LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with over 810 million members worldwide. As a professional networking site, LinkedIn profiles serve an important purpose in showcasing credentials, skills, and experience to connect with other professionals. One of the most common questions LinkedIn users have is – who has viewed my profile? Knowing who has looked at your profile can provide useful insight into how your professional brand is resonating with peers and prospective recruiters or hiring managers. However, LinkedIn’s premium accounts are the only way to see full profile viewer analytics for your account. Here are some tips on how to see who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile for free.
Why See Who’s Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile?
There are a few key reasons why you may want to see who has looked at your LinkedIn profile:
- Gain insights into how your profile is performing – The number of profile views and the types of viewers can indicate how strong your professional brand and online presence is on LinkedIn.
- See who’s noticed you – If connections, recruiters, or companies in your target industry are viewing your profile, it shows they’re interested and you’re on their radar.
- Identify new opportunities – Profile visitors may represent new networking contacts, prospects for your business, or potential employers if you’re job searching.
- Improve your profile – Seeing who’s viewed your profile can help you tailor it better to your audience and industry by seeing what types of viewers you’re attracting.
In summary, having visibility into who’s engaging with your profile allows you to better understand the reach and impact of your professional brand on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s Profile View Settings
LinkedIn has three main account types:
- Basic (free)
- Premium Career
- Premium Business
Only Premium account holders are able to see full analytics on who has viewed their LinkedIn profiles. Here’s a breakdown of the settings for each account type:
Basic Account
With a free basic account, you can see the last 5 profiles that viewed yours. LinkedIn shows you the name, headline, and location of recent viewers. However, you won’t see the full list of everyone who’s viewed your profile.
Premium Career Account
A Premium Career account costs $29.99/month. This plan lets you see the names of everyone who has viewed your profile in the last 90 days. It shows full viewer analytics for your profile views including name, location, company, title, industry, relationship to viewer, and frequency.
Premium Business Account
A Premium Business account costs $59.99/month. It provides the same full analytics on profile viewers as the Premium Career account. In addition, it lets you see more analytics on content performance and advanced search filters.
So in summary, LinkedIn’s paid premium options are the only way to unlock full viewer analytics and see all of the profiles that have viewed yours in a given period.
How to See Who’s Viewed Your LinkedIn Profile for Free
While LinkedIn limits full profile viewer analytics to premium accounts, there are still a few tactics you can use to see who’s viewed your LinkedIn profile with just a free account:
1. Check Your “Who’s Viewed Your Profile” Section
This is the main free way to see some of your recent LinkedIn profile visitors. On LinkedIn’s mobile app and desktop site, go to your profile and scroll down to the “Who’s viewed your profile” section.
Here you’ll see the last 5 profiles of people who viewed your profile, with name, headline, and location listed.
2. Look for Profile View Notifications
When someone views your profile, LinkedIn may sometimes show a notification telling you who looked at your profile. For example, you may see “John Smith viewed your profile”. These notifications are not guaranteed to appear every time though.
3. Notice When Contacts Update Their Profiles
Often when someone looks at your LinkedIn profile, they may update their own profile shortly after. This could involve adding a new position, skill, education, etc. Pay attention to profile updates from your network as it’s possible they viewed your profile right before updating their own.
4. Use LinkedIn’s “Order in Reverse Chronological Order” Feature
You can utilize LinkedIn’s sorting features to potentially identify more viewers. Under the “Who’s viewed your profile” section, click on the drop down next to “Sort by” and choose “Reverse Chronological Order”.
This will put the most recent profile viewers at the top, letting you scroll further back through the list.
5. Use a LinkedIn Profile Viewer Tracking Extension
There are browser extensions like LinkedIn Profile Viewer that can give you more insight into who specifically is viewing your LinkedIn profile. These tools track profile views beyond what LinkedIn shows.
However, be aware extensions like this are technically against LinkedIn’s terms of service. Use carefully and at your own discretion.
Other Ways to See Who’s Engaging With Your Profile
In addition to profile views, there are some other free ways to see who’s engaging with your LinkedIn profile:
Monitor Post Analytics
When you share new posts, articles or media on LinkedIn, check the analytics to see who’s reacting, commenting, sharing etc. This signals they’re actively engaging with your profile.
Track Profile Visitors to Your Website
Use website analytics tools to track LinkedIn referral traffic. This reveals visitors coming from LinkedIn to your professional website or portfolio.
Connect with Visitors
Proactively reach out and connect with professionals who work at companies that show up as page visitors. Mention you noticed they visited your website or profile.
Watch for Changes in Your LinkedIn Network
If new connections have viewed your profile, you may see prompts to add them when LinkedIn suggests new contacts. This can indicate they viewed your profile just before connecting.
How to See the Full List of LinkedIn Profile Visitors
To recap, LinkedIn’s free Basic account only shows limited analytics on who has viewed your profile. Here are the two paid options to see the full list of profile visitors:
Upgrade to a Premium Career Account
For $29.99/month, a Premium Career account will let you see the full list of profile visitors from the last 90 days. This shows you every name, location, company, title, industry, and relationship.
Upgrade to a Premium Business Account
For $59.99/month, a Premium Business account provides the same full profile viewer analytics as the Premium Career plan. Plus additional benefits like advanced search filters, post analytics, and more.
If you want to fully leverage your LinkedIn presence for business or career opportunities, viewing your full profile analytics is highly recommended.
10 Tips to Increase LinkedIn Profile Views
In addition to seeing who’s viewed your profile, it’s equally important to focus on boosting your overall LinkedIn profile views. Here are 10 tips:
- Craft an eye-catching customized profile URL. Include your name or professional brand.
- Add your LinkedIn URL to your email signature, resume, business cards, and website.
- Create a strong, keyword optimized headline that sells your value proposition.
- Write a compelling summary that highlights your professional background and skills.
- Upload a professional profile photo and background image.
- Engage regularly by sharing posts, commenting, and liking content.
- Publish your own high value posts and articles.
- Build your network by connecting with colleagues, clients, recruiters, etc.
- Join relevant LinkedIn Groups and participate in discussions.
- Follow companies you want to work for or do business with.
The more complete and engaging your LinkedIn profile is, the more it will attract a steady flow of quality profile views and connections.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there any fully free way to see who viewed my LinkedIn profile?
Unfortunately no, LinkedIn limits full profile viewer analytics to paid Premium accounts only. However, there are a few limited options using LinkedIn’s free account like recent viewer activity and browser extensions.
How far back can I see profile visitors?
With a Premium Career account, you can see all profile visitors from the last 90 days. The Premium Business account provides the same 90 day viewer history.
Can I see who viewed my LinkedIn profile anonymously?
No, even with a Premium account you can only see the names and details of those who have viewed your profile. Your own profile views remain anonymous unless you appear in someone else’s viewer analytics.
Does a profile view definitely mean someone looked at your profile?
Not necessarily. Sometimes LinkedIn can register a “view” even if the person just hovered over your name or profile picture. So profile views don’t always guarantee intentional views of your full profile.
Conclusion
In summary, LinkedIn provides limited options for seeing who’s viewed your profile for free. To gain full visibility into your profile viewers, a paid Premium account is recommended. Focus on continuously improving your LinkedIn profile to attract more high quality views and connections from your target audience. With proactive profile management, you can leverage LinkedIn’s powerful professional networking tools to further your career or business goals.
