Improving Your LinkedIn Profile

I've been spending a bit more time on LinkedIn recently. This means that I've inevitably spent more time logged in, seen more status updates and looked at more profiles than perhaps I have in the past.

Over the past year or so I've been changing my own profile using hints picked up from various social media events, blog posts and Tweets. It's surprising how many LinkedIn profiles I've seen that aren't tweaked in the same way, and it seems only fair to share some tips that have been given to me by others. And if you are one of those others, let me take this opportunity to say "thanks".

• Change your public profile URL to help search engines, in particular remove the seemingly random bits on the end.
• Make sure you have relevant headline text as this is the first thing    about you that will be presented on search results. A good exercise is to search for yourself on Google, and see what you think of the LinkedIn result. Could it say more?
• Add text descriptions (or "anchor text") to your web site links, don't just say "Company Website" - especially if you have more than one. If you have a blog, remember to add that as well.

There are numerous articles and blog posts that show you how to do these things, so rather than repeat them here, let me remind you that as ever a search on Google will take you to some interesting articles.

One I found is Lauren Fisher's SEO & Social Media Part 4 : Optimising LinkedIn Profiles. These changes don't take long to do, and make your profile look a lot better.