What the Strongest LinkedIn Profiles Have in Common.

The strongest LinkedIn profiles share a few habits: most are verified, their headlines are shorter, fewer of them use “I help”, and most put a number in their About section.

That is what the Data from our own research shows across 344 profiles of prominent LinkedIn writers.

That matters for any linkedin profile optimisation advice built on figures like these. A profile cannot be tested against itself, so none of this proves that a badge or a shorter headline made anyone strong. It shows what the strongest accounts have in common, which is a different and more honest claim.

How the profiles were measured

We collected every public post from 346 prominent LinkedIn writers, 74,119 posts in all, on 10 September 2026. The writers were chosen in September 2026 in two groups: people widely read for how they write, whatever their subject, and people who work in social media and marketing.

For each profile we read the headline, the About text, the experience entries, the follower and connection counts, the verified, Premium and Top Voice badges, creator mode as the profile recorded it, the creator hashtags, the website link, education, certifications, the top skills shown and the banner.

Engagement here means reactions plus comments on a post. For each author we took the median, the figure for their typical post, so one big hit does not set the number. The 44 authors with the highest typical engagement are the “strongest” group, and we compared them with all 344 profiles that the profile comparison covers.

The caveat on every row

The strongest authors are much bigger accounts. Their median follower count is 104,488, against 13,028 across all profiles, about eight times as many. Their median connection count is 10,935, against 5,622.

So read every figure below as prevalence: how often a signal shows up on the strongest profiles compared with everyone. Some of these signals may simply be things large accounts collect. The study is correlational, covers prominent writers rather than LinkedIn as a whole, and has not been academically peer reviewed.

Badges: verified, Premium and Top Voice

All three badges are more common at the top.

• Verified: 89% of the strongest profiles, against 76% of all profiles.
• Premium: 64%, against 53%.
• Top Voice: 16%, against 5%, so about three times as common.

Verification is the most widespread of the three. Nearly nine in ten of the strongest accounts have it.

In our view, Top Voice is the row most likely to reflect size, given that the strongest accounts have about eight times the followers.

Headlines: shorter and fewer “I help” lines

The strongest profiles write shorter headlines. Their median headline is 101 characters, against 123 across all profiles.

They also lean away from a familiar formula. Only 11% of the strongest headlines use “I help”, against 20% of all profiles, so it is roughly half as common at the top.

Pipes or other separators between labels are less common at the top: 59%, against 70%. Two other headline habits barely differ:

• A number in the headline: 41%, against 37%.
• Role, company and a proof point together: 9%, against 8%.

Our reading: a tight headline that says what you do is the common pattern at the top, not a stack of labels. The examples are in our guide to writing a LinkedIn headline.

The About section: longer, and it carries a number

The strongest profiles write a little more in their About section. The median is 1,402 characters, against 1,208.

They open it slightly shorter. The median first line is 92 characters, against 102.

And they put numbers in it. 73% of the strongest About sections contain a number, against 66% of all profiles. A list appears in 34%, against 31%. A call to action appears in 25% of both groups, so it shows no difference at all.

Creator settings and the website link

Two profile settings show a wide gap.

• Creator hashtags set: 73% of the strongest profiles, against 44% of all. The strongest set a median of five, while the typical profile sets none.
• A website link: 23%, against 13%.

Creator mode, as the profile recorded it, appears on 82% of the strongest profiles, against 56% of all.

The hashtags the strongest authors set most often were #entrepreneurship, set by 10 of the 44, #business by 9, and #marketing and #personalbranding by 6 each.

What the strongest leave out

Some sections are less complete at the top, not more.

• Top skills shown: a median of none on the strongest profiles, against three across all.
• Certifications: 39%, against 47%.
• Experience descriptions: a median of 345 characters, against 398.

Education is listed on 89% of the strongest profiles and 91% of all, and a banner on 95% against 93%. Those rows are close to level, so they do not separate the strongest from anyone.

Where this leaves the profile

None of these rows is a lever on its own. The strongest accounts are larger, and size may account for some of the badges.

What the figures do support is a picture. The strongest profiles are verified, say what the person does in a shorter headline without the “I help” formula, back the About section with numbers, and fill in the settings that tell readers what the account is about. They show fewer skills and certificates.

That is a set of choices any account can make. A profile audit against that picture is a small piece of the work our social audits and strategy team does with brands and their leaders.

The checklist, in order of effort

In our rough order of effort, starting with the quickest:

1. Add a website link. 23% of the strongest have one, against 13%.
2. Set creator hashtags. 73% of the strongest set them, a median of five.
3. Get verified. 89% of the strongest are, against 76%.
4. Cut the headline towards 100 characters and drop “I help”. The strongest median is 101 characters, and only 11% use “I help”.
5. Put a number in the About section. 73% of the strongest do.
6. Keep the About section’s first line short. The strongest median is 92 characters.

None of these will make a small account behave like a large one. What they do is bring it closer to the profiles that already perform, and that is the part a profile can control. The posts still do the rest, and the banner is the next thing worth checking once the words are right.

Next step

If your team or your founders are posting on LinkedIn regularly but still feel stuck, NBK can help find the constraint in the system, starting with the profile everyone lands on.