How to Use Your LinkedIn Profile Like a Website

You don’t need a website from the get-go when starting out as a freelance writer.

Setting up your LinkedIn profile to act as your website is much faster, less expensive, and frees you up to put your energy and resources toward finding your first few freelance clients.

Then, once you have recurring projects and a stable income, you can start building a website to act as your official online hub, where you attract and convert leads.

A Quick and Easy Conversion Funnel 

Whether they find you through your website or your LinkedIn profile, your ideal clients are looking to solve a problem, and they’re searching for a freelance writer to help.

On LinkedIn, you’ll get a better result, if you treat your profile as a conversion funnel. Here’s how this funnel works:

1. A prospect discovers you through LinkedIn search results, because you’ve added specific keywords throughout your profile.
2. Once they land on your profile, they learn more about what you do, whom you help, the problems you solve, and more.
3. They see a call to action inviting them to book a discovery call with you.

And, just like that, you have a new lead.

Setting Up Your LinkedIn Profile to Work as Your Website

When you want your LinkedIn profile to work as a lead-generation tool and as your online hub, keep in mind that it will need to offer several things that you would plan to include on a website — they’re just arranged a little differently.

— 1 — Headline, Profile Picture, and Banner Image

These are the first few things a prospect sees when they visit your profile.

Your headline is your opportunity to quickly convey what you do, whom you help, and the results you deliver.

As an example, my headline reads…

Anyone reading this knows the types of services I offer and the businesses I help. Also, notice the use of visual demarcations. These help a reader take in the information more easily.

Here’s another example of a headline with a little bit more personality…

But again, anyone reading this headline knows what Atlas does (social media strategy, community building, and content creation) and whom they serve (primarily B2B companies).

Your profile picture helps visitors feel like they know you. It’s always easier to feel connected to someone you can picture in your mind’s eye!

A few rules of thumb for profile pictures:

• Keep them fresh. If it’s been over a year since you updated your profile picture, it’s time to upload something more recent!
• Invest in a professional headshot. A good photographer will bring out your personality and give your photo a polished look.
• Your profile picture can be as sincere or funny and approachable as you are.
• Stay focused. You should be the main thing in your profile picture. Choose a neutral background and pick an image where your head and shoulders fill most of the frame.

Your banner can do several things:

• Provide social proof
• Speak to your positioning
• Share your contact details

Here’s mine:

Leave some space in the bottom left corner of your banner image, so your profile picture doesn’t hide anything. There are several templates in Canva that you can customize for your banner image.

Here’s another example of a simple banner image with a positioning statement and website URL:

— 2 — Profile Button or Link

This is the primary call to action on your profile. Your profile link or button can send prospects to your portfolio, website, blog, Calendly, or a landing page to subscribe to your newsletter.

If you’re on LinkedIn Premium, choose the custom button instead of the link, so your CTA is visible under your name when you post.

For instance, my portfolio link is visible under my headline when I post.

The custom link is available to free and premium members and has its own uses. For instance, when I’m marketing a workshop or course, I add a custom link to my profile, so I can tailor the copy to say, “Sign up for my workshop.”

Here’s how the custom link appears on your profile:

— 3 — About Section

 

Your About section provides a way for prospects to get to know more about what you do.

Start your About section with a series of questions highlighting your ideal client’s desires and pains. Taking this approach gets them nodding along, feeling like you understand what they need.  

Then, talk about your services and how you can help them achieve their aims and solve their problems.

Note:  This is only ONE way to set up your About section. You’re free to do something different and be creative. 🙂

Your About section needs to be as uniquely yours as possible. One of my writer friends recently discovered that another writer had copied their About section. This upset them, because they had spent considerable time writing it.

To avoid this from happening to you, make it yours as much as possible.

One way to achieve this is by mentioning specific client names and projects you’ve worked on.

Talking about specific clients and projects allows you to throw in some social proof and build credibility, and makes it impractical for other writers to copy your work.

Now, bring it home.

End strong with a call to action, so prospects know what to do next.

Your About section is like your website’s home page copy.

— 4 — Featured Section

Your Featured section is akin to the main navigation menu on your website.

You can include several items in your Featured section:

1. A link to book a call.
2. Your portfolio.
3. Recent samples.
4. Your testimonials. (You can feature LinkedIn recommendations in your Featured section, if you use LI Premium.)
5. A video introducing yourself.
6. A Loom video explaining a previous project, how you executed it, and the results you got for your client.
7. A downloadable case study detailing your latest project for a client.
8. A LinkedIn post that explains your process of delivering a service, your process of working with clients, and your non-negotiables in business.

Decide what you want your prospects to know about working with you and then deliver that information to them through a video, PDFs, and LinkedIn articles or posts.

In my featured section, I’ve included links to samples of my work on other websites along with a recommendation from a happy client and a downloadable white paper (another sample of my work). This is just one approach, but I do recommend that you provide a mix of different items in your Feature section.

— 5 — Experiences

Use the Experience section to talk about your services in the context of specific projects with specific clients.

Your Experience section is a rich opportunity to tell stories about the projects you’ve worked on and get a search advantage by adding your primary keywords both in the title and the description of each experience.

Here are a few examples to use. In this first one, I highlight my LinkedIn consultation offer for freelance writers.

Here’s a different example, where I added a client as an Experience. By the way, if you’re not adding each long-term client as a separate Experience, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to show your… well, experience.

Notice that I’ve created a case study for this project and added it to this Experience.

In this final example, I talk about overcoming imposter syndrome during a client project.

The Experience section on your profile can become a credibility booster!

— 6 — Recommendations

I’ll say this up front — it’s never too late to ask a client for a recommendation. When I started building my LinkedIn profile, I went back to clients I had worked with two years ago and requested they write me a recommendation. Most of them agreed.

So, please shut down that voice inside your head that might be making the case against asking for recommendations from former clients.

Here’s the exact script I use to ask for a recommendation-

“Hi name, I really enjoyed <or, I’m enjoying> working on your content marketing strategy <or another service>. I’m looking to market this service and find more clients I can help. So, I’d greatly appreciate it if you would write me a LinkedIn recommendation. It helps me build my credibility and would only take 5 minutes of your time. I can send you a recommendation request on LinkedIn and provide you with a few pointers you can include in your recommendation if you want a head start.”

When they agree, send them a recommendation request by going to their profile and clicking on More.

Remember to tie the recommendation request to the right Experience (under Position) and select the option that says they were a client of yours under Relationship.

— 7 — Start a Newsletter

Just like you can add a blog to your website, you can create and manage a newsletter on LinkedIn. To qualify to start a newsletter, you need at least 150 followers/connections, a good standing on the platform, and recently published original content. Here’s a walkthrough of creating a LinkedIn newsletter.

LinkedIn newsletters are an effective marketing tool for you to stay top-of-mind with prospects and share valuable advice that leads them to trust you more.

As you can see, LinkedIn lets you provide most of the same information and many of the same features that you can add to a website.

While you do eventually want your own website, until it’s time to make that investment, use your LinkedIn profile to its full potential to attract and land clients.