How to Make Your LinkedIn Profile Stand Out in 2020

LinkedIn has become a powerful tool for recruiters, students, businesses, and anyone seeking an opportunity to get their name out there. Spending time on LinkedIn has become almost an obsession of mine, as I use the platform daily.

Everyone wants to make their LinkedIn profile stand out from the competition, but how can you execute this? “Get a good head shot, don’t connect with too many people, write an interesting summary” is the cliche advice I’ve always been told.

This post will explain how to make your LinkedIn profile stand out in 2020. Listed below are some of my LinkedIn strategies that have led to numerous opportunities, increased my search appearances, and helped enhance my overall professional brand.

1. Always Think About SEO

“What is SEO and how is it relevant to my LinkedIn profile?” Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a huge role within the LinkedIn platform. SEO is essentially the practice of optimizing your profile to rank higher for search results.

Think about how important this is on LinkedIn – especially for job seekers. Recruiters are conducting thousands if not millions of searches on LinkedIn per day looking for potential candidates. In fact, “more than 90% of recruiters in the U.S. use LinkedIn regularly” according to Omincore. Therefore, being able to rank high on LinkedIn for search terms related to your field of study is critical.

When I was job hunting back in January, some search queries that I wanted to rank high for were: digital marketing, SEM, SEO, PPC, and other digital marketing related terms. Making it possible for recruiters to find you is just as important as your profile’s appearance. Here are some strategies to help increase your profile’s SEO presence:

• Change your profile URL to your full name
  – Example: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-doser/
• Add keyword rich content throughout your profile
  – Headline, summary, experience, skills, accomplishments
  – Example: including “digital marketing” and “marketing” throughout my profile since that’s my field
  – Think keywords instead of buzzwords
• Pay attention to your weekly search stats and profile views – then optimize if you’re not getting the results you want
  – Number of times your profile appeared in search results
  – Where your searchers work
  – What your searchers do
  – Keywords your searchers used (most important)

Here are my profile’s most popular search terms in the past week:

2. Be Active

Being active on LinkedIn is another important strategy that will set your profile apart from others. There are several individuals I know that rarely check their LinkedIn profiles, and this can be a major set back especially for those in college seeking opportunities.

Your involvement on LinkedIn is crucial to the success of your professional brand. Listed below are some simple ways to increase your activity on LinkedIn:

• Like & Comment on posts
  – Especially from influencers, recruiters, and other individuals in your industry
  – Contribute to the conversation: share your thoughts
• Create your own posts: don’t be afraid of posting
  – Recent accomplishments, job updates, or attending a conference are all appropriate topics to post about
  – Create a portfolio site or blog? Share it (I did this and received a ton of recognition, also had recruiters reach out)
  – Review your post analytics: who engaged and what are the demographics of your viewers?
• Connect with new people – you will hear varied advice on this one, but here is my recommendation:
  – Connect with alumni, students in your field, recruiters from companies you have interest in, respected professionals in your industry, family members, and some friends
  – You don’t have to personally know all of your connections: don’t be afraid to reach out, it shows initiative
  – Have at least 500+ connections to add credibility to your profile
  – It’s better to have a lot of connections than very few: more people to view your content
• Take advantage of LinkedIn’s job board (if job seeking)
  – LinkedIn has become one of the top job boards today with millions of listings
  – Frequently check out job postings in your field: LinkedIn’s “Easy Apply” feature is extremely convenient
  – Viewing a job posting will alert employers and it shows interest

3. Take LinkedIn Seriously

It wasn’t until my Senior year of college that I started to take my LinkedIn profile seriously, which looking back now is too late. My recommendation for my younger readers is to start taking LinkedIn seriously during your Freshman year, or as early in college as you can.

You will be ahead of the curve, increase your chances for job/internship opportunities, and show potential employers that you care about your professional brand. 

Now what exactly do I mean by telling you to take LinkedIn seriously?

• Make sure your LinkedIn profile is COMPLETE: there’s nothing worse and more unappealing to look at than an incomplete or “half ass” profile
  – Putting in the time and effort will set yourself apart
• Be DETAILED: work experiences, projects, accomplishments, organizations
  – Don’t just put titles and leave descriptions blank
  – Have at least a 2-4 sentence description and quantifiable if possible
  – Talk about how much money you raised for a fundraiser, how many products you sold for a student org project, or how much website traffic your blog received
• Always think about PERCEPTION: how do you want industry professionals and recruiters to perceive you when they don’t personally know you?
  – LinkedIn creates one of the first online impressions with potential employers
• Be AUTHENTIC: don’t lie about anything on your profile, don’t put skills or work experiences you don’t have
• Request endorsements & recommendations: displays credibility
• Make time to get a PROFESSIONAL head shot and not just a head shot
  – Also include a relevant cover image (mine is the Des Moines city skyline)
• Customize your career interests: job titles, locations, industries, status, etc.
• Keep track of connections externally on a spreadsheet
  – Allows for an efficient method of organizing connections by being able to sort by location, industry, company, etc.
  – In my connections spreadsheet I have only included the connections that I know personally
• Take advantage of the $50 Ad Credit offer LinkedIn often promotes: Learn how to set up a campaign and drive traffic to a portfolio site/blog
  – I did this with ryandoser.com last year and had recruiters reach out

Final Takeaway

Think about SEO, be active, and take LinkedIn seriously. If you legitimately want your LinkedIn profile to stand out these are some of the steps you have to take. From my experiences, if you are a student wanting to pursue a career in business you have to be active on LinkedIn and take your profile seriously.

It’s too valuable of a resource to not utilize for job searching and getting your name out there. My LinkedIn profile is far from perfect, but it is my hope that you now have a better understanding of how to utilize the platform more effectively and be able to set your profile apart from others.

Reach Out

Did I miss anything important about LinkedIn? Agree or disagree with my perspective? Reach out and let me know. Be sure to check out the importance of Investing in Yourself if you missed my last post. Also feel free to reach out if you want to be involved with future posts!