Checklist
✅ Add a cover image
✅ Choose a cover image style that is relevant to your industry, employer or business
✅ When adding text to the cover image, add up to 10 words and focus on one message
✅ For premium users: create a slideshow cover image to
How to optimize
Add a cover image
It’s best practice to have a cover image, as recommended by LinkedIn. If you don’t have one, upload your own or select one of LinkedIn’s default covers by clicking the pencil icon at the top right corner of the cover image section on your profile.
What image to use
Common options are
- Just image: If you prefer to use just an image, choose one that reflects your work or is related to your industry.
- Image + text: If you want to include text in your cover image, limit it to 10 words or fewer. People tend to skip over images cluttered with text, this is your chance to deliver one clear, strong message.
When adding a cover image with text, make sure the text isn’t covered by your profile picture.
Test how it looks on both desktop and mobile. - Company image: copy the company-branded cover image of the CEO or the company page (though pages and profiles has different dimensions, so it might not fit). It's a common practice, especially in tech companies
Get inspired
Go browsing. Look at 5-10 other people’s cover images to find a style you like.
Check out colleagues (they might use a company-branded background you like), influential figures, or people in similar professions (and consider connecting with them).
Examples of interesting cover images:
Stay consistent
Across your profile, the background image should look well and in the same theme as the profile picture and the featured posts
LinkedIn Premium feature: sliding cover
Try the cover slider feature, you can add up to 3 images as your cover. To add a sliding cover, click on the pencil to edit the cover image and choose Create Slideshow
.gif)
What to optimize next
Next, optimize your headline