LinkedIn is an important social media site for businesses looking to connect with prospective employees, other businesses, and potential customers. But with limited real estate on your LinkedIn business page, you need to use every opportunity to hook your audience.
One crucial component of a LinkedIn business page is its banner. Here, we’ll explore what makes for an intriguing small business LinkedIn banner and share resources to help you create one.
Contents
- What is a LinkedIn banner?
- What makes a great small business LinkedIn banner?
- Small business LinkedIn banner examples to inspire you
- Small business LinkedIn banner templates to try
What is a LinkedIn banner?
At the top of each LinkedIn business page, you’ll find two images. One is a small square, where brands typically feature their full logo, wordmark, or logo symbol. The second is the LinkedIn banner—a long, wide image that spans the top of the page.
Adding the right image to your LinkedIn banner, like this plumbing company did, will give your business page a finished, professional look.
The logo square is easy for most business owners to populate. You already have a logo on hand; it’s just a matter of uploading it to the site.
The LinkedIn banner, however, can be a bit more enigmatic. It is open-ended, which allows for creativity. But it can also create some confusion—you want to take advantage of this visual space, but what does an effective banner look like?
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What makes a great small business LinkedIn banner?
We’re so glad you asked. There is room for some creative license, but all great LinkedIn banners share a few characteristics.
- Proper sizing: LinkedIn recommends creating an image that’s 1128 (w) x 191 (h) pixels. Use these dimensions to ensure your banner doesn’t look squished, stretched, or grainy.
- Brand cohesion: Let your brand kit guide your banner choice, and stick to your established color palette, font, and image styles to ensure it properly represents your business.
- A clear message: The LinkedIn banner occupies prime real estate on the business page. Ensure you’re using this space to make a statement about your brand! We’ll explore what that might look like below.
- Simplicity: Give your banner some support. Focus on conveying one simple message, and use the remaining space on the page to elaborate on it.
Fragrance and candle company Boy Smells leads with a beautiful photo that showcases products and the brand’s millennial pink color scheme.
What does an exemplary small business LinkedIn banner look like? Read on for examples to spark your imagination.
10 small business LinkedIn banner examples to inspire you
There is no one right way to design your LinkedIn banner. The examples below all share the four features of a great banner that we discussed above, but they do it with their own unique twist.
Let’s explore the angles these small businesses use to say something special about their brand through their LinkedIn banners.
1. Showcase the team
One benefit many small businesses deliver to their clients is personal touch. Instead of the distanced, mechanical experience a client might have with a giant organization, small businesses deliver warm, direct, personal relationships.
So, why not showcase your team in your LinkedIn banner? Give visitors a look at the individuals who power your brand to signal that you take professional relationships seriously.
Marketing agency CTP has created a cover image that features its brand colors and a cohesive collection of headshots that show off a polished, friendly, and approachable team.
2. Share the value proposition
Never miss out on an opportunity to get your brand’s value proposition out there right away!
A value proposition communicates the benefit you bring to customers that they can’t get anywhere else. This powerful statement hooks readers and compels them to discover more about you.
In this example, RightCapital has opted for a simple visual design that places its value proposition dead-center, right under its logo. “Make financial planning a breeze” is a persuasive promise that is sure to draw in financial advisors looking for a software solution that makes their work easier.
The marketing team gets bonus points for their visually pleasing inversion of the color palette between the logo and banner!
👋 A great LinkedIn banner will boost your brand awareness. Learn more ways to do it in The Definitive Guide to Brand Awareness: Top Strategies, Examples & How to Measure Success
3. Lead with a trust signal
Your LinkedIn page is discoverable by all sorts of people—those who know your brand and others who are seeing it for the first time.
Another way to entice new visitors to get to know you better is to feature a trust signal in your small business LinkedIn banner.
Trust signals come in several forms, including:
- Accreditations or professional organizational memberships
- Customer reviews or testimonials
- Professional guarantees
- Longstanding business history
- Industry accolades
In this example, the Construction Industry Institute leads with its standing in the industry. The brand is celebrating 40 years since its founding and features this exciting milestone in its banner.
Longevity is a trust signifier—you don’t end up in business for nearly half a century by accident. Showcasing this number at the top of its LinkedIn page establishes CII’s legitimacy for new visitors.
4. Brag a little
Who doesn’t love a humble brag?
Industry accolades and awards are another major signal of trust, and there’s nothing wrong with sharing an impressive win in your LinkedIn banner. The key here is to keep things current. You may run an award-focused banner for a set period but don’t keep the same message up there forever. If your accolade is more than a couple of years old, it can read as stale rather than impressive.
This example from Connelly Partners features its win for Best Agency Culture, as named by industry titan Ad Age. It’s a big thing for a small agency to be honored; this is certainly banner-worthy news.
5. Let a photo do the talking
Sometimes, simplicity is the answer. A beautifully-composed photo can invite viewers in and encourage them to look further down your LinkedIn page for more information.
This photo from Wofford College checks all the boxes. It captures the campus on a sunny, early autumn day, and the leaves in the trees perfectly match the school’s gold logo below.
While the banner image itself is wordless, the tagline below it is a killer value proposition: “Best value liberal arts college known for academic rigor, outstanding faculty, global learning, and successful graduates.”
6. Make it easy to get in touch
LinkedIn is great for making connections on the platform, but what if you want people to reach out through other channels? Your banner is a perfect place to share alternative contact information.
This example from Construction Information Services cuts right to the chase. Its banner invites visitors to reach out directly to the sales team about subscription packages and shares the requisite contact information.
7. Create a cohesive story across the page
Your banner does not exist in a vacuum. It lives in the context of your entire business page. Creating a small business LinkedIn banner that flows effortlessly into other elements is a next-level design move.
Take this example from Flourish. The banner image is quite simple and beautiful, with small, colorful dots of data dancing horizontally across the space. The dots create a visual link to the brand’s logo, which features an asterisk. And both visual elements reinforce the brand’s value proposition: “Beautiful, easy, powerful data visualization.”
Taken all together, you get a cohesive, appealing, and effective page that invites you to continue scrolling to learn more.
8. Try a logo remix
You can never say your business name too many times. The more people hear and see it, the more likely they are to recognize your brand and remember you the next time they need your product or service.
Adding your logo to your banner image is certainly an option to reinforce your brand name and look.
If you include your logo, ensure it’s a little different from the one you’ve used in the square logo box below. Repeating the same image takes away from its visual power.
To mix things up, you may use your wordmark in your logo box and the full logo in your banner. Or, you can do what Mr. Rooter did in this example and use different variations of the full logo—one with red text, one with white.
9. Show off products
If your business sells a product, consider featuring it in your LinkedIn banner. This won’t be the right fit for every product-based business. If you manufacture and sell PVC piping, that might not lend itself to a visual feature. But for those in retail, hospitality, or any other consumer-facing brand, images of your offering can be a strong visual hook.
Consider this example from jewelry brand Alexis Bittar. Its molten gold earrings give viewers a strong sense of Bittar’s aesthetic and add literal and figurative sparkle to the top of its LinkedIn page.
10. Highlight the latest offering
When you’ve got a new product or service to tout, your LinkedIn banner is a perfect place to do it.
Highlighting your latest offering at the top of your page draws attention to it for new and existing customers alike. Leading with something new signals to people unfamiliar with the brand that you’re always innovating. For existing customers, it alerts them to something new from a business they already like and trust.
In this example, RMS Beauty shows off its tinted moisturizer for the summer months. They’ve even carried through the visuals of the swirling product from the banner into the logo image.
Small business LinkedIn banner templates
Feeling fired up and ready to create a captivating LinkedIn banner all your own? The good news is dozens of free or low-cost marketing tools exist to make designing social media images a breeze.
We’ve gathered some of our favorite templates from popular tools and platforms. One might suit your brand.
- For a professional services business, try a bird’s-eye view of a modern, clean desktop. Get the template.
- A sleek, geometric theme suits a buttoned-up brand. Consider using the bones of this template and swapping in an image that fits your industry. Get the template.
- A template with a large visual image on the left leaves space for your brand’s value proposition on the right. Get the template.
- A bold, modern layout leaves room for your logo on the right and contact information below. Swap out the image and switch the colors of the criss-cross stripes to meet your brand guidelines. Get the template.
- A simple template leaves room for your value proposition on the right. The sleek, modern design would suit a wide range of B2B businesses. Get the template.
- Create a collage of images that mean something for your brand. This is great for a B2C business looking to feature a range of products. Get the template.
- A simple color block design allows you to customize the hues to suit your brand. Add your business name or value proposition in the center. Get the template.
- Bright and colorful, this one could suit a solopreneur (as it’s designed to do), or you could swap out the headshot and name for a product photo and business name. Get the template.
Put in the work on your small business LinkedIn banner
It might take some time to find a banner design that truly suits your brand, and that’s okay! One of the biggest perks of digital marketing is that it’s easy to make adjustments, change your mind, or try something totally new.
Test out different LinkedIn banner approaches to see what works for you. And remember, even if you have a banner you already love, you may change it to highlight new offerings, celebrate a milestone business anniversary, or share exciting news about an accolade you’ve received.
When you invest in creating an effective LinkedIn banner, you establish a solid presence for your brand on a platform that’s vital for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
