Nail Your Headline to Attract More Opportunities
Elevator pitches. Taglines. Slogans. Hooks. What's all the hype around your LinkedIn profile headline?
Unless you already have more inbound opportunities than you could ever possibly want from LinkedIn, it's time you revisited your profile headline.
As experts, we realize the importance of first impressions, which is exactly what your headline is for those who don't already know you.
Nail it? You will auto-magically be perceived as the go-to expert in your niche.
Miss the mark? You either look like everyone else in your industry, or worse, nobody knows what the heck you actually do!
In this Mondays with Mindi session, we went "back to basics" to discuss the best ways we can nail our headline as experts, so that we can start appearing in the right searches and attracting new perfect-fit opportunities.
Hint: If your profile views are a bit lower than they should be, your headline is the FIRST place to troubleshoot 🧐
Your LinkedIn Headline is TL;DR for Experts
LinkedIn headlines are one of the most important sections of your entire LinkedIn profile. If it’s just a little bit off, your entire LinkedIn strategy can fall flat. Yes, really.
I’ve seen it happen time and again. I won’t even work with a new 1:1 client on other aspects of their LinkedIn program UNTIL we fix their headline… I don’t have enough LinkedIn magic potion to make up for a poor headline.
No matter how good your messaging is, how professional your headshot, whether you have a logo for your company, whether you have the best messaging on the planet… your headline is the linchpin to making it all work.
For those of my non-marketing experts out there (raise your hands - I see you!) taglines, hooks and elevator pitches can feel a bit trite. Even a bit unimportant because they are just marketing jargon.
Well, most of your customers and clients are humans I’d imagine, and we respond to short snippets of words and phrases that give us the tl;dr version of ourselves as experts.
Our goal as experts is to make it as easy as possible for our target audience to figure out WHO we are and WHAT we do using WORDS that make sense to them.
To do that effectively, you’re going to need to start thinking differently about your headline. Stop cutting corners or copying a competitors’ headline because you’re unsure what to do here.
Make this tagline as unique (yet understandable) as you are, so that your people can figure out in a maximum of 2-3 seconds whether or not you’re a person of interest to them.
Nailing your headline will unlock other possibilities for you on LinkedIn when you know exactly what needs fixing and how to sprinkle in a bit of your personality here. All right, let’s do this!
Why Keyword-Stuffing Your Headline Doesn’t work
Every week I review at least a half dozen or more LinkedIn profiles to provide strategic guidance and feedback on what they can do to land their next opportunity, whether that’s to get their next job, book more clients, attract more inbound leads or build their personal brand.
One of the most common mistakes I see with their profile opening is what I call “keyword stuffing the headline” to get all the right keywords in the headline for search purposes.
The theory goes like this: create a list of keywords that your ideal audience or market would be searching for on LinkedIn, and then mash them all together in your headline to be sure you’re one of the first people to show up at the top of that search.
I’ve even seen people stuff these keywords into their first and last name area, which looks *really* desperate to any potential connection!
The problem is that those keywords only go so far. Most other experts in your industry are very likely doing the exact same thing, which means it’s not helping you.
You may be showing up somewhere in a long list of searched terms, but are you showing up at the top? Probably not, unless your keywords are not very popular, which defeats the purpose.
Instead of trying to stuff ALL of the keywords in your headline, there’s something that I teach inside The LinkedIn Accelerator program where you will select a max of 2-3 keywords or phrases and then figure out how to weave them naturally into your headline area.
When someone reads your headline, it should roll off their tongue and make complete sense to them if they’re your target audience.
If it feels like they’re reading a list of keywords, they’ll hop over to one of your competitors immediately if they even look at your profile at all.
Your job is to hook them with the headline and pull them through the rest of your profile.
For those of you in the digital creator space who create sales pages, webinars or opt-ins -- you know exactly what I mean. You put a great promise at the top of your page with that CTA above the fold, with an intention to get them to scroll through your page… and opt in!
Think of your headline as that big, bold promise at the top of your LinkedIn profile. Grab them there, and keep them reading!
Your Headline Is Your Promise
Following up on that idea of the headline as your promise at the top of your LinkedIn profile, what should go here?
When someone lands on your profile for the first time, they should instantly know who you are, what you do, how you help people and what you actually deliver.
If any of these elements are unclear, you risk losing them.
I don’t know about you, but I love a good, clear headline! Whether or not it resonates with me as a potential client or connection or follower is determined by the promise in that headline.
As an expert in your field, there is something VERY specific that you do. You may have a ton of competitors, but you have a DIFFERENT way of approaching the same problem. This is what you need to tease and get across in your headline.
If you look just like everyone else or copy someone’s tagline, you’re not going to generate the new opportunities you were hoping for on LinkedIn.
This promise needs to be accurate and also be crafted for your LinkedIn audience. I know a number of you have various offerings for different markets - sometimes having a B2B and a B2C side of your business - this headline should be geared towards your LinkedIn people.
Don’t just grab your Instagram bio and plop it onto LinkedIn because more likely than not, your audience here might be just a tad more professional or if they are the same people, they are in a different headspace on LinkedIn than Instagram.
Match your tone to the platform. Keep it professional on LinkedIn, while also teasing a bit more of your personality here. We’re not looking for a corporatized robot -- we still want to connect with a human, so not too stuffy.
Nailing Your LinkedIn Headline Formula
If you haven’t sat down to think deeply about your headline, it’s high time that you do so as an expert. Too many experts just “start talking” about concepts and ideas that seem to be all over the place for their audience on their profile. There’s not a common thread that ties them all together.
As an expert, your job is to make whatever your area of expertise is as simple, straightforward and streamlined as possible. That means people should be able to read JUST your LinkedIn headline without wondering what type of expert you are, what problems you solve, who your target market is, and how you can help them.
If there’s anything unclear about your headling and you make people think too hard about categorizing you, you’ve already lost them. It’s got to be crystal clear, even when you think it should be more complex or you want to be seen as this multi-passionate person.
As an expert on LinkedIn, you represent the ONE thing you want to be known for. Until you develop irrefutable expertise in that ONE thing, you don’t add a bunch of other seemingly unrelated themes to your headline. Got it?
Let’s talk about the four elements that every LinkedIn headline should have!
#1 - Who You Are
We start with your job title here. Make sure it’s understandable and not too creative, so it doesn’t confuse your audience.
What is your title? What do you want it to be? Are there certain keywords here that are critical for LinkedIn search?
Some people are a bit more straightforward here, while others like to be a bit more creative to pique interest.
#2 - Whom You Help
This is usually a bit more straightforward because you should know who your target audience is. Be specific here, especially if you're getting ready to promote a new service, reach out for one-to-one conversations, or launch a book or product. Call them out here!
#3 - How You Help Them
You may need to think about this section a bit because "how you help" may change and evolve over time. I like to revisit mine every six months or so.
Think about what you're doing NOW or what you're planning/gearing up to do moving FORWARD. This should be current and not something you used to do.
Choose powerful keywords - try not to look like everyone else, just say it differently if you need to, without losing clarity.
This may seem obvious, but as experts it’s easy to get sidetracked and call out things that are “trendy” in the industry, but if someone actually asked to SOLVE that problem for them, is this really what you do best? Don’t go for buzzwords if it’s not accurate!
The rest of your LinkedIn profile should reinforce that you solve THIS problem with a SPECIFIC methodology or approach, and ideally include examples or scenarios and results that you can point to that verify you’re the expert. Keep that in mind.
#4 - Results You Generate
If your “how you help them” section already includes the results you generate, you may not need to be as specific here.
If and when it makes sense to call out the results you generate, do that here. For example, if you have an offer that gets people results in 30 days (and it’s not got that gimmicky feeling!) - you might want to mention it here.
Does this take time to nail your headline? Yes, I find that most people play with a few iterations before settling on one to test.
So there you have it!
Let’s recap what you need to get clear on to determine your messaging strategy:
Who you are
Whom you help
How you help them
Results you generate
If you’re ready to get started with LinkedIn and take the next step to optimize your profile once and for all, so you can start growing your network on the regular or land your next opportunity, join me inside The LinkedIn Accelerator program which is opening in early April!
What additional questions do you have about nailing your LinkedIn profile headline? If you want to see some really great headlines - DM me or leave a comment below. I’m happy to share what this looks like in real life. Leave your comments below or shoot me a private message. I’m happy to answer them👇!
