I don't know about you, but LinkedIn has become one of my primary sources for generating income, and for hiring people.

As LinkedIn's CEO announced in 2013, LinkedIn profiles are "the new resume" and LinkedIn is the new job board.

I'll be straight with you: I've had more luck finding good hires on LinkedIn than through recruiting agencies or even on traditional job boards like Monster.com (yes, that's saying a lot).

To get the most out of LinkedIn when recruiting, though, you need to make sure your LinkedIn profile reflects your career goals and is tailored toward helping employers find great candidates--just like it should do when used for lead generation.

There are a few things you can do today to make LinkedIn better for LinkedIn marketing, lead generation, and generating a higher income.

Related Reading: LinkedIn Performer Series: 7 reasons why LinkedIn is the most important social platform for career building and personal branding | INVESTED MOM

This is so obvious, I'm not even sure why I'm writing it. However, LinkedIn isn't the only social network where people have profiles with their name on them so you can easily find yourself in Facebook's site search if LinkedIn hasn't indexed you yet.

Your LinkedIn headline is one of the first things recruiters see when they do a LinkedIn search and it should set the tone for what kind of candidate you are and help recruiters find you quickly: recently I was recruiting for CMOs and found several people that stood out immediately based on their headlines: "CMO at LinkedIn," "Marketing and Sales Leader," and "Director of Marketing for Industry Leaders."

This is where you sell yourself: LinkedIn resumes get name, title, and company. LinkedIn summaries get career stories + focused keywords. For example:

"CEO/Owner, John Smith Inc., a leading provider of innovative solutions to business process inefficiencies."

is better than just this:

"CEO." LinkedIn will actually let you have the word LinkedIn in your headline which might be useful if you're looking specifically for LinkedIn employees or fit into multiple buckets., LinkedIn lets you add up to 500 characters into LinkedIn summaries which should be more than enough to tell your career story. LinkedIn gives you a break and omits the first line of the LinkedIn summary if it is a sentence starting with "I".

LinkedIn will let you use up to 50 keywords so don't hesitate to include all relevant keywords for your job function or industry: LinkedIn search functions return results based on matching terms, titles, companies, skills, etc., In other words, as long as one of your LinkedIn profile keywords match either the recruiter's LinkedIn search query or what she types into LinkedIn's advanced search form when searching for profiles similar to yours then LinkedIn will include you in its search results if it returns any results at all. LinkedIn makes this easy by giving you a list of LinkedIn profile keywords for your LinkedIn profile.

LinkedIn not only lets you recommend people but also allows them to endorse you in different areas of expertise (i.e., skills, languages). LinkedIn has actually provided me with more leads than I can count since the last time I checked the LinkedIn search function returns recommended profiles before regular profiles. Some recruiters are even subscribing to LinkedIn's premium account just so they have access to LinkedIn recommendations on top of LinkedIn search results. Make sure you do two things:

a) Enable LinkedIn endorsements

b) Allow others to write recommendations for your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn gives you some space to put some keywords and LinkedIn has recently made it easier for people to follow your LinkedIn updates if they see something new in that field. You can use LinkedIn status updates such as "I'm looking for a great LinkedIn marketing expert" or "Connect with me on LinkedIn if you want to talk about lead generation."

Most LinkedIn users do not know that LinkedIn allows the creation of groups, which is probably why there are so few reasons (outside of LinkedIn-sponsored group memberships and education/tutorials) to join them: most LinkedIn users only ever create their own profile page and contact list. However, there are several benefits to joining various LinkedIn groups. For example, it is less formal than LinkedIn's discussion forums. LinkedIn can be used to promote your company's LinkedIn group in LinkedIn status updates, LinkedIn ads, etc. LinkedIn group members are generally much more active on LinkedIn since LinkedIn groups are "discussion forums." LinkedIn allows for up-/downvoting so it is easy to sort out the best comments from the worst ones (so that you skip reading useless comments). You can use LinkedIn's search function to find or join industry-specific groups.

LinkedIn gives users three different methods of contacting each other: Public discussions Groups Direct messages. So how do you avoid receiving spammy invitations from outside of your network? By turning off the ability for people who are not in your LinkedIn network to send you LinkedIn invitations. LinkedIn will only let people in your LinkedIn network contact you via LinkedIn's messaging service if they are not already in some way connected to you on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn allows for ads that are very similar to Google Adwords so it is easy to set up highly targeted LinkedIn ads. Just like with most other social media, the more relevant your ad is to LinkedIn users, the better results LinkedIn will return with its lead generation numbers especially when most companies have a limited advertising budget. Since recruiters have less time than money and often need help sourcing talent quickly, even their LinkedIn search functions can be influenced by lead generation advertisements: I've placed $50+ bids within my 1 LinkedIn update LinkedIn ads and have had LinkedIn show my LinkedIn updates before LinkedIn search results.

Before the ability to "organically" connect with LinkedIn users who are not in your LinkedIn network was added, some public figures were known for creating several new LinkedIn profiles just so that they could connect directly to all of their fans/readers on LinkedIn. There are still some LinkedIn-marketing experts who have made a name for themselves through this practice but it is highly discouraged by most people because these experts are practically free marketing tools for spammers since they allow any random person to get in touch with them directly without verifying who you are or what your intentions are towards their client base. A good way to tell if someone's using LinkedIn for LinkedIn lead generation or spamming LinkedIn is to look at how many LinkedIn connections a person has: LinkedIn marketers usually have a lot of LinkedIn connections since they need them to be able to communicate with their LinkedIn contacts. Spammers generally have hundreds or thousands of LinkedIn connections because they use LinkedIn as a way to connect with people who may not know who they are so that the spammers can later send them spammy messages.

LinkedIn allows users to search for any profile within their network (or outside of their network if the user turns on the "connections beyond your network" feature). The more specific your desired results, the better LinkedIn's search will return relevant results. For example, LinkedIn shows me more results for LinkedIn members who live in the City of Melbourne than LinkedIn members who live anywhere in Australia. It also tells me a lot of information about each user besides just their name and title (e.g., when they joined LinkedIn, where they're located, and how many LinkedIn connections they have). LinkedIn allows its users to search for anything that is on LinkedIn which means that you can search LinkedIn's directory for any type of company or individual.

Your LinkedIn profile is your personal online marketing platform so don't be afraid to leverage it through LinkedIn status updates, LinkedIn ads, etc.. Since LinkedIn has very active users most around the world (not just because LinkedIn is a great LinkedIn lead generation tool, LinkedIn is also a social network), LinkedIn users always want the latest LinkedIn news. So don't be afraid to make LinkedIn users aware of any updates on your LinkedIn profile as they will click on your profile to see what was updated and that can provide you with high-quality LinkedIn leads which you can then convert into LinkedIn members or into people who buy from your online business.

Don't just use LinkedIn for generating LinkedIn leads. Link everything together so that all of your digital resources send people towards one main destination, whether it's a webpage about the type of product/service you offer or a webpage specifically designed for lead generation. For example, LinkedIn lead generation is the perfect complement to LinkedIn SEO (i.e., keywords & title optimization) which you can use to attract search engine traffic to your LinkedIn marketing strategy or LinkedIn marketing plan.

This LinkedIn guide on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile for lead generation might be a bit too detailed if all you're looking for is a simple LinkedIn lead generation strategy outline, so try this basic outline for size:

- Create a professional, industry-appropriate LinkedIn picture

- Write a catchy LinkedIn headline that includes your country of residence and/or some type of keyword targeted towards the companies/individuals who would benefit from hiring someone with your skillset. If you need help coming up with a good LinkedIn headline, LinkedIn's phrase match search is a good LinkedIn tool to use.

- Write LinkedIn Summary about your expertise and how it can benefit LinkedIn users/companies using LinkedIn SEO (i.e., keywords & title optimization).

- Add LinkedIn Skills and add LinkedIn Specialties that will be used in conjunction with LinkedIn SEO (i.e., keywords & title optimization)to attract the type of companies/job seekers that could benefit from hiring someone with your skillset or buying something from your online business. For help coming up with LinkedIn Specialties, check out this directory of LinkedIn specialties and for help optimizing these LinkedIn specialties so they rank in Google's search results, see #9: How to use keywords in your LinkedIn status updates and LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn's LinkedIn Specialties is LinkedIn's best-kept LinkedIn secret.

- Add LinkedIn Recommendations (which can also be used in conjunction with LinkedIn SEO, i.e., keywords & title optimization) and LinkedIn Groups to your LinkedIn profile.

- Link everything together so that all of your digital resources send people towards one main destination (i.e., an online business webpage or a webpage specifically designed for lead generation).

The above is only an example of how you might want to set up your LinkedIn profile for lead generation purposes but it provides some insight into what type of information LinkedIn users are looking for when they find someone's LinkedIn Profile  (or "LinkedIn Company Page  " if have a company with employees) through LinkedIn SEO (i.e., keywords & title optimization). LinkedIn Company Page  (" LinkedIn Company Pages  " LinkedIn lead generation.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool for lead generation and if you follow these tips, you will be able to create a profile that will help you attract the right type of leads. You can also join the Wealth Builders Workshop - an exclusive membership for people who are serious about building wealth and increasing their income.

Remember, it takes time to perfect your LinkedIn profile so don’t get discouraged if everything doesn’t happen overnight. Keep tweaking your profile until you start seeing results and then keep on top of it by regularly publishing articles, joining groups, and participating in discussions. The more active you are on LinkedIn, the better chance you have of generating quality leads.

Stay invested xx