Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile. Maximize Your Visibility.

10 Easy Steps to Stay Top-of-Mind on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn continues to be one of the most effective ways to make career and professional connections. Today, a mere presence on the portal is not enough. You also need to know how to increase your visibility.

Beyond adding a professional photo, creating an informative headline, completing the summary section, adding skills, including education details and making connections, there are specific steps you need to take, to gain top-of-mind recall.

Thankfully, LinkedIn features a Profile Strength meter on the right that helps you monitor how strong your profile is. Here are 10 key points to help you improve your strength and achieve the all-star profile status on LinkedIn.

1: Use Keywords.
You can search engine optimize your profile to get found by people searching LinkedIn for key terms with which you want to be associated. Add keywords to various sections of your profile such as your headline (the first thing people see), summary, specialties, job title, career history and personal interests.

2: Add Projects.
A great way to show off your expertise is by adding a project or two in your Projects section. You can also add other members on the team and their name will appear as a hyperlink to their LinkedIn profile. By naming your project and inserting a URL, you can turn the title of the project into a hyperlink, leading the viewer to it.

3: Join Groups.
Identify groups related to your industry, join them and become an active participant. These groups are a valuable source of interaction. Remember to initiate or participate in group discussions. This gets your profile noticed more by others.

4: Build Networks.
Once your profile is in good shape, work on building your network. When sending in a friend request, be sure to personalize any requests to connect with how you know the person or where you met each other or who you know in common.

5: Showcase Strengths.
What you do outside of the typical 9-to-5 time slot or official work hours says as much about you as anything else and also contributes to a higher search ranking. Liberally showcase awards, volunteer experience and other causes you care about.

6: Stay Fresh.
Be a source of fresh content. With so much information being uploaded on the internet daily, you need to give people a reason to click through. You can stand out by providing fresh, relevant content that captures attention.

7: Update Daily.
Think of LinkedIn as a living organism that has to be fed or watered every day. Be regular with your posts and update frequently in order to improve your exposure. Once a day is a good rule of thumb.

8: Slideshare Expertise.
You can create a well designed slideshow and share the URL on your Project page. This will add some life and colour to your profile. Plus it increases your strength and you gain more credibility.

9: Post Videos.
More and more professionals are constantly posting videos on their Profile page. Now that YouTube and Vimeo have integrated, sharing videos should be easier. Simply place a video on your profile page to keep viewers on the page longer.

10: Thought Leadership.
In today’s world, your professional online brand is key and LinkedIn can help you establish thought leadership. There’s no network more effective than LinkedIn to establish yourself as an ideas expert in your industry.

In Conclusion.
As the number one social media platform for professionals with more than 300 million users in over 200 countries, LinkedIn’s power extends beyond resumes into the vast landscapes of professional connections, business development and beyond. Go on, optimize your profile and build a strong presence online.