Did you know you can personalize your LinkedIn profile URL?  You can make it simpler, shorter, and closer to your name without all the random numbers and letters that LinkedIn assigns.

Here’s why it’s good to personalize your URL :

  • It will be easier for people to find you on LinkedIn and the web. Most people look for your name on LinkedIn and on search engines like Google and Bing.

I put my legal name in the search engine and my LinkedIn page comes up first (www.linkedin.com/in/juliaerickson).  LinkedIn’s help page on promoting your public profile says this:  “Your LinkedIn public profile is a streamlined version of your profile that shows up in search engine results, and is visible to people who aren’t signed in to LinkedIn.”  So if you want to be found, personalizing your URL makes it more likely that your public profile will come up early in search results.

Having my own name as the URL means that I can’t be mistaken for anyone else, which is helpful if anyone is doing a “soft reference check” on-line and looking up my name to judge me on my on-line presence.

From what I can tell through my non-scientific research, a personalized profile URL won’t make a bit of difference to people who are signed into LinkedIn.  People come up in order of their degree of connection to you, as well as through some other mechanism I can’t explain (not being a programmer).

  • You demonstrate understanding of how to use LinkedIn in a more sophisticated way and by extension how search engines operate.

A personalized LinkedIn URL shows that you’ve spent some time learning about LinkedIn. It shows initiative. It shows that you are savvy about social media and the web.  At very least, it’s a subliminal tip that you pay attention to details and how things work.  This is especially important if you are:

a) looking for a job that uses social media and other on-line platforms and applications; or

b) a seasoned worker – meaning above the age of 40 – and need to show that you have kept up with the times.

With an uncommon name, you probably can get your name as your personalized LinkedIn URL. Otherwise, get a variation – your last name first; your middle initial between your first and last name; or your full name with a number that is meaningful to you at the end.

A personalized LinkedIn profile URL is an easy way to start taking charge of your social media presence, an increasingly important aspect of job search in today’s work environment.

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