LinkedIn Profile Checklist 2026: How to Get an All-Star Rating

Yes: LinkedIn All-Star status is mainly about profile completeness, not a special badge you earn through popularity. In practice, you improve your chances of reaching All-Star status by filling out the core profile sections LinkedIn expects, making them keyword-relevant, and ensuring your profile is strong enough to be found and trusted.

The short version: an All-Star profile usually starts with the basics done well—photo, headline, location, industry, experience, skills, and an About section—then gets stronger when those sections are written clearly for the opportunities you want.

• All-Star status is best understood as LinkedIn's signal that your profile is substantially complete.
• The sections that matter most are your headline, About, experience, skills, and profile photo.
• Completeness alone is not the whole game; relevance and clarity affect profile visibility too.
• If you want a fast benchmark, use a scoring tool like Dynal's Free Tool: LinkedIn Profile Score to spot quick wins.

What is LinkedIn All-Star status?

LinkedIn All-Star status refers to a high level of profile completeness. Historically, LinkedIn has encouraged users to complete key profile fields and has used "All-Star" language to indicate a profile is far more complete than a basic one.

That means All-Star status is not:

• a public award
• a guarantee of ranking at the top of search
• proof that your profile copy is good
• a substitute for active networking or posting

It is a useful benchmark because it pushes you to complete the profile sections that make your page easier for recruiters, clients, peers, and collaborators to understand.

Does having an All-Star profile improve LinkedIn search visibility?

Usually, yes—but indirectly.

A more complete profile tends to help with visibility because LinkedIn has more information to work with. When your profile includes your role, industry, experience, skills, and summary, LinkedIn can better understand what searches you may be relevant for.

But here's the important nuance: completeness helps you qualify; relevance helps you rank.

If two people both have complete profiles, the one with:

• a clearer headline
• stronger keyword alignment
• more specific experience descriptions
• more relevant skills
• better social proof

will often look stronger in search and to human viewers.

So if you're asking, "Does All-Star status improve visibility?" the best answer is: it can improve discoverability because a complete profile gives LinkedIn more context, but the quality of your profile content still matters a lot.

LinkedIn profile checklist for All-Star status in 2026

Use this as your practical LinkedIn profile checklist.

1. Add a professional profile photo

Your photo is often the first trust signal on the page.

Checklist:

• Use a clear, current headshot
• Make sure your face is easy to see
• Avoid distracting backgrounds
• Match the style to your industry

Common mistake: using a cropped group photo or a casual image that doesn't match your professional goals.

Fix: replace it with a simple, high-clarity headshot.

2. Write a keyword-rich headline

Your headline is one of the most important profile sections for visibility. It appears in search, connection requests, comments, and profile previews.

Checklist:

• State what you do
• Clarify who you help
• Include a specialty or outcome
• Use relevant keywords naturally

Weak example:
"Consultant"

Better example:
"B2B Growth Consultant | Helping SaaS Teams Improve Positioning, Demand Gen, and LinkedIn Content Strategy"

3. Set your location and industry

These fields may feel minor, but they help LinkedIn categorize your profile.

Checklist:

• Add your current location
• Choose the most accurate industry
• Make sure these match your real market positioning

4. Complete your current position and work experience

Experience is one of the core sections LinkedIn uses to understand your background.

Checklist:

• Add your current role
• Include employer or business name
• Add dates
• Write concise descriptions with outcomes
• Use keywords tied to your expertise

Template:

• Led: what you owned
• Improved: what changed
• Focused on: core specialties

Example:
"Led content strategy for B2B SaaS clients, improving executive visibility on LinkedIn and supporting consistent thought leadership across launch campaigns."

5. Add an About section

If your goal is All-Star status, your About section should not be empty. If your goal is conversion, it should also be readable and specific.

Checklist:

• Start with who you are and what you do
• Explain the problems you solve
• Mention who you help
• Add proof points or experience highlights
• End with a simple call to connect

Simple About template:

"I help [audience] achieve [outcome] through [service/expertise].

My background includes [relevant experience, industries, or results]. I focus on [specialties/keywords].

If you're working on [priority], feel free to connect or message me."

6. Add skills

Skills help reinforce your relevance for specific searches and make your profile easier to interpret.

Checklist:

• Add core hard skills
• Add role-specific skills
• Prioritize skills you want to be known for
• Remove outdated or irrelevant ones

Good rule: choose skills that match your headline, About section, and current role.

7. Strengthen your education and certifications if relevant

This may not be the deciding factor for everyone, but it helps complete your profile and can add credibility in some fields.

Checklist:

• Add school, degree, and dates where appropriate
• Include certifications relevant to your work
• Skip clutter that doesn't support your current goals

8. Customize your public profile basics

Even if this isn't the main All-Star factor, it improves professionalism.

Checklist:

• Clean up your profile URL if possible
• Make sure your name is consistent with your professional identity
• Review contact info

9. Add featured content if you have proof of work

Featured is not always required for completeness, but it can improve how persuasive your profile feels.

Good items to feature:

• top posts
• articles
• case studies
• portfolio links
• lead magnets
• talks or interviews

10. Review for keyword alignment and readability

This is where many complete profiles still fall short.

Checklist:

• Use the same core keywords across headline, About, and experience
• Avoid jargon-heavy copy
• Make your value obvious in under 10 seconds
• Remove generic phrases like "results-driven professional"

Which profile sections matter most for LinkedIn profile visibility?

If you need to prioritize, focus here first.

Highest-impact sections

1. Headline

This is one of the strongest visibility and click-through sections because it appears almost everywhere.

2. About

This gives LinkedIn and human readers more context about your expertise.

3. Experience

Experience descriptions support keyword relevance and credibility.

4. Skills

Skills reinforce what you want to be found for.

5. Profile photo

A good photo improves trust and profile engagement, even if it is not a keyword field.

Secondary but helpful sections

• location
• industry
• featured
• education
• certifications
• contact info

If you're short on time, optimize in this order:

1. Photo
2. Headline
3. Current role
4. About
5. Experience
6. Skills

How can I check my LinkedIn profile score or completeness?

There are two practical ways to do this.

Option 1: Use LinkedIn's own completeness cues

LinkedIn may show profile completion prompts or suggestions inside your account. These are useful for spotting missing basics, but they don't always tell you how strong your profile is strategically.

Option 2: Use a profile scoring tool

If you want a faster benchmark, use Dynal's Free Tool: LinkedIn Profile Score.

The purpose of the score is simple: it gives you a shareable LinkedIn profile score, highlights key drivers, and points to quick wins. That makes it useful if you want to understand both:

• whether your profile looks complete
• which sections likely need attention next

A score is not a perfect measurement of career quality. It's a practical way to identify gaps and prioritize improvements.

If you want deeper section-by-section feedback after scoring, a profile review workflow is often the next step.

Step-by-step: How to get closer to All-Star status fast

If you want the fastest path, follow this order.

Step 1: Complete the must-have fields

Add or fix:

• profile photo
• headline
• location
• industry
• current role
• experience
• About section
• skills

Step 2: Rewrite for clarity, not just completeness

Ask:

• Can someone tell what I do in 5 seconds?
• Is my profile built for the roles or clients I actually want?
• Are my main keywords obvious without sounding forced?

Step 3: Add proof

Strengthen credibility with:

• measurable outcomes in experience
• featured work
• relevant certifications

Step 4: Check consistency

Make sure your:

• headline matches your About
• About matches your experience
• skills match your positioning

Step 5: Benchmark and improve

Run your profile through a scoring or review process, fix the highest-priority gaps, then reassess.

Common mistakes that block All-Star-level profiles

Even when profiles are technically complete, these issues weaken visibility and trust.

Mistake 1: A vague headline

Problem: "Founder" or "Marketing Professional" says very little.

Fix: add audience, specialty, and outcome.

Mistake 2: No About section

Problem: you miss a major context field.

Fix: write 3 short paragraphs using the template above.

Mistake 3: Experience with job duties only

Problem: duties don't differentiate you.

Fix: include outcomes, focus areas, and keywords.

Mistake 4: Skills don't match positioning

Problem: LinkedIn gets mixed signals.

Fix: keep skills aligned with your current target role or service.

Mistake 5: Profile is complete but not compelling

Problem: you may meet the baseline but still fail to convert profile views into action.

Fix: improve message clarity, proof, and audience relevance.

A simple 10-minute profile audit

Use this mini audit if you want a fast pass.

Ask yes/no:

• Do I have a clear professional profile photo?
• Does my headline say what I do and who I help?
• Is my current role complete?
• Do I have an About section?
• Does my experience include results or specialties?
• Have I added relevant skills?
• Is my profile aligned to one clear professional direction?
• Would a recruiter or client understand my value quickly?

If you answer "no" to 3 or more of these, your profile likely has obvious improvement opportunities.

All-Star status vs. a strong LinkedIn presence

This is the key trade-off to understand.

All-Star status helps with foundation

It gives you a better baseline profile and can improve discoverability.

But presence comes from more than profile completeness

A strong LinkedIn presence also depends on:

• clear positioning
• consistent posting
• content tied to your expertise
• audience relevance

That's where a profile and content strategy can connect.

If you're building beyond your profile, Dynal is best understood as an AI LinkedIn agent. It helps professionals and teams bring together brand context, content creation, planning, and publishing in one workflow. In Dynal, Brand DNA acts as a structured brand context system, so your LinkedIn content can stay more consistent with how you want to show up.

In other words: your profile earns the click; your content helps build ongoing trust.

Final checklist: what you need for an All-Star-ready profile

Before you leave, make sure you have:

• A clear profile photo
• A keyword-rich headline
• Location and industry filled in
• A current role listed
• Experience entries with specifics
• An About section
• Relevant skills
• Education or certifications if useful
• Featured proof of work if available
• Consistent positioning across every section

Next step

If you want to see where your profile stands, start with Dynal's Free Tool: LinkedIn Profile Score for a quick benchmark and quick-win ideas.

And if you're ready to turn a stronger profile into a more consistent LinkedIn presence, explore Dynal's Onboarding & Setup flow. The LinkedIn-first connection helps you get to a usable starting point faster, with starter brand context you can refine before creating content, planning posts, and moving into approval-first publishing.

A complete profile is a great start. A clear profile plus a steady LinkedIn workflow is what compounds.