The short answer

A good LinkedIn profile shows within a few seconds whom you help and why that matters. Four places count most: the headline, the banner image, the first lines of the About section and the "Featured" section. Write everything from your target group's point of view, not like a CV. Below you'll find a complete before/after example.

What distinguishes a profile from a CV?

A CV lists what you've done. A profile has to answer what the visitor gets out of it. A potential customer wants to know: does this person help me with my problem? Are they credible? How do I start a conversation?

Visitors almost always see your profile in the same order: photo and banner, then the headline, then the About section and "Featured". Only after that do they scroll to experience. We go through the elements in exactly this order.

What should the profile photo and banner image look like?

The profile photo should be current and show your face clearly. A neutral background and a friendly look are enough. No holiday photo and no ten-year-old application photo.

The banner image is often forgotten. Yet it's the largest free area in the profile. LinkedIn recommends 1,584 × 396 pixels as JPG or PNG under 8 MB [1]. Instead of a stock photo, a short value proposition belongs here, like at the top of a landing page. Leave space free at the bottom left, where your profile photo sits over the banner.

How do you write a good LinkedIn headline?

"Managing director at Sample Company GmbH" doesn't answer any question a visitor has. A good headline follows this pattern instead: whom you help, with what and, if it fits, how.

The headline appears next to every comment and every request you send. That makes it the text most people read from you. The first words matter most, because LinkedIn cuts the headline off in many places.

What belongs in the first lines of the About section?

LinkedIn only shows the first lines of the About section. After that, visitors have to click "see more". These lines decide whether someone reads on. A structure that has proven itself:

  • Line 1: address your target group directly or name their problem.
  • Then: how you solve the problem and with what result.
  • Evidence: one or two concrete projects, customers or figures.
  • Finally: one simple action, such as "Send me a message".

How do you use the "Featured" section?

Many profiles leave this section empty. Yet according to LinkedIn you can pin your own posts, articles, documents, media and external links there [2]. There's no fixed limit on the number of items [2]. But two to four make sense, so the most important things are at the front.

Good candidates: your strongest post, a case study as a PDF, a customer testimonial as an image or a link to your website. It's the only place in the profile where you decide what visitors see first.

How do you phrase experience as results?

"Responsible for marketing activities" is a task. "Shifted the marketing budget to campaigns with measurable results" is a result. Name at least one concrete success per position. If you're not allowed to name figures publicly, an order of magnitude or a before/after already helps.

How many recommendations and skills do you need?

Recommendations from real customers or colleagues are more credible than any self-description. In our experience, three to five specifically requested recommendations are enough. Ask people to describe a concrete result instead of general pleasantries. For skills: cut the list down to what counts for your target group.

What does this look like in practice? A before/after example

Example (fictional): Sandra runs an IT service provider with twelve people in the Stuttgart region. Her customers are trades businesses. Via LinkedIn she wants to reach owners and office managers of such businesses. This is what her profile could look like before and after:

Headline

Before: "Managing director at Muster IT GmbH"

After: "IT for trades businesses | I make sure office, building site and server simply work | Managing director Muster IT"

Before, only the role is there. After, visitors immediately know whom Sandra works for and which problem she solves. The company name moves to the back.

Banner image

Before: stock photo of a server room in blue.

After: photo of Sandra on a building site with a tablet, next to it the sentence "IT that simply works in the trades. Stuttgart region."

First lines of the About section

Before: "I have been working in the IT industry for over 15 years and during this time have gained wide-ranging experience in networks, servers and support."

After: "Your office is at a standstill because the server is down, and the plans are missing on site? That's exactly what we solve for trades businesses with 5 to 50 employees."

Before, it's about Sandra. After, it's about the reader's problem. The rest of the About section then names services, two customer projects and a simple invitation to talk.

"Featured"

Before: empty.

After: a checklist "IT security in a trades business" as a PDF, a post about a server outage and how it was solved, a link to the website.

Experience

Before: "Management, customer support, project management"

After: "Look after around 40 trades businesses in the region. Introduced a cloud solution that lets site teams call up plans on mobile instead of printing them."

All names and figures in this example are made up. But the pattern behind it is transferable: every element answers a question a customer has, instead of describing a stage in a CV.

Which details are often forgotten?

  • Custom profile URL. Instead of a string of numbers you can choose your own address, such as your name. According to LinkedIn the custom part can be 3 to 100 characters long, without spaces and special characters [3]. You can change it up to five times in six months [3]. The URL belongs on your business card, email signature and website.
  • Contact info. Add your website. Otherwise a prospect has to search for you first.
  • Activity. A good profile without a single post looks abandoned. One post or a few good comments a week are enough to make it look alive. How that works is in the article Social selling & personal brand.

How do you test whether your profile works?

Do the five-second test. Show your profile to someone from your target group for five seconds. Then ask: what does this person do, and for whom? If the answer doesn't come immediately, headline or banner are still too unclear.

After that, real reactions count. In the weeks after the revision, watch two things: are more people accepting your requests? And are people from your target group getting in touch on their own? If both rise, the new profile is working. If not, it's often the target group and not the profile.

What should you leave out of your profile?

  • Empty self-descriptions such as "passionate", "results-driven" or "team player". Everyone writes that, and nobody believes it without evidence.
  • Every position since your training at full length. Old positions can stay short. Go into detail where it counts for your customers today.
  • Long skill lists with dozens of entries. They blur the picture instead of sharpening it.
  • Contradictions with the website. If profile and website name different offers, both come across as uncertain.

The short version as a checklist

  • Current profile photo, face clearly recognisable, neutral background
  • Banner image with a value proposition, 1,584 × 396 pixels, bottom left kept free
  • Headline: whom you help and with what, the most important part in the first words
  • About section: the target group's problem in line 1, then solution, evidence, action
  • Fill "Featured" with two to four strong pieces of content
  • Phrase experience as results, not as tasks
  • Three to five concrete recommendations, skills cut down to the target group