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The other day I was doing a free LinkedIn strategy call and the person asked, “so why do I need a custom LinkedIn URL?”  This is not the first time I’ve had this question so I figured it would share what I told him during our call.

Whether you realize it or not you were assigned you a random LinkedIn URL when you created your LinkedIn profile.  The question is why should you care or more importantly why do you need a customer LinkedIn URL?

Why should I customize my LinkedIn URL?

Typically, the default URL is long and full of numbers — not very user friendly or easily shared with your network. Which is really the main point of the LinkedIn URL >> the ability to quickly and easily find and connect with you on LinkedIn.

The easier you can make it for your customers, prospects, colleagues, the media and industry influencers to connect with you the better! 

See  below and you decide which URL is more inviting, easier to share and reinforces my personal brand?

www.LinkedIn.com/in/adegs458cje

OR

www.LinkedIn.com/in/askdennisbrown (Click my URL and let’s connect!)

A custom LinkedIn URL also helps with SEO including including Google and Bing.  Setting up custom URL requires turning on your LinkedIn public profile – this is what search engines scan. The more you have here, the more likely you are to be found organically.

linkedin url

The good news is that it’s free and easy to create a custom LinkedIn URL, and doing so will immediately raise your LinkedIn “pedigree” and make it easier for your target market to find and connect with you.

What should I choose for my LinkedIn URL?

I recently talked about the importance of personal branding and its impact on your sales efforts.  Your LinkedIn URL is another small tool in your personal branding arsenal >> consistency across the board between your LinkedIn URL and other social profiles can help tighten up your brand.

your_linkedin_public_profile_urlYour custom URL should be some form of your name (note, you won’t be able to use any spaces or special characters like punctuation or underscores). If you have a common name, I can sympathize with you (the last name “Brown” doesn’t make it easy to grab custom URLs!). Here’s a chance to get creative. In my case, I was consistent to my personal brand and still kept the URL easy to memorize by going with “AskDennisBrown.”

If you’re a writer whose name has already been “taken” as a URL on LinkedIn, you could try “YourNameWriter” or if you specialize in SEO you can try “YourNameSEO”.  Two more ideas include “YourNameCountry” or even “FirstNameMiddleInitialLastName”, I think you get my point.  Bottom line, get creative, but keep it simple enough to remember. Also, keep it at 30 characters or fewer (letters or numbers).

How do I customize my LinkedIn URL?

show linkedin public profile

 

How do I use my LinkedIn URL?

The short answer is: everywhere you can. Order new business cards with your URL and distribute them whenever possible (asking people to connect with you). Add a link and your URL to your email signature with a call to action to connect with you. Sales collateral. Resumes. Website bios. Everywhere your face or name appears, your LinkedIn URL should appear as well.

Now that you’ve got a custom LinkedIn URL to help build your personal brand, it’s time to build out the rest of your superstar LinkedIn profile. 

Did this blog help you?  If so, please take a moment to to SHARE on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn!

Cheers,
Dennis Brown
“Stop the madness. There’s a better way!”
LinkedIn Marketing & Social Selling Consultant, Trainer, Speaker

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