Web pages are useless without traffic, and the same is true about LinkedIn profiles. It doesn’t matter if you are looking for new customers, a job or just more connections, no traffic = no opportunity. Here’s a simple strategy I used to increase the traffic to my LinkedIn profile page from 3-4 people per day to 70-80 people per day (that means 27,000+ visits in a year). Feel free to make it your own:
Step 1: Figure out what your goal is with your LinkedIn Profile.
This isn’t that hard. Your LinkedIn profile is a resume with a couple of places you get to be creative, and there are really only a few practical uses for LinkedIn. Most likely your goal is one of these four:
- Finding New Customers
- Finding a Job
- Expanding your Network
- Recruiting people
Step 2: Make your summary do something.
Your summary is the block of text that goes right below your vital stats on your LinkedIn profile page. You can put four or five pages of text there, and you can say whatever you want. Most people use it to talk about how great they are. We’re not going to do that. We’re going to change our summary into something that grabs people’s attention and gets them to take action. That means we’re going to talk about our visitor’s favorite person in the world: our visitor. In other words, we’re going to tell people “what’s in it for them”.
The key, according to LinkedIn guru Flyn Penoyer is to make your summary be about the reader. That means you are going to use the word “you” a lot, Here are the most common goals for LinkedIn, and what you can do with your summary:
| Your Goal | Strategy for Profile Page | Call to Action |
| Find new customers. | Show what you can do for visitors and invite visitor to engage. | Refer to your website, ask for an email or LinkedIn connection. |
| Get a Job/Gig | Explain what you can do for a potential employer. Use “your company” a lot. | Ask for contact via LinkedIn or email. |
| Get More Connections | Explain why people should connect with you | Connect with me. |
| Find Employees | Explain the opportunity, why a candidate should be interested. | Invite a connection, invite to website, or invite visitor to submit LinkedIn profile. |
Step 3: Change Your Professional Headline
Note: This is the most important step, but you’ll look like an idiot if you don’t do steps 1 and 2 first.
Right now, your professional headline (the one line ad for yourself that goes next to your picture) probably says something about you like “Innovative Sales Leader” or “Customer Acquisition Guru”. While this makes you look good, it doesn’t engage people who see your profile, and if it’s to braggy or buzz word riddled, it probably acts more like opportunity repellent. Since the professional headline shows up everywhere you do, right next to your picture, we’re going to make it drive people to click on your profile and learn more. So, out with the “Foremost Change Agent and Project Manager” and in with “I can make your project finish on time and 10-25% under budget. Visit my profile to find out how.” (Oops. I just clicked on your profile). Here’s what I did with mine:
Before
After
The results: I’m getting 10-20x more visits to my profile page every day.
Tying it Up
So, we’ve changed our summary so it tells our visitors what’s in it for them and called them to take action. Then we changed our professional headline into a powerful invitation to view our profile page (where the summary lives). Now it’s time to get the word out. This is the best part. All you have to do is participate on LinkedIn. When you post a message in a group, ask a question or send messages to other LinkedIn users, your headline is right next to your picture… click.
[…] will read my profile and get the sales pitch. Flyn’s idea worked incredibly well (so well, I blogged about it here). More people read my profile, and I don’t have to be constantly talking up what I […]