The 265-character cut
LinkedIn truncates the About section at roughly 265 characters, and that is the only part most visitors see before deciding whether to expand. Everything you care about has to be inside that window.
The practical consequence is that your primary keyword and your core value proposition need to be in the first two sentences, not in a warm-up. Many people open with a paragraph about their passion for their industry, which is precisely the content that gets hidden behind the cut.
The headline is a separate and stronger signal. It appears in search results, connection requests, comments and messages, which makes it the highest-leverage 220 characters on your profile.
Writing for LinkedIn search without sounding like a keyword list
Recruiters search LinkedIn by keyword, so the terms they would use need to appear on your profile. The skill is placing them where they read naturally, rather than stacking them into a comma-separated list that no human would write.
The right place for keyword density is the Skills section, which is indexed and where a list is expected. The About section needs a lighter touch: one or two natural mentions of the primary term and the rest carried by the headline and skills.
Each result includes a keyword check that tells you which of your target terms made it in naturally and which could not be placed without sounding forced. Terms that could not be placed belong in Skills instead.
First person or third person
First person is the default for most professionals and reads as more approachable. It suits people who want clients, collaborators or a network.
Third person reads as more formal and is conventional for executives, board members and some academic and legal roles. It creates a slight distance that can read as authority in those contexts and as stiffness everywhere else.
If you are unsure, use first person. A third-person profile written by the person themselves can read as though it was assembled by a publicist, which is not always the impression you want.
Matching the profile to what you want it to do
A job-search profile should lead with role, scope and outcomes, and make it easy for a recruiter to see the fit in the first line. A client-acquisition profile should lead with the problem you solve and who you solve it for. An authority profile should lead with what you are known for, which usually means a specific point of view rather than a job title.
The goal setting changes which of your achievements get emphasised and what the closing call to action asks for. A job-search profile should end by naming the kind of role you want, because recruiters filter on exactly that.