Part 1: Get Your Profile Optimized

LinkedIn is the largest social media platform for business people, from small and medium business owners to consultants, freelancers and magnates like Bill Gates. If you're a business owner you've got to be on LinkedIn with an optimized profile, and participate in groups, post stories of your own, promote yourself and your products or services, and connect with people who might become customers or partners.

Here's the first half of our top tips to generate web traffic from LinkedIn.

1. Complete your LinkedIn profile to reach “All Star" status.

LinkedIn has a star rating to indicate profile strength, and “All Star” indicates a solid profile. This profile is your introduction to the rest of the LinkedIn community, so fill in as much information as possible: have a good head shot photo, list your current position, indicate your location, and list your skills and LinkedIn will see you've completed your profile 100%.

2. Link to your website from your profile.

A study by E-Consultancy reveals that LinkedIn generates 64% of all visits from social media channels to corporate websites. To add your website to your now complete LinkedIn profile, click the pencil on the upper right of your profile, add the URL and customize it so it says something more exciting than “My Website”. This is an opportunity to create a call-to-action that gets potential customers to learn more.

3. Use Images to Make a Calculated Impression.

We already mentioned a profile photo. It should be professional but also convey your personality. Your freedom with your profile picture somewhat depends on your industry, and what you want to convey to your potential clients. Advertising professionals can sport a more casual, fun look, while those in professional services want to appear polished. The pixel size of your photo should be at least 400 x 400 and can go as large as 400 x 400 pixels and 20,000 x 20,000 px according to LinkedIn. Just make sure it's square so it doesn't stretch out of proportion.

The recommended file size for your background image is 1584 x 396 high, or 4:1 proportion. After you upload your photo to LinkedIn you can crop it, filter it and make other adjustments to get just the right look.

Both your profile photo and your background image can be up to 8 MB size and must be PNG, JPG or GIF. The closer your image is to the full 8 MB allowed by LinkedIn, the clearer and crisper it will appear on all devices.

4. Customize your LinkedIn profile's URL

Even a generic name like John Smith looks better than a default LinkedIn profile number. Customizing your profile URL makes you easily identifiable and more easy to find in search results. It's also more memorable when you put your LinkedIn URL on your resume or other static promotional piece.

To change your profile URL on your even MORE complete LinkedIn profile, click the pencil on the upper right of your profile, select “edit public profile and URL” and fill in the blank.

5. Grow Your Network

LinkedIn makes it easy to grow your network. You can sync your contacts to begin connecting with people you already know. Go to “My Network” at the top of your LinkedIn profile page, then click “More Options” under “Your Connections” in the left rail. Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn will feature people you may know, based on mutual connections between with those you just uploaded.

That's the first half of “Top Tips To Generate Web Traffic From LinkedIn”. In the next post, we'll move out of basic profile steps and into more traffic generating tips.

What have you done on LinkedIn to grow your network and generate website traffic?