What should a B2B LinkedIn headline say?

Who you help and what changes for them, not your job title. 'Managing Director at Acme' tells a buyer nothing. 'Helping manufacturers reach engineers inside large OEMs' tells them whether to keep reading.

How long should a LinkedIn about section be?

The first two or three lines carry almost all the weight, because that is what shows before 'see more'. Write those as if they are the whole thing, then add detail below for the people who click.

What goes in the Featured section?

Proof. A case study, a results post, a short video, a useful resource. It is the most underused section on LinkedIn and the only one where you control exactly what a visitor sees after the fold.

Should I write my profile in first or third person?

First person. Third person reads as a press release and creates distance exactly where you want closeness. You are trying to sound like someone worth a conversation.

How often should I update my LinkedIn profile?

Whenever the business changes what it sells or who it sells to. Beyond that, the Featured section is worth refreshing quarterly so your best recent proof is what visitors see.

Does profile optimisation actually affect outreach results?

Considerably. When a message lands, the first thing a prospect does is look at who sent it. A thin profile undermines a well-written message, which is why outreach and profile work belong together.

Content

The LinkedIn Profile Playbook for B2B Founders and Executives

Your profile is a landing page, not a CV. What each section should do, in the order a visitor actually reads them, and the three mistakes that cost the most.

By Niall Ratcliffe, Co-founder, noticed. · 6 min read

Published October 23, 2026

Key takeaways

Your profile is a landing page for people deciding whether to reply to you, not a CV for people deciding whether to hire you.
A visitor decides in two or three seconds, and they decide on the photo, the headline and the first line of the about section. Nothing below that matters until those three work.
The headline should say who you help and what changes, not your job title. Your job title tells a buyer nothing they can use.
The about section is read as one paragraph before anyone clicks 'see more'. Put the whole value in that first visible block.
Featured is the most underused section on LinkedIn. It is where proof goes, and most profiles leave it empty.

Most LinkedIn profiles are written as a CV. They should be written as a landing page.

The difference matters because the audience is different. A CV is read by someone deciding whether to hire you. Your profile is read by someone deciding whether to reply to your message, take your call, or keep scrolling. Those people want different things, and only one of them cares where you worked in 2014.

The three seconds that decide it

When someone lands on your profile they make a judgement in about two or three seconds, and they make it on three things: the photo, the headline, and the first visible line of your about section.

Everything else on the page is read only by people those three have already convinced. Which means effort spent on your 2016 job description is effort spent on nobody.

The headline

The default is your job title at your company. It is the single biggest wasted opportunity on LinkedIn, because a title tells a buyer nothing they can act on.

Say who you help and what changes. "Managing Director at Acme Engineering" becomes something closer to "Helping manufacturers reach the engineers who specify their work". One of those is a fact about you. The other is a reason to keep reading.

Keywords matter here too, because LinkedIn search weights the headline heavily. But write for the human first; a headline stuffed with terms reads as exactly that.

The about section

Only the first two or three lines show before "see more", and most people never click it. So those lines have to carry the whole thing.

Start with the problem you solve, in the words your buyer uses for it. Not your origin story, not your philosophy, not a list of what you are passionate about. The detail below is for the minority who clicked, and it is where the proof and the story belong.

Write in first person. Third person reads as a press release and puts distance exactly where you want closeness.

The photo and banner

A clear, current photo where your face is actually visible at thumbnail size. That is the whole brief.

The banner is the largest piece of real estate on the page and most people leave it as the default gradient. It does not need to be designed cleverly. It needs to say what you do, or show a result, or name the clients you work with.

Featured: the section nobody uses

Featured sits directly under your about section and lets you pin anything: a post, a link, a document, a video.

It is the only place on the profile where you control exactly what a visitor sees after the fold, and most profiles leave it empty. Put proof there. A case study with a number in it. A post that performed. A short video of you explaining something useful.

Refresh it quarterly so your best recent work is what people find.

The three mistakes that cost the most

Writing for recruiters. Chronological job history, responsibilities, skills endorsements. All of it optimised for an audience you are not trying to reach.
Hiding the offer. Visitors should be able to tell what you sell and who it is for without clicking anything. Many profiles make this genuinely hard to work out.
Leaving it stale. A profile describing a business you no longer run, with a Featured section from two years ago, tells a prospect something you did not intend.

Why this matters for outreach specifically

When your message lands, the first thing the recipient does is look at who sent it. If the profile is thin, the message is dead regardless of how well it was written.

This is why profile work and outreach belong together rather than in separate projects. The DM playbook covers the message side, and the outreach shortlist compares agencies that handle both.

Frequently asked questions

What should a B2B LinkedIn headline say?: Who you help and what changes for them, not your job title. 'Managing Director at Acme' tells a buyer nothing. 'Helping manufacturers reach engineers inside large OEMs' tells them whether to keep reading.
How long should a LinkedIn about section be?: The first two or three lines carry almost all the weight, because that is what shows before 'see more'. Write those as if they are the whole thing, then add detail below for the people who click.
Does the LinkedIn banner image matter?: It is the largest piece of real estate on the page and most people leave it as the default gradient. It does not need to be clever, it needs to say what you do or show proof.
What goes in the Featured section?: Proof. A case study, a results post, a short video, a useful resource. It is the most underused section on LinkedIn and the only one where you control exactly what a visitor sees after the fold.
Should I write my profile in first or third person?: First person. Third person reads as a press release and creates distance exactly where you want closeness. You are trying to sound like someone worth a conversation.
How often should I update my LinkedIn profile?: Whenever the business changes what it sells or who it sells to. Beyond that, the Featured section is worth refreshing quarterly so your best recent proof is what visitors see.
Does profile optimisation actually affect outreach results?: Considerably. When a message lands, the first thing a prospect does is look at who sent it. A thin profile undermines a well-written message, which is why outreach and profile work belong together.

About the author

Niall Ratcliffe, Co-founder, noticed.

Niall co-founded noticed. in 2022 and has since run LinkedIn content, outreach and strategy programmes for more than 200 B2B companies, from the NHS to Hutchinson Engineering.

LinkedIn Profile, Personal Branding, B2B Executives, LinkedIn