The Surefire Way To Boost Your Profile on LinkedIn

I’m really into LinkedIn. I think it’s a wonderful way to make new connections and drive business. In fact, it’s probably my #2 way of acquiring clients, right behind the good-old #1 way, which is my business network.

Because it’s such a big part of my business, I take LinkedIn very seriously. I’ve spent hours building and tweaking my profile. I continue to work at it constantly. I’ll add new accomplishments. I’ll task for recommendations. And I’ll think of better, more persuasive ways to describe who I am and what I do. So yeah, I’m on the network a lot. On a daily basis. For hours every day. No question about it, I’m a power user. That’s probably a big reason why the site brings me so much: because I invest so much into it. Give and you shall receive.

But you don’t have to spend hours on LinkedIn to get results. In fact, there’s an easy way to give your profile a boost. I tell all my friends to do this, and when they do, many of them tell me that they see a marked increase of people—especially headhunters—contacting them. Want to know what that surefire technique is? Want to hear the secret?

Ok, I’ll tell you: include your contact info. That’s it.

Yup. Just include your contact info. Your email, at least. Ideally, your phone number too. Don’t bury them in your profile where no one can find them. Put them front and centre. Start in the most obvious place: your contact field. Then copy-paste them into your “Advice for Contacting [You]” section. Then—and perhaps most crucially—add it to your “Summary” section. This is extremely important because people spend the most time on this section when they look at profiles. If you want to really stick out in searches, you can even put it right into your professional headline.

Why is adding your contact info so critical for boosting your profile? Because it makes it incredibly easy for potential clients, colleagues, HR people, head hunters, and anyone else to get in touch with you. Sure, any of these people could invite you to connect with them. But LinkedIn penalizes people who send invitations that are not accepted, so some people are wary of sending out unsolicited invitations. Someone could also use InMail to contact you, but that costs money, and why bother, when other people put their contact info right there on their profile?

If you’re worried about privacy, you can leave your phone number out. But don’t worry about putting your email out there. Yes, you could get a few emails you don’t want to get, or a spam message or two. But you could also be contacted by someone who could offer you the job of your dreams. And I think many people would agree that a little inconvenience is worth a ton of potential opportunity.