Are Your LinkedIn Profile Sections in the Right Order?

Whether you are in business development, in job transition or just using LinkedIn to grow your professional network, the goal is usually attracting people to the profile and engage them enough to want to connect and/or have a conversation.

When your audience  gets to your profile, we know they aren’t going to read the whole thing, so if you have engaged them enough, they will read for approximately 3 minutes. That being the case, it is important that we guide them to the areas on our profile that will be most meaningful to them. Arranging your profile sections so the most relevant is up top is a wonderful way to map out their visit.

Here are the simple steps to arrange your profile in the order in which you want your reader to experience them:

To change the order of the sections on your profile page.

1. Click on Your Profile.
2. Hover over the section you’d like to move, then click and hold the Reorder Section icon in the top right (up & down arrow).
3. Drag the section to a new location.
4. Drop the section into that place.

You can change the order of your current positions and education entries however, you can’t rearrange the order of past positions. Those will always appear with the most recent position held showing first. You can’t display more than one entry in the top box of your profile.

To rearrange current positions, education and publications:

1. Click on Your Profile.
2. Move your cursor over the position you’d like to rearrange, and look for the gray bar to the left.
3. Click and hold the gray bar to drag it into the desired position.

The right order, however can be very personal – what is good for one may not be good for another. My order is typically:

1. Summary – which is not about me, it is a resources that helps my target audience. I want them to immediately get value from visiting and get them to want a further conversation.
2. Publications – this is only if you have content online that you can link here that will bring value to your reader, or provide credibility. Obviously if you have a published book or eBook, this is the spot for it – but if you have press releases, company roll-outs, big events etc, this section can certainly be used for getting the word out.
3. Projects – I am a big fan of using projects for case studies. When a prospect or recruiter sees the work you have actually managed and executed, it puts your creditability and the conversation on an entirely different level. CLICK HERE to learn more about case studies.
4. Skills- I tend to put this section next as it does showcase the keywords that I use to describe what I do and the value I bring. This section is controversial, as many don’t believe it has klout, but it does give off an impression and Google does index it for search.
5.  Organizations, Experience, Certifications, Recommendations etc.- these are all very important, but you need to add them only if they are relevant and in an order in which they would matter to your reader.

Take some time and look at it as a user experience. What would matter to your reader and in what priority. Then put it past some others and see if they agree!