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Your face clearly visible, decent light, no sunglasses, and nobody else in the frame. Everything after that is refinement.
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Outdoors, in shade, on an overcast day, or an hour before sunset. Overhead indoor light is the single most common thing making otherwise fine photos look bad.
You do not need a camera. A recent phone in good light beats a DSLR in bad light every time.
Selfies are constrained to arm's length, which flattens features and eliminates context. A friend standing three metres away with your phone solves both.
Take far more than you need. A useful hit rate is one in twenty.
Once you have the clear face photo, the rest should carry information: where you go, what you do, who you are around.
The goal is that someone can imagine an afternoon with you. Six well-lit portraits do not achieve that.
Sunglasses in the lead photo. Mirror and car selfies. Group shots first. Heavy filters. Photos with an obvious ex cropped out. Anything more than about two years old.
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