Linkedin is a great website to find tailored job listings and potential employees, but the social network is often overlooked as a potential new business tool and a platform for personal branding. With more than 60 million users (80 percent of which have a college degree) Linkedin allows people to re-connect with past business connections in a professional setting. Even more importantly, Linkedin puts an emphasis on introducing you to people you need to know and gives you the place to have an expert voice in the industry in which you work.

In order to help you use Linkedin in this way, we’ve put together a list of some of our best practices for creating a Linkedin Profile:

• SEO Make yourself searchable. If your purpose for a Linkedin profile is to use it as a networking or new business tool, include key words that will enable people to find you.

• Link your blog to your Linkedin profile. Applications to link your blog posts to your profile such as the Wordpress app are great tools for this. Doing this will also help you get more views for your posts.

• Have a complete profile. Fill out all the areas- specialties, expertise, job role, education, etc. You will appear credible to people who don’t know you well if your profile is complete. Be sure to add a picture of yourself.

• Personalize the message in the invitation box when inviting someone to your network. This will show others you are personable and hopefully make them want to interact with you. Hopefully this will lead to a recommendation in the future.

• Use conversational tone: If acceptable by your industry, use conversational tone while maintaining a professional standard. Using a conversational tone makes you seem “real.” Uptight resume-speak makes you seem unapproachable.

• If you receive a recommendation, reciprocate. Recommending a connection may end up in a job lead or new business venture in the future and it’s likely you will receive more recommendations if you are willing to give them out.

• List your websites properly. When editing your profile, change the title of your website or blog to appear descriptively and searchable on the Internet. For example, change “my website” to “Bailey Gardiner-San Diego PR.” The second title is much more explanatory than the first.

• Include only relevant experience. Do you think your advertising colleague cares about your summer camp counselor job way back when? No.

• Customize your URL. This goes back to SEO. A customized URL makes your profile easily searchable and easy to remember if hearing it via word-of-mouth.

What else do you recommend? How do you use your Linkedin profile?