What is a LinkedIn banner?

So, how can one possibly hope to stand out in a sea of business people and professionals?

There’s one thing that’s been constantly overlooked by as much as 90% of LinkedIn users, and that is a cover photo, a so-called LinkedIn banner. 

That is the first thing, besides the profile picture, that someone sees while looking at your LinkedIn profile. 

And since people can remember 80% of what they saw and only 20% of what they read, that paints a clear picture of how important visual help is. 

This is true for both individual profiles, as it is for company ones, so it’s very important to create a LinkedIn banner if you wish to elevate yourself above the others.

Why do you need a LinkedIn banner?

What you choose to put on a cover photo can help you draw visitors’ attention by establishing and elevating your brand. 

So there are some questions that you should answer in order to maximize the impact of a banner on your target audience. 

Both beginners and pros can reap the benefits of a well-thought and professional-looking banner.

Answer these questions about your business

If you’re just starting with LinkedIn, the important questions you should ask yourself are: 

• Does my intended message get through, does it hit the mark? 

• Am I getting through to the right people, can my intended audience find my profile? 

• Are the right people reaching out to me, and responding to my CTAs (Call To Actions)? 

After finding answers to those questions, ask yourself this: 

• What is your target audience?

• How do you want to address them, and present yourself?

• What can you offer them, what are your products, and your values?

After gathering all these answers you should sift through them all and decide what you want to highlight. 

Think about something that will most likely resonate with your targeted audience and make them respond to your CTA.

What should be on a banner?

A banner should represent your business and/or values in visual and written form. 

The most effective banners are the ones that are not overcrowded with text and images, to avoid overwhelming the audience. 

More simple, but a well-thought approach should work. 

If done properly, banner visuals will help visitors associate simple, clean images with your brand, business, or aspiring job at first glance. 

Here’s an example:

Followed by text that in a few simple lines can tell all the crucial information about who are you, what you do, your important achievements in the field, and in some instances, what your values are.

After putting all the answers to relevant questions on one pile, it should be decided what’s important enough to go up on a banner and what must be discarded. 

Therefore it’s important that your LinkedIn banner image is of high quality, which means high-resolution images, clear fonts, the right size and format, and well-chosen colors. 

It would be great if your profile picture and a banner go well together, like two parts of a whole.

Choose your banner type

These are the things that will help you in decision of what your banner should look like. 

Here are some of the most popular choices, and when should you consider using them.

1. Color or a Texture of your brand

Sometimes simplicity can speak volumes. 

Just because you want to change the default blue color of the LinkedIn banner, does not mean that you need to go further than to put a new color, or a texture instead. 

It will still help separate you from the others. If you already have your brand colors, all the better.

2. Your picture (while doing their job)

A good idea to let a potential customer or an employer see them in their element. A speaker that is talking, holding the microphone, or in the middle of explaining something. Or a writer in the middle of writing, etc. It explains in a second what the person does before someone even reads the text. It’s often seen in combination with some geometric shapes and brand colors.

3. Picture of your team or customers (usually for company profiles)

A picture of people from your company or a community, of customers, clients, etc. can help present a higher level of care. 

These types of LinkedIn banner pictures are trying to show that you or your company cares for individuals or a group. 

It’s a good choice for businesses that deal directly with people, and want to say that they have a positive impact on their clients' or coworkers’ lives.

4. Your Product or Service

Someone’s offer - a laptop, pen and paper, code, charts, digital product, and similar can be often seen on banners because many companies and people use these things on daily basis. 

A picture of a code is immediately associated with the IT industry, charts with finances, and so on. 

The same goes for businesses that feature their products. 

This saves valuable time when someone’s looking through LinkedIn profiles, looking for these businesses. 

The details are in the text on the banner, further explaining what precisely this person/company does or sells.

How to Create a LinkedIn Banner?

When creating a LinkedIn banner, you must be careful with a few things - the size, format, and placement of the text and profile picture. 

First is the size. LinkedIn has been changed resolution several times from the beginning until now, but for 2023 the numbers are these:

• LinkedIn banners for company profiles - 1536 x 768 pixels 

• LinkedIn banners for personal profiles - 1584 x 396 pixels

The format for the banner should be 8MB max:

• JPEG (photos)

• PNG (illustrations)

Another thing to pay attention to is the position of the text on a banner. 

After you upload it on the LinkedIn profile, your profile picture will go over the banner and might hide parts of the text behind it. 

So make sure not to put any text on the parts that will be covered by the profile picture. 

Easily create a banner for LinkedIn using Glorify

You can type in the exact properties needed or can use LinkedIn banner templates that are in the optimal size already. 

But those are run-of-the-mill ones, and if you want to make yourself noticeable, you should opt for something as simple to use but with more options. 

This is where Glorify can help a lot. 

Whether you’re a designer or not, this design software is “crazy easy to use” (a quote from our user). 

To create a banner for LinkedIn, and help you stand out among typical cover images, what you need to do is:

1. Create an account for free and navigate to the LinkedIn banner images(here you don’t need to enter the cover size, it’s already predefined).

2. Select a template from the library, or upload an image that you wish.

3. Easily change whatever you would like (it’s 10x easier to use than Photoshop)

And that’s it.

You can use the ever-growing library of templates, high-resolution images, illustrations, and animations across all important platforms. 

It will help you save a lot of time and money going with this option, increasing visibility, connection requests, and sales conversion. 

No need to hire a professional designer to create a LinkedIn banner for you, while you can easily do it yourself.

‍Create your free account now and craft a LinkedIn cover photo, or any social media graphics within a few minutes.