LinkedIn is a fantastic platform for building your online network and making and maintaining connections with people in your field for business (and sometimes social) purposes.

While it’s important to have a presence on LinkedIn as a starting point, what’s more important is to have the right presence – one which enhances your credibility and facilitates your networking.

If you’ve made it on to LinkedIn and you’re not quite sure what to do next, here are five simple ways to optimise your profile to make sure it’s showing you off at your best:

1. 1)    Have a great profile picture

Your profile picture is there to communicate that you are a real and presentable human being, which is the first step for building trust with your connections. A great profile picture is one of the most important self-marketing tools you have at your disposal so where possible, get your photo taken by a professional for best results – it’s a worthy investment for something you will be able to use across the board for all your online branding.

1. 2)    Write your headline strategically

Outside of your profile picture, your headline is the first thing potential connections will notice about your profile so it’s important to make sure this is focused and targeted to the industry you’re in as a business person. You can either use your headline to promote your current job title within your business (e.g “Managing Director at Awesome Business Services”), or you can use it to promote your business services as a whole, using specific keywords related to your business (e.g. “Master of Ceremonies, Conference Facilitator, Conference Host and Motivational Speaker at Self Employed Dot Com).

1. 3)    Import the best parts of your CV

Your LinkedIn profile differs from your CV (resume) in that you have much more flexibility to be who you want to be on LinkedIn. You can choose to emphasise just one side of your experience and expertise from your CV and leave out the other parts. There is no obligation to import everything from your CV to your LinkedIn profile, only what’s relevant for boosting your business profile.

1. 4)    Get recommendations

LinkedIn recommendations are great for boosting your profile and credibility as a business person. The best way to get recommendations is to start by connecting with people you’ve worked with in the past or at present, or people you’ve had some kind of professional relationship with (this could be a past client or a fellow member of a professional membership organisation you’re part of). When asking for recommendations, be sure to send a nice personalised message to your contacts – avoid using the standard LinkedIn request template as it’s so impersonal and therefore less likely to generate a positive response.

1. 5)    Claim your vanity URL

LinkedIn has kindly made it possible for users to change the URLs of their profile from the custom automatically-generated lengthy URL to one that is shorter and directs people straight to your profile (it’s fairly quick and easy to do this – just search “change LinkedIn URL” online for widely available tutorials). Most people use their full name as their vanity URL and I recommend you do the same as it is the most professional approach. However, if you have a common first name and surname, it’s likely that someone else would have snapped up your unique URL already so go for the next closest thing like adding a number at the end or a one-word description. Once you’re in possession of your unique vanity URL, be sure to also include it on your website and other platforms to show off your new-found social media savvy.

Mildred Talabi is an award-winning careers blogger, speaker and writer, voted one of Guardian Careers Top Career Tweeters of 2014.

Having graduated from university with a degree in Creative Writing and Film Studies, Mildred went on to train as a journalist under a scholarship from News International, and worked for various publications (including The Guardian newspaper), before “accidentally” embarking on a career in CV writing and careers advice.

Along the way, Mildred found time to set up a raw food business with her husband Malachi, which won her the Brand Piano Best Business Vision Award in 2009, and saw her place as a double finalist at the 2010 Lambeth Business Awards in the categories of Best Young Entrepreneur and Best Women in Business.

After years of dispensing CV advice to jobseekers via one-to-one consultations and group workshops, Mildred wrote 7 Keys to a Winning CV: How to create a CV that gets results, published by Harriman House in September 2011, and founded CV Makeover Expert to support jobseekers with CVs, cover letters and application forms.

As a speaker and trainer, Mildred’s practical and direct approach to job-hunting is popular with a young audience and has helped many students and graduates successfully navigate the job market.

When she’s not writing her weekly careers blog or contributing to the Guardian Careers website as a CV expert, Mildred enjoys reading, watching murder mysteries, and critiquing films.