3 Missing Pieces of Your LinkedIn Profile
Aug 26, 2026
If you are a coach, consultant, or service professional using LinkedIn to grow your business, the pieces costing you the most visibility are usually the smallest ones. Three sections of your profile get skipped constantly... your custom URL, the bottom of your About section, and your Featured section. Each one is quietly limiting your reach.
None of these take longer than ten minutes to fix. None of them require new content. They are just sitting there, half finished, on almost every profile I audit.
Here is what to look at, and what to do about it.
1. Your profile URL is still the default one
Look at the top right of your profile. You will see "Public profile & URL" underneath the profile language setting.
If you have never touched it, your URL probably looks something like this: your first name, your last name, then a random string of letters and numbers. That string was assigned to you. It was never optimized, and it tells LinkedIn and the people searching for you absolutely nothing.
You already understand this instinctively on every other platform. You have an Instagram handle. You have a YouTube handle. Your LinkedIn URL is the same idea, and most people leave it as the factory setting.
Mine is Scott Aaron Coach. So when someone asks how to find me on LinkedIn, I do not have to spell out a code. I just tell them to search Scott Aaron Coach.
How to change it:
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Go to the top right of your profile and click "Public profile & URL"
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Click the edit pencil next to your current URL
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Erase everything after the forward slash
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Type in the version you actually want people to remember
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Save it
A few rules LinkedIn holds you to... three to 100 letters or numbers, and no spaces, symbols, or special characters.
Pick something you would say out loud on a podcast, in a webinar, or at a networking event. Your name, or your name plus what you do, is almost always the right answer.
2. Your About section ends without a call to action
This is the one that surprises people the most.
Most About sections read like a well written biography that simply stops. Someone gets to the end, feels good about you, and then has nowhere to go. That is a missed opportunity every single time it happens.
Every professional on LinkedIn, no matter the industry, should end their About section with a clear next step. Not buried in the middle. At the very bottom, where the reader naturally lands.
I recommend one, ideally two:
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Your business website. Written out plainly, so it is easy to copy and paste.
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Your business email. Also written out plainly.
Mine reads exactly like this at the bottom of my About section:
Website: (your business website) Email: (your business email)
Two things worth knowing here.
First, these are not clickable inside the About section. That is fine. The goal is not a click, it is a copy and paste. Someone who has just read your entire story and wants to reach you will absolutely take the extra two seconds.
Second, this is why a calendar link does not belong here. It is not clickable, and a long scheduling URL is miserable to retype. Save the calendar link for a section where it actually works, which brings us to number three.
And please, use your business email. Not the personal address you have had since college.
3. You are treating your Featured section like a content section
The name is doing everyone a disservice here.
When people see "Featured," they assume it is a place to feature content. So they pin three of their best performing posts and call it done. Those posts are already on your profile. All you have done is show people the same thing twice.
Think about what content actually means. It is a website. A lead magnet. A download. An opt in. A book. A podcast. A YouTube channel. A calendar link. LinkedIn gives you six options when you add a Featured item... a post, a newsletter, an article, a link, an image, or a document. That range exists for a reason.
Your Featured section has one job. Take people from on LinkedIn to off of LinkedIn.
Social media is rented land. Your email list is not. Your website is not. Your calendar is not. The Featured section is the bridge between the two, and most people are using it as a highlight reel instead.
If you do not have a Featured section yet, click "Add profile section" at the top of your profile. Under Recommended, the first option is "Add featured." That is it.
Here is the setup I use and recommend:
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A lead magnet on the left. Something that captures an email address and starts the relationship. Mine is our LinkedIn thought leadership assessment.
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Your newsletter in the middle. If you do not have a LinkedIn newsletter, create one. Placing it here is one of the best subscriber drivers on the platform.
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A website or business link on the right. Mine points to the Expert Content Society.
No lead magnet yet? Put your calendar link there instead. It is clickable in this section, which is exactly why it belongs here and not in your About.
No calendar link either? Point people to your YouTube channel, your podcast, or wherever the customer journey actually begins for you.
The bigger point
None of these three fixes are about being clever. They are about removing friction.
A custom URL makes you findable. A CTA at the end of your About section makes you reachable. A properly built Featured section makes you followable somewhere you actually own.
Visibility on LinkedIn is not only about how often you post. It is about whether the profile people land on gives them somewhere to go next.
Block off fifteen minutes this week. Fix all three. Then get back to creating content that sends people there.
Want to know where your LinkedIn thought leadership actually stands? Our free assessment takes three minutes and gives you a report covering your profile, your network, your messaging, and your content, so you know exactly what to work on first.
Take the assessment here: LinkedIn Thought Leader Scorecard | Expert Content Society
