How To Create a Custom LinkedIn™ URL
Your LinkedIn URL matters more than you think!
If you’ve ever thought about adding your LinkedIn URL to your business card or email signature, you might’ve noticed something: it often looks messy and unprofessional.
That’s because unless your name is truly unique, when you signed up to LinkedIn they likely assigned your profile and name with a string of random numbers. It’s their way of making your page identifiable in a collective of nearly 1 billion users.
So why would you change it?
Your LinkedIn URL is effectively your personal domain name. It’s how others can find you online and how search engines recognize you. Done right, it’s more than a link it’s a digital business card with a direct link to your address.
So how do you clean it up?
How to Create a Custom LinkedIn URL
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Log in to LinkedIn and navigate to your profile by clicking the “Me” icon in the top right.
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Once on your profile page, find “Public profile & URL” in the top right again.
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Click the pencil icon to enter your public profile settings.
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In the top right of that page, you'll see “Edit your custom URL.”
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Click the pencil icon again, and now you can change your URL.
Fair warning: there are a few extra clicks in there that feel a bit unintuitive, which is probably why you’re here in the first place.
What If Your Name Is Already Taken?
Best practice is to keep it simple and easy to remember. If your name is already claimed, try one of the following:
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Add a hyphen or underscore between your first and last name
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Include a number (like your birth year or company start year)
And remember: you can always update it later. But be cautious, once you give it up, someone else might grab it. So if you manage to lock down a clean version of your name, it’s worth holding onto.
Company Wanting You To Add A Branded URL?
For the same reason, If your company suggests including their name in your LinkedIn URL, it’s okay to push back. While LinkedIn is a great tool to support the business, your profile is still yours and your URL is a digital asset that should be owned by you. After all, you never know where your career might take you.
Your task for today?
Take a few minutes to update your URL today, you’ll be glad you did tomorrow.
