FOR FOUNDERS & CEOS
LinkedIn for founders: what to post, how often and whether to get help
A no-nonsense guide to getting your LinkedIn profile right, posting with a simple rhythm you can keep, and deciding honestly whether to get help.
When a personal site earns its place next to the company website, when a good bio page will do, and how to keep the two working together.
Not every CEO needs a personal website. If you speak or write, advise or invest, or expect to lead more than one company, a personal site gives you a home you fully control that outlasts any single role. If your public profile is tied entirely to one business, a strong leadership page on the company site may well be enough.
Look up almost any chief executive and the results follow a pattern. There’s a company bio and a LinkedIn profile, a few press mentions, and for some of them a CEO personal website. Whether you need that last one has less to do with your job title than with what you want people to find when they search your name.
This guide covers when a personal site earns its keep and when it’s a distraction. It also explains how to make the two sites work as a pair so they don’t end up competing.
A company bio page belongs to the business. It describes you in your current job, in the company’s voice, and it changes or vanishes the day you leave. A personal website is yours. It covers your whole career along with your views and your other work, and it stays exactly where it is whatever happens to any one company.
| Company bio page | Personal website | |
|---|---|---|
| Who controls it | The company | You |
| What it covers | Your current role | Your career, ideas and other work |
| Lifespan | As long as you’re in post | As long as you keep it |
| Best for | Customers and investors in that business | Event organisers, press, boards, future partners |
| Upkeep | Handled by the company | Your responsibility |
It’s usually worth having one when at least one of these applies:
Leaders tend to underrate that last point. If you’re a company director in the UK, some of your details sit on the public Companies House register. Your name is there with your nationality, plus the month and year of your birth (GOV.UK). Records like that will show up whenever someone searches for you, mixed in with everything else, so a well-made personal site gives them a better first impression to land on.
Be honest with yourself. A personal site is one more thing to keep current. Let it go stale and it does more harm than good. A strong leadership page on the company site is often plenty if:
If that’s you, spend the effort on a properly written leadership page and a good set of photographs. Keep your LinkedIn profile in good shape too. Between them they cover most of what people go looking for. Still deciding how visible to be in the first place? Read should a CEO have a personal brand? before anything else.
Keep it tight. Most executive sites only need five to seven pages. Some work perfectly well as one long page.
Put your name here with a one-line statement of what you do and care about. Add a strong portrait. Then give people a clear route to the thing you most want them to do, whether that’s booking you to speak, reading your writing or getting in touch.
Tell the story of your career in the first person, written to be read properly instead of skimmed. Add a short third-person bio in a couple of lengths that organisers and journalists can copy straight across.
List the companies you lead or chair, advise or founded, each with a line or two and a link. This is the page that sends readers back to the company site.
Gather your articles and podcast appearances here. Add talks and interviews too, ideally on video. It’s the proof that you’ve got something worth saying.
High-resolution photographs and bios go here, plus any approved logos and clear notes on how to use them. It’ll save you a dozen emails every time someone asks. A planned brand photography session can supply a set made for the job. Think portraits and working shots, plus images that crop neatly for press.
A simple form will do, or a named route for speaking and press enquiries. Collecting email addresses for a newsletter means you’ll need a privacy notice. UK rules also generally require specific consent before you send marketing emails to individuals (ICO). Follow the ICO’s guidance, or get advice.
The worry is that a personal site drags attention away from the business. Joined up properly, the two actually help each other.
Link both ways. The company leadership page should point to your personal site, and your site should describe the company and link to it. Keep the facts consistent as well. Job titles and dates should match across both sites and LinkedIn, and so should your bios.
Split the content sensibly. Product news belongs on the company site, as do services and pricing. Your views and your career belong on yours, along with your wider work.
Agree the rules early. If you sit on a board or work in a regulated industry, check what you’re allowed to say publicly about the company, and when.
Make the sites look related without making them identical. Yours can have its own identity, but it mustn’t clash with the company’s, and getting that balance right is as much a brand design question as a web one.
It can. Search engines want to know who’s behind the content they show. Google’s guidance on helpful content asks whether it’s clear who wrote a page, and whether bylines lead to more about the author’s background (Google Search Central). Link to a personal site with a clear biography from your articles and your company profile. Search engines and AI tools then have a reliable source on who you are.
Don’t expect it to rank for competitive industry terms by itself. Its main job is to be the top result for your name.
That depends on scope. A one-page site built on a template is a very different job from a bespoke site with writing and video, or one with a full press kit. We won’t repeat the figures here. The guide to personal brand website costs in the UK gives indicative ranges and explains what pushes them up or down. Whoever builds yours, insist on owning the domain and the site, and on being able to update it yourself. A good personal brand website should be easy for you or your assistant to keep current without ringing a developer.
We design and build personal brand websites on WordPress. The copy and SEO foundations come included. We can add photography and film too, so the site has real material to work with. Among the sites we’ve built are those for the authors Jack Cartwright and J M Dalgliesh. Before any design work starts, we agree the brief and scope with you, along with the fee.
Usually, yes. Your name is what people search for and remember, and it stays relevant whatever role you hold. If your exact name has gone, use a simple variation such as adding a middle initial. That beats something clever that nobody will remember.
Most companies gain from a visible, credible leader, though it’s sensible to agree the boundaries first. Check for obligations in your contract or board role. Keep company information to what’s already public, and link back to the company site.
For many executives LinkedIn covers the basics. The difference is control. LinkedIn decides how your profile looks and who sees your posts. A personal site belongs to you. It can hold longer writing and video as well as a press kit, and it stays put if a platform changes.
Every few months at least, and whenever your role changes or you’ve got new talks or publications to add. Out-of-date bios and old photographs chip away at trust. If you can’t commit to that, a well-kept company leadership page is the safer bet.
Only if you’ll write regularly. A short list of well-chosen articles and talks, plus a few interviews, beats a blog whose last post went up two years ago. You can also gather writing published elsewhere and link to it.
A no-nonsense guide to getting your LinkedIn profile right, posting with a simple rhythm you can keep, and deciding honestly whether to get help.
A balanced look at why CEOs build a public profile, what can go wrong, and how to do it in a way that serves the company.
A straightforward guide to planning, filming and cutting a founder story video that holds attention and earns its place on your website and social channels.
Four quick questions, and we’ll show you where we’d start. Your answers come straight to us with your message, so you won’t have to explain it twice.
A 30-minute introduction call on Microsoft Teams, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Your answers come with the booking, so we’ll be ready for you.
Prefer to talk it through? Make an appointment for a 30-minute call on Microsoft Teams, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.
A closer look at the work behind each part of your plan.
We use analytics cookies to understand how visitors use our site. They are only set if you accept. Read our privacy policy.
