Customise your LinkedIn URL
We all use our LinkedIn profiles as part of our personal branding so it’s important to customise your LinkedIn URL. Your default LinkedIn URL ends with a long string of numbers and characters which looks a bit messy. Sometimes we forget about personalising this small but important part of our personal branding efforts, but it is well worth doing.
Custom public profile URLs are available on a first-come, first-serve basis. Members can only have one custom public profile URL at a time. You can customise your LinkedIn URL when you change what appears on your public profile.
This is what LinkedIn says:
Guidelines
- Your custom URL can have 5-30 letters or numbers. Don’t use spaces, symbols, or special characters.
- LinkedIn recommends using a variation of your name and/or your professional brand since you’ll share this URL with people, so they can find your LinkedIn profile.
- Many companies ask for your LinkedIn URL when you apply for a job. You can also include it on your CV.
- The customizable part of the URL is case insensitive. This means using JohnSmith, johnsmith, or johnSmith will all point to the same profile.
- If the URL you want isn’t available, just create a different one they cannot be assigned on demand.
- You can change your URL up to five times within six months. After that, you will have to wait for another six months before you can change it again. Changing your URL too many times could end up confusing people.
- You can add your LinkedIn URL to your email signatures, business cards, website, conference bios, social media accounts, and wherever else you find your face or name.
Take a look at our FREE Resource: Daily LinkedIn routine for today’s super busy women for more help on managing this useful platform
Why you should customise your LinkedIn URL
- Easier for your network to find and connect with you
- Helps with SEO on major search engines such as Google and Bing. Setting up a custom URL requires turning on your LinkedIn public profile – this is what search engines scan – which helps you to be found organically.
- If you have a common name it helps identify you e.g. Susan Smith can become “susansmithmba”
How to create a custom LinkedIn URL
Setting up a customised LinkedIn profile URL is easy to do. Your URL will be like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yourname
On your desktop:
- Click the Me icon at the top of your LinkedIn homepage.
- Click View profile.
- Click Edit public profile & URL on the right rail.
- Under Edit your custom URL in the right rail, click the Edit icon next to your public profile URL.
- It’ll be an address that looks like www.linkedin.com/in/yourname.
- Type the last part of your new custom URL in the text box.
- Click Save.
On your mobile device
- Tap your profile picture.
- Scroll to the Contact and Personal Info section and tap the Edit icon.
- On the Edit contact info page, tap on your personal Profile URL. You’ll be redirected to the Public profile settings page.
Under the Edit URL section, tap the Edit icon next to your public profile URL. - Type the last part of your new custom URL in the text box.
It’s really easy to change your custom LinkedIn profile URL – so why wait?
3Plus can help you with our session on How to make the most of LinkedIn for career and business success.