities to meet your goals, whether they be job search, reputation management, or sales—including how to: Create a memorable, successful profile Optimize personal keywords Showcase your experience, accomplishments, and unique value Use LinkedIn features to grow your network and more You never get a second chance to make a first impression—and people are Googling you right now: Get a fresh online look and get results!    

Table of Contents:
Introduction 1 About This Book 2 Foolish Assumptions 2 How This Book Is Organized 3 Part 1: The Strategy Before the Siege 3 Part 2: Getting Your LinkedIn Profile Started 3 Part 3: Detailing Your Career Trajectory and Creating the Ultimate First Impression 4 Part 4: Rounding Out Your Profile and Adding Finishing Touches 4 Part 5: The Part of Tens 4 Icons Used in This Book 4 Beyond the Book 5 Part 1: The Strategy Before the Siege 7 Chapter 1: Determining Your LinkedIn Strategy 9 Determining Your LinkedIn Goal 10 Job search 10 Reputation management and branding 11 Sales and prospecting 12 Figuring Out Your Target Audience 13 Creating a Compelling Tone 14 Using the Different Versions of LinkedIn 15 Chapter 2: Getting Found on LinkedIn 17 Using LinkedIn as a Search Engine 17 Using the search bar 18 Using search filters 19 Ensuring a Compelling and Attractive Search Result 21 Understanding the Importance of Keywords 24 Using Online Keyword Tools 28 Using WordArt com 29 Using LinkedIn’s job postings 30 Using Good Ole Google 32 Ranking Higher with Profile SEO 33 Building Off Profile SEO 34 Chapter 3: Understanding Endorsements and Recommendations 37 Showcasing Your Skills 38 Adding skills 39 Grouping skills by category 41 Pinning your top skills 41 Rearranging skills 42 Showing Recruiters What You Know 43 Obtaining Endorsements 45 Hiding an endorsement 46 Opting out of endorsements 47 Endorsing a connection 47 Removing an endorsement 49 Soliciting endorsements 49 The Importance of Recommendations 50 Identifying people to recommend you 51 Asking for a recommendation 52 Ditching the default request text 55 Accepting a recommendation 55 Reordering recommendations 56 Removing recommendations 57 Recommending others 58 Part 2: Getting Your Linkedin Profile Started 61 Chapter 4: Optimizing the “Behind the Scenes” Sections 63 Managing Profile Changes 63 Turning off update alerts 65 Removing competitors from your profile 66 Turning On Your Public Profile 68 Creating a Personalized URL 70 Using your name 72 Oh no, my name is taken! 72 Marketing your public profile URL 73 Scanning Your LinkedIn QR Code 73 Improving Your Profile’s Strength 75 Expanding Your Network 77 Chapter 5: Establishing Your Calling Card 81 Using the Name Field Correctly 82 Editing your name 82 Adding prefixes to your name 83 Keeping your profile confidential 84 Filling Out Location and Industry 85 Choosing your location 85 Using multiple locations for job search 86 Choosing your industry 89 Suggesting a missing industry 90 Including Your Contact Information 91 Adding your email addresses 92 Making your email visible to all 94 Adding a phone number 95 Adding your IM address 96 Adding your work address 97 Adding your Twitter account 97 Adding websites 98 Chapter 6: Impressing with the Right Profile Picture 103 Why You Need a Profile Picture 104 Determining If You Need a New Profile Picture 104 Using a Photo Already Taken 106 Working with a Photographer 107 Professional photographer rates 109 Delaying the shoot with excuses 109 Taking Your Own Profile Picture 110 Understanding the importance of light 110 Finding the right background 111 Framing the shot 112 Finding the right outfit 113 Choosing and Uploading Your Profile Picture 114 Cropping to profile picture dimensions 114 Resizing and saving a high-res image 115 Uploading your photo 116 Using LinkedIn’s filters to make your picture better 117 Changing photo visibility settings 118 Chapter 7: Developing a Compelling Headline 123 Grabbing Your Reader’s Attention 123 Adding Flair to Your Headline 124 Saturating Your Headline with Keywords 128 Add your job title 129 Add your specialty 130 Add an extracurricular hobby 131 Add a happy ending 131 Creating a Benefit Statement Headline 132 Adding Your New and Improved Headline to LinkedIn 134 Chapter 8: Reinforcing Your Brand with a Background Photo 137 Finding the Right Image to Showcase Your Brand 138 Working with a Professional Graphic Designer 140 Using Online Graphic Tools to Create an Image 140 Adding a Background Image to Your Profile 143 Chapter 9: Showing You Are Open for Business or Job Opportunities 145 Showing You Are Open for Business 146 Turning on the Open Profile setting 146 Enabling the Open for Business feature 147 Choosing your business focus 149 Showing You Are Open to Job Opportunities 153 Enabling the Open to Job Opportunities feature 155 Selecting only recruiters or all LinkedIn members 156 Part 3: Detailing Your Career Trajectory and Creating the Ultimate First Impression 159 Chapter 10: Getting Your Experiences Ready 161 Referencing Your Resume 162 Determining Which Experiences to Keep and Which to Merge 163 Keep your target audience in mind 164 How far back do I go? 165 Creating a Work History for Recent Graduates 166 Dealing with Employment Gaps 167 Chapter 11: Creating a Powerful Experience 169 Adding a New Experience 170 Making the start and end dates match your resume 173 Using month and year or just year 173 Getting the company logo to appear 173 Linking to your company’s LinkedIn page 176 Creating a LinkedIn Page 177 Less Is More — Stop Disqualifying Yourself 179 Optimizing your job title with keywords 180 Making your job title pop with symbols 181 Describing your roles and responsibilities 182 Crafting an impactful achievement 183 Summarizing the company with a boilerplate description 186 Giving your reader a call to action 188 Editing an Existing Experience 188 Reordering Concurrent Experiences 189 Removing an Experience 190 Examples of Great Experiences 190 Salesperson looking for a new opportunity 190 Salesperson looking for more prospects 191 Human resources professional using LinkedIn for reputation management 192 Adding Multimedia to Make Your Profile POP! 192 Determining what to highlight with multimedia files 193 Resisting the urge to upload your resume 194 Chapter 12: Writing a Compelling About Section 197 Editing Your LinkedIn About Section 198 Writing in First Person 199 Avoiding Resume Speak 200 Revisiting Your LinkedIn Goals and Target Audience 201 Catching Your Reader’s Attention 202 Creating Your Professional Manifesto 204 Explain your benefits 205 Highlight your top achievements 206 Keep the About section focused on you 206 Create a clear call to action 207 Formatting a Sleek LinkedIn About Section 209 Examples of Compelling and Engaging About Sections 211 Healthcare (job search) 211 Real estate professional (sales and prospecting) 212 Consultant (sales and prospecting) 213 IT professional (reputation management) 214 Product management (job search) 215 Leadership (reputation management) 215 Retail (sales and prospecting) 216 Accounting (sales and prospecting) 217 Student (job search) 218 Part 4: Rounding Out Your Profile and the Final Reveal 221 Chapter 13: There’s More to You than Your Jobs 223 Adding Your Education, or Lack Thereof 224 Divulging the year you graduated 224 Preparing activities and societies 225 Adding your education 226 Adding multimedia 227 Reordering education 229 Changing the school displayed in your intro card 230 Listing Licenses and Certifications 231 Adding Volunteer Experiences 233 Citing Your Accomplishments 235 Showcasing organizations 236 Uncovering your honors and awards 239 The three P’s: Projects, publications, and patents 243 Adding courses 248 Adding the languages you speak 250 Creating a Profile in Another Language 250 Chapter 14: Following Groups, Companies, and Influencers 253 Understanding the Importance of Groups 254 Determining the types of groups to join 255 Turning off group notifications 257 Joining recommended groups 258 Searching for groups 259 Deleting groups 261 Turning off group communication email 262 Choosing which groups to highlight on your profile 262 Cultivating Your Following Section 264 Choosing the right companies to follow 265 Following companies 266 Unfollowing companies 266 Showcasing Influencers on Your Profile 267 Deciding which Influencers to showcase 267 Finding specific Influencers 269 Discovering recommended Influencers 270 Removing Influencers 271 Following Schools 271 Chapter 15: Publishing on LinkedIn 273 Showcasing Yourself as a Thought Leader 274 Keeping up with Articles and Activity 274 Understanding the LinkedIn Feed 275 Using hashtags 278 Tagging people 279 Looking at the Difference between a Post and an Article 281 Creating your first post 282 How often should you post? 284 Benchmarking success 285 Reacting and responding to other people’s posts 285 Creating your first article 287 What Happens After You Publish? 293 Marketing Your Blog Post 294 Chapter 16: Unveiling and Marketing Your Powerful Profile 297 Viewing Your Profile from the Mobile App 298 Viewing Your Profile as an Outsider 298 Getting Google to Index Your Profile 300 Your LinkedIn Profile Checklist 301 Benchmarking Your Profile’s Success 304 Marketing Your Profile 307 Alerting your connections of your updated profile 307 Adding your profile to other social media sites 311 LinkedIn profile plagiarism 312 Getting views to your LinkedIn profile 314 To Pay or Not Pay for LinkedIn 319 Features of paid accounts 320 Unique features of premium accounts 321 Choosing the best plan for you 323 Part 5: The Part of Tens 325 Chapter 17: Ten Profile Do’s and Don’ts 327 Do Use a Professional Profile Picture 327 Don’t Use LinkedIn’s Default Headline 328 Do Use Eye-Catching Symbols Sparingly 328 Do Include Your Contact Information 329 Do Add Media Samples 329 Don’t Stuff Keywords 329 Don’t Go Back 30 Years 330 Do Get Recommendations 330 Do Tell a Story 330 Do Download Your Data 331 Chapter 18: Ten Tips for a Perfect Profile Picture 333 Hire a Professional Photographer 333 Use Lots of Light 334 Use a Nondescript Background 334 Dress to Impress 335 Adjust Yourself 336 Keep the Camera Close to Eye Level 336 Say No to the Mug Shot 336 Crinkle, Smile, and Jut 337 Use Photoshop Lightly 337 Crop Your Image 338 Chapter 19: Ten Tips to Expand Your Network 339 Import Your Address Book 340 Import a Contact List 342 Let LinkedIn Help You Connect 342 Join One Hundred Groups 344 Start a LinkedIn Group 344 Make Connecting a Process 344 Link to Your Profile 345 Brand Yourself a LION or Just Connect to Them 345 Don’t Join Open Networking Lists and Groups 346 Use an App 347 Chapter 20: Ten Tips to Leverage LinkedIn 349 A-B-C Always Be Connecting 349 Connect and Stay in Touch 350 Gather Business Intelligence 351 Get the News 352 Get Social Proof and Credibility 353 Get Past the Gatekeeper 353 Rub Elbows in Groups 354 Find Assistance 354 Showcase Thought Leadership 355 Network in Your Pajamas 356 Chapter 21: Ten LinkedIn Profile Resources 357 Get Inspired and Excited 357 LinkedIn Headline Generator 358 Virtual Phone Numbers 358 Google Voice 358 Skype 359 Say No to AOL and Hotmail Addresses 359 Your own domain 359 Acceptable free domains 359 Symbol Variations 360 Stop the Typos 360 SlideShare 360 Photographer Directory 361 Background Image Libraries 361 Online Image Apps 362 Chapter 22: Ten Ways to Get Noticed by Recruiters on LinkedIn 363 Make It Easy to Connect the Dots Quickly 364 Exhibit Personality and Show a Cultural Fit 364 Turn On Open to Job Opportunities 365 Say Cheese 366 Provide Your Contact Information 366 Connect to Them 366 Comment on Their Posts 367 Post, Comment, and Hashtag 367 Keep Your Profile Up to Date and Fresh 367 Invest in Your Future 368 Index 369

About the Author :
Donna Serdula is the leading authority on LinkedIn profile optimization. Her company, Vision Board Media, provides branding services to individual and corporate clients. She is also an in-demand speaker. She can be found online at www.LinkedIn-Makeover.com and on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/todonna.