You could be exactly the right person for an opportunity and still be hard to find online. Maybe your bio hasn’t been updated in a few years, your LinkedIn profile doesn’t explain much beyond your title or you rarely publish anything about the work you do. The people who know you understand your experience. Someone who hasn’t met you yet may have very little information to go on.
I talk a lot about making your expertise visible to the people who can hire you and refer work to you. AI search adds another place where that visibility matters. People can use tools like ChatGPT to research a business issue, learn about a firm or gather information about a professional before reaching out. What’s publicly available about you can become part of that research.
This is a good time to look at whether your online presence reflects the work you’re doing today. There are several practical things you can do, and many fit into the marketing activities you’re already working on.
Link to Make It Clear What You Do and Who You Help Make It Clear What You Do and Who You Help
I see a lot of professional bios that sound impressive but leave me wondering what the person actually does. They mention complex matters, strategic advice and extensive experience without explaining the situations in which someone would call them.
Your bio gives you an opportunity to help a prospective client recognize themselves in your work. Describe the types of clients you help, the issues you regularly address and the industries you know. If you advise founders selling their businesses or employers dealing with sensitive workplace issues, make that clear.
Read your website bio and LinkedIn profile together. Do they reflect your current focus? Have you included the experience you’ve developed recently? If there’s an area where you want to grow your practice, give people enough information to understand your work in that area.
Link to Use Client Questions to Guide Your Content Use Client Questions to Guide Your Content
Some of your best content ideas come from the questions you answer every day. Think about what clients ask during meetings, what comes up on introductory calls and what you find yourself explaining repeatedly. Those are subjects worth writing about because you already know people want help understanding them.
For example, a lawyer who works on acquisitions could write about what a business owner can get organized before starting a sale process. An employment lawyer could explain common mistakes businesses make when documenting employee issues. The article can walk readers through the issue, explain why it matters and help them prepare for a more informed conversation.
Keep a running list of these questions on your phone or wherever you organize your work. When it’s time to write, you’ll have relevant ideas based on actual conversations with the people you’re trying to reach.
Link to Put More of Your Knowledge Online Put More of Your Knowledge Online
You may already have a lot of useful material that could become content. Look at presentations you’ve given, webinars you’ve participated in and topics you’ve covered during training sessions. You’ve invested time in developing that information, and there may be more you can do with it.
A presentation could become a few articles. Questions from a webinar could become an FAQ. A topic you only had a few minutes to discuss on a panel could become a more detailed piece with examples and practical guidance.
I encourage people to think about this when they’re preparing for a speaking engagement. Make a note of what you can share afterward and build time into the process to create it. That gives you something useful to send attendees and helps your insights reach people who couldn’t be there.
Link to Connect Your LinkedIn Content to Your Website Connect Your LinkedIn Content to Your Website
Publish a substantive article on your website, then use LinkedIn to talk about an aspect of it that matters to your audience. Explain why you wrote it, share a useful example or highlight a question you hear often. You can also include the article in your newsletter and send it to someone when it relates to a conversation you’ve had.
Make sure the article includes your name and a link to your bio. Connect it to related content where it’s helpful. You want someone who finds your work useful to be able to learn more about you without having to search around.
Link to Write the Way Your Audience Talks Write the Way Your Audience Talks
The language you use matters. People researching a problem may describe it very differently from the way you and your colleagues discuss it internally. Use titles and explanations that make sense to someone who doesn’t do your job.
For example, “What to Get Organized Before Selling Your Business” tells a reader what they’ll learn. A vague title about navigating complexity gives them much less information. The same applies to your practice descriptions, bio and article headings.
Be clear, answer the question and include enough detail to be helpful. Your perspective and examples are what make the content worth reading. If you’re explaining something you’ve handled many times, think about the advice you give when you’re talking to a client and bring that same clarity to the page.
Link to Have Your Website Team Check Access Have Your Website Team Check Access
There’s a technical piece to this too, and it’s worth bringing your website team into the conversation. Ask whether your important pages are accessible to search engines and relevant AI search crawlers, whether any settings are blocking access and whether key information is available as readable text.
This is especially useful if you’ve recently launched a website, changed platforms or added new pages. You may be spending time creating content without realizing there’s an access issue that needs attention.
Making content accessible helps it become eligible to appear in search results. It doesn’t guarantee that an AI tool will mention you or cite your website. Be careful about promises that a particular update or publishing formula will get you included.
Link to Review What People Can Find About You Review What People Can Find About You
Search your name and firm and look at the information that appears. Check for old job titles, outdated descriptions, broken links and missing areas of experience. You may find a speaking bio or professional listing that hasn’t been touched in years.
Pay attention to what’s missing from your own materials. If you regularly help clients with an issue but have never written about it or mentioned it in your bio, that’s something you can address. It’s a much more useful next step than repeatedly checking whether your name appears.
Link to A Practical Checklist to Get Started A Practical Checklist to Get Started
You can work on this a little at a time. Start with the pages people are most likely to read and the topics most closely connected to your work. Then build a routine for keeping that information current and sharing what you know.
- Update your website bio so it clearly explains what you do, who you help and the issues you handle.
- Review your LinkedIn headline and About section to make sure they reflect your current work.
- Check your speaking bios and professional listings for outdated information.
- Write down five questions clients or prospects have asked you recently.
- Choose one question and turn it into a useful article with practical examples.
- Review a past presentation or webinar for material you can update and publish.
- Add your name, a link to your bio and relevant internal links to your articles.
- Ask your website team to review access for search engines and relevant AI search crawlers.
- Set a quarterly reminder to review your bio, key website pages and priority content.
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