With over 600 million profiles on LinkedIn, it's easy to get lost in the masses, especially if you have a common name and professional title. Updating your profile settings can give you a competitive advantage if you want to take advantage of the search features that help you be found. LinkedIn is meant to stand out, not fit in, and building a network of valuable relationships can accelerate your ability to reach your professional goals. Edit public profile settings Navigate to the ME icon (your photo) in the top navigation bar. Go to the drop-down menu, under account, select "Privacy and settings". You are now under the Privacy tab and will notice the header: How others see your profile and information on your network The first item under this heading is: Edit your public profile This is important because this setting defines how your profile appears to members not logged in through search engines or authorized services. Click on the word " Edit " on the far right to open your profile. You control your profile and can limit what is shown on search engines and other non-LinkedIn services. Viewers who are not logged in to LinkedIn will see all or parts of your profile depending on what you choose.
The first step to being found and increasing your visibility is to activate the public profile button on your profile. LinkedIn profile settings 2. The second step to increasing your search engine presence is to activate the "Public" button. This signals to search engines like Google and Bing that information you want people to know about you can be displayed. This article is for people who want to increase their visibility online. That said, if you'd prefer to limit your visibility, you wouldn't want to turn off the public profile's visibility button. 3. Make sure to activate the buttons next to the information you want to make public. This is definitely a personal preference, keep in mind that I would recommend showing any information relevant to you today and disabling anything that is not from past experience. Most important settings of LinkedIn Now scroll down the page and you'll see exactly what shows up in a search result others would see! Who can see your email address You want to make it easy for people to contact you and one way to do that is to make sure your email address is visible on your profile. Not everyone wants to connect with you, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't want to contact you. To access it, you are still under the privacy tab and will notice the header: How others see your profile and your network information The second item under this header is: Who can see your email address You can select from the drop-down menu:
Only visible to me 1st degree connections 1st and 2nd degree connections Anyone on LinkedIn LinkedIn privacy settings The second part of this section, I want to highlight the possibility of uploading your email address along with the rest of your profile when one of your connections exports their own database of contacts. Many LinkedIn users are unaware that they have the option of exporting their login data files! When you export your connections, if this radio button is not enabled, your email address will not be included in the data export. If you use a CRM program outside of LinkedIn's Sales Navigator program, you may very well want to export your connections to your CRM, especially if you've built a strong network that you want to stay in touch with. Many CRM systems will allow you to upload a .CSV file of contacts, so why not upload your LinkedIn connections! Visitors to this profile have also visited Additionally, under the privacy settings you will see: Viewers of this profile also viewed You can choose whether or not to show your profile in search results when a user views a similar profile that has the same keywords as your profile.
I see the pros and cons of having this enabled. Pros - if you are looking for more visibility overall I would turn it on. Cons - if you are in a competitive business this could work against you in terms of viewers being made aware of other people who are offering the same service as you. Now personally I consider myself more collaborative than competitive, but in today's world when we meet people online before we have a chance to speak with them offline, they can make a decision between two competitors. without ever speaking to one or the other! This is why it is important to have an exceptional professional profile to gain a competitive advantage.
