How to Turn Your Banner Into an Opportunity Magnet

Before anyone reads your posts or your About section, their eyes hit your banner. That's why treating it like "decoration" is a huge mistake.

Let's make it work for you.

Build Leverage By Learning:

What you need to know about banners.

How to create the perfect banner, today.

Why are banners so important?

Your LinkedIn banner takes up the most real estate on your profile. It’s basically free advertising.

And yet, so many people let it go to waste.

Maybe they’ll try to make it look nice. But aside from that, their banner doesn’t actually do anything.

When someone lands on your profile, they’re making a judgment about you in 7 seconds.

So in that window, your banner should answer:

What do you do?

Who do you help?

Why should they trust you?

I know it seems like a small visual tweak.

But you’d be surprised at how much it returns in attention, trust, and inbound opportunities.

Example: Chris Donnelly

How to create the perfect banner, today

Making a high-converting banner doesn’t need to be complicated.

In fact, there’s an easy formula you can follow:

• Clear positioning line → what you do + who you help

• Personal image or logo → this’ll act as your recognition anchor

• Social proof → client logos, awards, publications

• Call-to-action → e.g. “DM me for consulting”, “Sign up to my newsletter”

If you need a head start, we have some great templates in our LinkedIn Starter Pack.

(Go to Tools & Resources → Design Vault → Open them in Figma)

Templates from our LinkedIn Starter Pack

Let's break down a few examples...

Book (or product) banners

This first one by Richard Harpin is a great example of how to optimally use this space to promote a product, such as a book:

The value (and title of the book), "How to Make a Billion in 9 Steps", is clearly outlined front and centre.

The book is positioned on the right side of the banner, where it won't be covered by his profile picture.

The CTA, 'Order it on Amazon', clearly shows where you can buy it.

The publication logos at the bottom give social proof and credibility to his brand.

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Lead Magnet banners

If you have a lead magnet

you want people to download, this example by Alvin Huang is a great one to follow:

A picture of the lead magnet's landing page is included for credibility (again positioned optimally so it won't be covered by his profile picture).

What you're getting (aka the value) is clearly stated: "tried-and-tested startup scaling frameworks"

A simple and brief CTA shows where you can download the lead mag: "Get the vault for FREE in my featured section."

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Newsletter banners

For promoting something like a newsletter, let's look at Rohan Sheth's banner:

"Join 81,000+ receiving weekly guidance on how to become a top 1% networker & increase your income" tells readers the value and gives social proof.

The mockup displaying the newsletter gives readers a preview of what they're getting and creates a sense of credibility.

The list of publications is further social proof and builds trust with the reader.

I'm sure you're starting to see patterns here.

The bottom line is, every element within a banner (no matter how small) has a purpose and needs to be placed intentionally.

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Some questions you probably have...

Q: I don’t have big logos or media features. What should I use for credibility?

A: Use what you have. Quotes from client testimonials, industry-specific results, even showcasing a niche you work in builds trust.

Q: Isn’t this only relevant if I’m actively selling something?

A: Not at all. Even if you’re just building trust, applying for jobs or growing your network, your banner tells people what you’re about. If you don’t shape your story, they’ll make one up for you.

Q: Isn’t it better to keep my banner clean and simple?

A: Clean and simple is fine. But blank is a missed opportunity. Your banner is prime real estate - use it to guide attention, build trust and show people they’re in the right place.

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From My Notes

You probably noticed that in the previous section, we broke down 3 different types of banners.

That's because there's huge value in treating banners like campaign assets and making them part of your content strategy.

In other words, designing several banners that reflect whatever you’re pushing right now:

Promoting a lead magnet? Use the banner to highlight the ‘free download’

Launching a course? Turn your banner into a sign-up ad

Growing a newsletter? The banner drives people to subscribe

Take Chris Donnelly's account, for example.

Whenever he's promoting sign-ups for a new cohort of The Creator Accelerator, he'll use a TCA sales banner for that period of time.

That way, when people click on his profile, their attention isn't scattered elsewhere, and he has a higher chance of converting them.

Equally, for periods where he's primarily focused on growing his newsletter, Chris will use this banner instead:

We constantly switch between these two depending on what his current goals are.

This is why the value of banners shouldn't be overlooked; they can be a key part of your content strategy, and help tailor your profile so that it's most optimised for conversions.

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If you're doing outbound, your banner's part of the pitch.

If you're building authority, it's part of the trust.

Make sure it’s pulling its weight.

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Until next time,

​Nader