By now, you’ve certainly heard why a polished, professional LinkedIn Profile could actually be  MORE important than your resume.

However, you could spend hours perfecting your Profile, and still not receive results from it.

But don’t give up! Here are 5 common reasons that your Linked presence isn’t drawing attention for your job search or business:

Problem #1: You forgot to apply the principles of SEO.

A fantastic LinkedIn Profile is still like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, because if you fail to make it easily searchable, no one will actually find it.

The best way to do this is to conduct some due diligence on the keywords used by others who are looking for new hires. Recruiters and employers often look for candidates with a particular job title, and specify a city as another parameter.

Think of a recruiter intent on finding a Senior Vice President of Sales in San Francisco, and you’ll have the right idea.

So, you’ll want to pop that desired job title or career level into as many parts of your Profile as possible, in addition to skills that describe your experience.

Problem #2: Your profile text looks like a dry bio.

Your digital presence should do more than merely exist, pulling in the reader with a narrative that lets you explain your unique selling proposition (USP) in detail. Therefore, if you dump the contents of your resume summary or biography into LinkedIn, it’s not going to work.

In fact, pasting sections of your traditional resume straight into any online social networking site is asking for trouble, because these documents are written for print, not the Web.

Online copy is fresh, concise, and a bit more energetic than your resume, and it should be written in first-person to engage your reader as an individual.

Problem #3: You gave away the store.

I’m commonly asked where and how to attach a resume to a LinkedIn Profile. Well, there IS a way, but don’t do it!

Generate a little intrigue by refraining from providing every last bit of information to employers and recruiters. Think of your Profile as the introduction (with almost the same purpose as a cover letter), where you can add just enough data to make employers want more.

Then, then back off and make it easy to connect with you (or contact you directly) so that you don’t commit Problem #5.

Problem #4: Your dates aren’t working to your advantage.

Searching for a job in your 40’s, 50’s, or 60,’s? Don’t give employers reason to filter you out by including all that work history dating back to the 1980’s or 1970’s – please!

In fact, assuming that your resume has a great strategy for combating age discrimination, be sure to employ the same techniques on your LinkedIn Profile.

You’ll quickly find that employers are most interested in your last decade of experience, and that adding too much information leads to Problem #3.

Problem #5: You didn’t pay attention to Contact Settings.

Yes, LinkedIn is a social networking site (with a business purpose, of course). Then what’s the idea behind preventing others from contacting you?

There’s nothing worse than finding a great professional contact on LinkedIn, only to see the message that “Bob is not open to receiving invitations or InMail.”

The Contact Settings section allows you to give a brief blurb about the best way to reach you, and this is a great place to list either an email address, a phone number, or both.

However, you’ll also want to ensure that the parameters within your Contact Settings are checked so that you can receive any combination of Introductions, InMail, and OpenLink Messages.

So, if your Profile isn’t generating enough interest, I recommend going back over your content and ensuring that you’re using a well-thought-out strategy to draw the world to your digital door.

Did you realize that LinkedIn has a built-in marketing and search engine-friendly capability that is easy to use–and often overlooked? Well, neither do most job hunters.

The best 120 characters of keyword optimization you can find for a job search, your LinkedIn Headline (or title) is a major piece of the puzzle that can help recruiters locate your skills.

If you’re one of the many that loaded up this field with your current job title (such as ‘Vice President of Operations’ or ‘Sales Executive’), or worse yet, used it to declare your unemployed status, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to market yourself!

Instead, I recommend presenting your brand and goal in your LinkedIn Headline, using some self-promotion plus a label that gives you a fighting chance of being located by a keyword search. (What’s that? You didn’t realize that recruiters will look for you by keyword? That’s a subject for another post.)

Here are some LinkedIn Headline comparisons for your perusal, taken from actual profiles.

• William Jones, Unemployed and Looking
• John Taylor, Operations Director and Manager | Cost Control & Efficiency Improvment at AT&T
• Bill Ford, Project Manager at Sun Microsystems
• Anne Wilson, Providing Innovative Business Solutions by Leveraging Technology
• James Hardin, Pursuing Product Management & Quality Consulting Assignments in Dallas
• Carson Anderson, IT Systems and Management With Government and Nonprofit Experience
• Douglas Harding, Enterprise Technology Leader | Principal Network Engineer | Network Architect | Team Leader

Which do you believe increase findability? What makes you want to read further or fails to pique your interest? And of course, which of these are too general to tell you anything about the candidate’s brand?

I hope this makes you take a closer look at your own LinkedIn Headline. Maybe there is a better, more strategic way to convey your value and goals, while sticking to that 120-character limit.