No, not like in a bank loan, but as in how long someone spends reading your profile, or not.

I was answering questions in another of my “Ask Me Anything” sessions and someone started his question with the assumption that the first thing a reader sees on your LinkedIn profile is your About section.

Nope. I had to answer politely yet firmly.

About is more likely to be the fourth step instead of the presumed initial step. Fourth.

Only if the reader likes what they are reading and is stuck to your brand in your 1) Banner, 2) Headshot, 3) Headline, will they reach your About. Yes, we buy with our eyes, and we engage with our hearts and minds. Mostly our hearts, as Lois Geller wrote so long ago.

So keep their interest, make sure you are speaking to them as if they wanted to know more about you with every word and nuance you drop.

Keep them on your straight and narrow highway. That-a-way, please.

It’s one step at a time, one keyword mentioned, in context of why you do what you do, all in a swirl of personality and emotional cues that drive their intellectual curiosity about you. You want them to read as far down in to your profile as you can get them to.

Not veer off to look at “other similar profiles” that LinkedIn shows on the right hand rail next to your profile.

If they stray, they will likely not come back to you. Keep their interest, to the exclusion of all other distraction.

That’s an accomplishment in itself, and if they engage with you beyond that, it’s LinkedIn’s brand of nirvana.

That is, so long as you on zoom or on the phone are equally as stimulating as what they read on each iterative stepping stone in your profile. That part’s up to you.