Personalize your Public Profile URL
LinkedIn Expert on Google
Its amazing to me that there are people out there who still haven’t personalized their LinkedIn Public Profile URL! Not only is a personalized URL easier to remember, but it looks much better in an email signature and on a business card (Or if you are a job seeker – on a resume!)
Nothing says, “I’m a LinkedIn neophyte” like a public profile that reads: http://linkedin.com/pub/firstname-lastname9890734-akjshfiho. So – make sure your public profile reflects your name, your business, or your area of expertise: www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.
Example: www.linkedin.com/in/linkedinexpert
These URLs are unique, so it’s possible that your name might be taken. Here are some other options you might consider
- Use a middle initial
- Use the suffix: “onLinkedIn”
- Use your business name (If someone NOT in your company is using your business name illegitimately, contact cs@LinkedIn.com)
- IndustryExpert
- ProductExpert
- ServiceExpert
When putting your new URL into your email signature, resume or business card – don’t forget the middle “in”: linkedin.com/in/ or the URL won’t work.
So what is a Public Profile anyway?
Your public profile is what anyone with access to the internet can see. Anyone. Did I mention anyone? That means if you make your whole LinkedIn profile visible, then anyone of 1.7 billion people can use that information however they want to!
You Public Profile - What People See
LinkedIn itself has just over 135 million users. A smaller pool of people who can abuse your profile. And only a fraction of those folks can even see it. So I am a fan of adding as much relevant information as you can to your LinkedIn “private” profile. (The profile you create within LinkedIn). One has to jump through a few hoops to even create a LinkedIn account and of course anyone who abuses their LinkedIn account can get it shut down pretty quickly (see previous article on what happened to me!) Optimize your personal profile, but limit your public profile.
Some of the things I don’t add to my public profile:
What you can control on your public profile
- Current Positions and details
- Past Positions and details
- Education and details
- Specialties
- Interests
- Groups
- Personal information in my Summary (which I do make visible)
You can always choose to hide your profile from everyone, but then you lose the great Google juice it can bring that might get you found and get you business.
Hiding your public profile completely
It will take you about three minutes – go do it now!
