As the LinkedIn platform continues to become increasingly reliable for companies to find influencers, partners, new employees, and more, your LinkedIn profile is only going to continue to increase in importance along with it.

Below, we will be going over different steps to ensure that your profile is fully ready to showcase yourself in 2020:

1. Optimize Your Profile Picture.

When you are publishing a photo, you want it to be a high-quality headshot taken by a professional. Ideally, it should be the appropriate sizing and resolution (around 400×400 pixels). You will also want to ensure that the picture is visible to everyone.

In order to change your profile picture visibility, you should head to your profile and click on “Edit public profile and URL.” This will be located in the upper-right quadrant of the site. On the right-hand side, you will notice a column where you can click on the different visibility options. Through this menu, you can change visibility settings from only your contacts to all LinkedIn members and finally “Public.” The “Public” setting will make your picture and profile much easier to locate and find when using the search engines both inside and out of LinkedIn itself.

When choosing your background photo, you want to prioritize a high-quality background photo that helps to position yourself as a leader in your respective industry or one that showcases your personality. You should also ensure that it is the optimal size which is (1584×396 pixels).

2. Create A Punchy Headline.

When you are crafting your headline, you should look to optimize it as much as possible. The headline shouldn’t be too long, but it should convey a lot about you. You want to not only utilize your creativity with it, but you also want it to be informative. You should look to optimize the headline with industry-related keywords to ensure that you achieve high rankings when someone is searching for professionals in your respective field.

Keep your summary concise. However, you also want it to be informative, accurate and updated frequently. Don’t simply create a summary and allow it to sit for months untouched. Within the summary section, you should also look to add anything high-quality and relevant ranging from links to images and videos that can add value to your profile.

One of the biggest trends on LinkedIn is adding future goals and ambitions which can help to showcase your long-term potential with a prospective company.

3. Relevant Information.

Your LinkedIn profile should be heavily optimized for your current work goals. You don’t want to use LinkedIn as a digital resume. Rather, you want to leverage it to become the most relevant and highest quality resume you have available – read more about Australian CV fundamentals. Therefore, unless you are talking about relevant work-related experience and information, it should be omitted entirely. Focus on the experience and work that you have that can help position you well for the job or position that you are looking to acquire.

Always keep this information updated. If you win awards, receive a promotion, or anything else, you will want to continue to update your profile to reflect these accomplishments. Don’t sell yourself short.

4. Include All Relevant Skills.

Whenever you are looking to increase the overall value of your LinkedIn Profile, you should look to add all of the relevant skills that you have. Whenever you obtain a new certification or anything else, it should be added. You want your skills to be showcased on your profile. Ideally, you want your skills to be endorsed by either friends or colleagues to provide social proof.

5. Change Your URL.

A simple thing that you can do to improve the overall optimization and look of your profile is to change the URL structure for your profile. You can personalize your URL to make it much more optimized to achieve higher rankings within the search engines.

6. Add Certifications.

As mentioned previously, if you have any relevant certifications, you want to post them on your LinkedIn profile.

7. Always Ask For Recommendations.

Having a lot of recommendations is key to getting your profile attention and it is also key to making your profile very persuasive to a potential employer. You want to write all of the recommendations possible for your ex-coworkers, friends, and more. This will help you generate a lot more recommendations on your own which can be a major selling point for prospective employers. 

8. Publish Content.

LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to publish your content. That way, you can really be able to generate more views to your profile and it can help you showcase your talent, knowledge, expertise, and even position you as a thought leader in your respective industry.