How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

It's Will McTighe here. I grew from 4,000 followers to >170,000 followers on LinkedIn between March and September 2024. Here is my take on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

If you feel like your profile goes unnoticed on LinkedIn despite the effort, then keep reading!

What are the Benefits of Optimizing Your Profile?

An optimized LinkedIn profile is like a great website landing page. It makes it crystal clear who you are, what you do and what you're good at.

Here are some key benefits of optimizing your LinkedIn profile:

Stand Out in Your Niche: Make yourself noticeable within your industry.
Position as an Expert: Showcase your expertise with a polished profile.
Build Relationships and Trust: Connect with potential customers and foster trust.
Increase Content Reach: Establish yourself as an authority to expand your content’s reach.
Enhance Recruiter Visibility: Make it easier for recruiters to find you and understand your strengths.
Improve Search Rankings: Boost your profile’s ranking in LinkedIn searches and build trust with connections and followers.

Whether you're selling, networking, job hunting or growing your business, these essential tips to help you optimize your LinkedIn profile.

1. Choose a Strong Profile Picture

Your profile picture is the first thing people will see when they see your profile and posts.

Here is how to make your profile picture stand out:

Use a close-up photo of your face with a smile.
Look directly into the camera.
Use a high-quality picture, ideally 400 by 400 pixels.
Choose a solid background color, ideally matching your brand colors (more on this below).

I suggest either getting a professional headshot photo or use an AI tool like InstaHeadshots.

This will make you seem more trustworthy to profile visitors and increase the likelihood they follow you, connect with you or think highly of you.

2. Use Your Banner - it is free advertising space!

Everyone who comes to your LinkedIn profile will see your banner, it is important space to use effectively.

It should include:

Your brand colors.
A clear, simple message about why people should follow or connect with you.
Reinforcement of what you talk about.
A call to action, like “Follow me for daily tips on B2B marketing” or "Sign up for my newsletter".

You can also include social proof like "Featured in Forbes" to build credibility.

Design your banner in Canva or Figma.

The recommended dimensions for a LinkedIn background image are 1584x386 pixels.

3. Your LinkedIn Headline

Your headline should clearly convey who you are and why people should follow you.

I recommend including:

One-Liner: Explain how you help your followers or target customers (e.g., “Founder helping you level up”).
Social Proof: Highlight prestigious companies you’ve worked for or key achievements (e.g. Stanford MBA, Ex-Goldman).
Current Role: State your current position (e.g. Co-founder Saywhat.ai).

For the one-liner, I recommend this structure:

[Type of Person] [verb] [achieve a goal]

Example: Founder helping you level up

Remember, you have only 220 characters, so make every word count!

4. Use Your About Section To Highlight How You Can Help People

It’s surprising how many people leave their LinkedIn About Section blank!

This section is your chance to show how you can help others, why they should follow you, and to share your story in that context.

Common Mistakes:

Leaving the About section empty.
Sharing your story without linking it to how you can help your audience.

Best practices for your About Section:

Use Line Spacing: Avoid long paragraphs. Over 70% of LinkedIn users are on mobile, so make it easy to skim.
Keep Sentences Short: Make your content easy to read.
Use Simple Words: The easier it is to understand, the more people will engage. After drafting, use ChatGPT with the prompt “rewrite this at a grade 5-7 reading level.”

You have 2,000 characters—use them wisely!

5. Use a Consistent Set of Branding Colors

If you are posting regularly, you want to have a consistent brand identity. This makes you more memorable.

That involves using:

Consistent colors across visuals (e.g. banner, profile picture background, LinkedIn post visuals)
Consistent fonts in your visuals, banner and newsletter.
Consistent icons. Check out Freepik for these.

6. Use Your Featured Section to Highlight Your Lead Magnets or Portfolio

Most people don't use their featured section effectively. A common mistake I see here is putting your top-performing posts here.

You can use this section to highlight:

External portfolios
Lead magnets

I use lead magnets here to encourage people to sign up for my newsletter and share their email with me in return for high resolution versions of my infographics.

A lead magnet is something free and valuable for your ideal customer or follower that solves a narrow problem for them.

Design your lead magnets in Canva or Figma.

7. Fill Out Your Work History

Many people either skip detailing their roles or use vague descriptions in their LinkedIn work history.

I recommend adding specific information for each position to show you’re an authority in your field.

Using numbers makes your achievements more tangible. For example:

Led a team of [y] employees
Grew revenue to €[z]m
Raised €[x]m

This helps LinkedIn understand what you’ve done and whether it should give your content more reach.

8. Get Recommendations

To build your LinkedIn authority, give and ask for recommendations from peers, partners, and founders of portfolio companies.

This will help increase the reach of your content.

9. Get a Customized LinkedIn URL

Many people overlook their LinkedIn profile URL when optimizing their profile. LinkedIn lets you create a clean, personalized URL. I recommend using your first and last name, like shown in the image below.

10. Get a Community Top Voice Badge

A yellow Community Top Voice badge can boost your authority on LinkedIn, as it’s visible to everyone who visits your profile.

You can earn this badge by contributing to several collaborative articles in your niche area.

Note: This badge isn’t available to everyone.

Your LinkedIn success story begins with these steps. Stay consistent, provide value, and watch your network and opportunities expand. Good luck!