How to get the most out of your new headshots


Your gallery arrives. You scroll through it twice, send your favourite to a friend, and download the lot into a folder called Headshots Final.

Six months later, your LinkedIn photo is still the one from the wedding.


I see this more often than I'd like. The session is the easy part. Getting the photos out of the folder and in front of people is where the value is, and it takes about an hour if you do it properly. Here are the five things I'd do.

Professional headshot of Sam, a female Website SEO Consultant, seated confidently in a black sleeveless top.

1. Update everything on the same day


Pick a morning and change the lot in one go. If you update LinkedIn this week and your website next month, you spend the time in between looking like two different people.


Start with the places a new client is most likely to find you:

  • Your LinkedIn profile
  • The about page and home page of your website
  • Your email signature
  • Your Google Business Profile
  • Your Instagram and Facebook profile pictures


Then do the ones people forget. Speaker bios. Directory listings. Your booking page. Your proposal template. That guest expert page on someone else's website, where you are still wearing a lanyard.


Someone who finds you on LinkedIn and clicks through to your website should see the same person both times. It sounds obvious, and it is surprisingly rare.

Instagram profile page for Designthropology, an SEO and web design agency based in South London and UK.
Instagram profile of Jade Binsted, Facilitator and Speaker, showing 11 posts, 82 followers, and 75 following.
Jo Worthington's Facebook profile showing branding photographer and website designer with 564 friends and 1.2K posts.

2. Don't make one photo do every job


You have a whole gallery, so use it.


Start by choosing one main photo. This is the one for LinkedIn, your email signature and anywhere your face appears small. Pick the shot where you look most like yourself on a good day, looking at the camera, and use it everywhere your name appears. Seeing the same face in every place is how people come to recognise you.


Then choose a supporting cast. The warm, mid-laugh one suits your about page. The polished one is for speaker bios and press. The wider one, with space beside you, becomes a website banner with your headline over it.



A quick test for the main photo is to shrink it to the size of a thumbnail. If you can still read your expression, it's the one.

A woman in a green top stands confidently at a table in an elegantly decorated room with dark wainscoting and floral wallpaper.

3. Crop for where it's going


LinkedIn shows you as a circle. Your website banner is a wide rectangle. An event programme might want a square.

For a small circle, crop tighter than feels polite. Your face should fill most of the frame, with your eyes about a third of the way down. A full head-and-shoulders shot that looks elegant at full size becomes a dot with hair on a phone.


For a banner, do the opposite. Choose a shot with empty space on one side and put your words in it.


And always crop from the original file. Cropping a screenshot of a crop is how photos end up looking as if they were faxed.

Smiling older woman with short gray hair, pink top, colorful scarf, and purple glasses laughing joyfully.
Thoughtful middle-aged blonde woman in black hoodie resting chin on hand, gazing upward against neutral background.
Smiling middle-aged blonde woman with blue eyes wearing a black top, posed against a neutral curtain backdrop.

4. Tell people you've got them


A new headshot is one of the few business updates people enjoy seeing, so make use of it. Post it on LinkedIn with a line about what you're working on, or what has changed in your business since the last photo. It gives people a reason to say hello, and it puts you back in front of everyone who had quietly forgotten what you do.


If that feels like too much fuss, share a behind-the-scenes photo from the session. It does the same job with less "look at me".

Tag your photographer if you'd like to. We love seeing where the photos end up.

Smiling middle-aged man with gray hair wearing a teal blazer and white shirt poses for a professional headshot.
Smiling older woman with gray hair and glasses wearing a red knit sweater, sitting relaxed in a white chair.
Smiling elderly woman with gray hair wearing a brown turtleneck sweater and long necklace sitting on a white sofa.

5. Keep a few back, and know when to come back


You don't need to use every image in the first week. Hold some in reserve for the moments that turn up through the year. A guest blog. A podcast appearance. An award entry. The day a journalist asks for a photo by five o'clock.


As for how long a headshot lasts, my rule is simple. If someone who has only seen your photo would hesitate when you walk into the room, it's time for a new one. New glasses, a different hair colour, or a big change in what you do or who you do it for are the usual reasons. For most people that works out at every couple of years.

A man with curly dark hair and a beard wearing a white t-shirt, smiling softly against a light background.
Woman in black turtleneck making silly face with hand gesture on forehead against light background.
Smiling woman in striped shirt sitting relaxed in a chair next to a small side table with a mug.

Still using the old one?


I photograph headshots and brand sessions from my studio in Hampshire and on location across the UK. Every headshot session comes with a guide to using your photos afterwards, so they don't end up in that folder. If yours is due an update, get in touch and we'll sort it.