GLOSSARY · LINKEDIN MECHANICS
Headline
The headline is the line of text directly under a member's name on LinkedIn, limited to 220 characters. It appears everywhere the name appears: in search results, in the feed next to every post and comment, in connection requests and in messages. By default LinkedIn fills it with the current job title and company, but it can be edited to anything. Because it travels with the name, it is the most-seen piece of personal-branding text a member has, and it is a significant factor in whether someone who sees a comment or post decides to click through to the profile.
How it works in practice
The headline does two jobs that pull in different directions. For search, inside LinkedIn and on Google, it should contain the terms people use when looking for someone like you, such as a role, a specialism and a market. For persuasion, it should tell a stranger in the feed why your opinion is worth their time. A good headline usually combines a plain statement of what you do and for whom with one specific element of proof or position. "Fractional CFO for Series A SaaS. Closed 11 financings in four years" does both: the first clause is searchable and the second gives a reason to click. Weak headlines come in two kinds.
The default title-and-company tells search engines who employs you but tells a reader nothing. The inflated kind, full of adjectives, emoji and vertical bars listing six roles, tells the reader you are not sure what you do. Write it for the person you want to reach, not for peers. Test it by reading your headline next to a comment you left on someone else's post; if a buyer saw only that line, would they want to know more? Change it when your positioning changes, and keep the first 60 or so characters strongest, since mobile and search views truncate the rest.
Example
Before: "Founder & CEO at Northwind | Growth | SaaS | Speaker | Advisor". After: "I help B2B SaaS teams fix onboarding so trials convert. Founder, Northwind. Ex-Intercom."
Common mistake
Stacking job titles separated by bars. It optimises for nothing, because search gets no specific terms and readers get no reason to care.