Your Headline Is the Most Important Real Estate on Your LinkedIn Profile

Your headline is arguably the most important part of your LinkedIn profile. 

• Your headline is is the first thing people see when you send a connection request
• It’s the first section they’ll read on your profile
• It’s searchable, and helps you get found when people search for keywords
• It shows up every time you post, comment or engage on LinkedIn

Here’s my LinkedIn headline. “There's a better way to book sales calls and fill your pipeline via LinkedIn. No pushy tactics, no cold calling, #nobots. CEO, PropelGrowth”

It’s obvious that I'm specifically talking to salespeople and small business owners, because I lead with booking sales calls. Then I explain my differentiator - book sales calls without using pushy tactics, cold calls or bots. And I include “via LinkedIn” to make it clear that I’m talking about engaging people on LinkedIn.

Your LinkedIn Headline Attracts Your Specific Target Audience

I’m using this LinkedIn headline to attract a very specific audience…people responsible for sales and revenue who want to take a more human-to-human approach to sales. 

My headline will repel people who aren’t interested in sales or who believe in pushy, spammy sales tactics. And that’s just fine. Because they’re not my target audience. It serves to winnow out those people, so I can connect and engage with people who share my mindset about sales.

Your Headline Should Speak to Your Prospect’s Goals

Notice that my headline speaks to my target prospect’s goals and aspirations rather than focusing on what I do. I could say I’m a LinkedIn trainer. But that doesn’t spell out the value as clearly.  

So when you’re composing your headline, make it about your target audience and the outcomes they’re looking for. 

Your Headline Will Attract Your Target Audience

As I mentioned above, your headline shows up everywhere you engage on LinkedIn. For example, here’s how I show up anytime I comment on someone’s LinkedIn post.  

My headline works in conjunction with my comment to help attract prospects who come across that post in their feed. It makes them curious. So they click my name to view my profile. There, they’ll have the opportunity to learn more about my services and outcomes my clients obtain. 

 Every week, I get several invitations to connect from people who saw my comment and headline, checked out my profile, and reached out to ask me about LinkedIn and my services. 

My LinkedIn Headline Helps Start Conversations

My LinkedIn headline It also helps me to start conversations with connections via DM (LinkedIn direct message). 

When I send connection requests, my headline is the first thing prospects will use to decide whether they want to connect with me. 

Once they connect, I engage with them via DM. I don't need to pitch them or explain what I do. My headline and profile handles that in the background. So I can just focus on topics that my prospect is interested in discussing. 

Conversations Naturally Migrate to the Topic of My Headline

Interestingly, because my headline is attracting the right people, conversations naturally migrate to selling on LinkedIn. There’s two reasons for this: 

1. The audience I want to talk to is INTERESTED in social selling on LinkedIn. I’m targeting them deliberately.
2. My headline is a conversation starter related to something super important to them…sales.

When I get prospects on the phone or Zoom for our first meeting, I usually open the conversation by asking them to tell me a bit about their background, current situation and the challenges they’re facing. 

Almost invariably, they start talking about their sales challenges and their desire to use LinkedIn to find prospects. They already know that’s what I’m about, and they want to get my insight. 

I don’t have to force the conversation in that direction. 

Tune Your LinkedIn Headline Toward Your Prospect’s Needs

So don't overlook your headline. If you tune it to talk specifically about your prospects’ challenges and desired outcomes, you will see similar results. 

If you’re not sure what to write, call up a few of your recent clients. Ask them what attracted them to you, what problems they were trying to solve, and what outcomes they obtained or hope to obtain. Write down what they say. You’ll find the right language in their words.

About the Author: Candyce Edelen is founder of PropelGrowth, where she teaches B2B entrepreneurs and sales professionals to build authentic, human-to-human relationships on LinkedIn. Her strategies have helped clients shift from spammy automation to genuine outreach, resulting in higher-quality leads and increased sales. Candyce is passionate about helping professionals build trust and create a reliable, predictable sales pipeline. She's also a firm believer that you can't automate a relationship.