If you have a LinkedIn profile, it needs to be impressive. No ifs, no buts.

Why?

Here’s the short version: Prospective clients will look at your profile and use what they see to decide whether you’re the right adviser/planner for them.

Here’s the longer version: John is out with his friends on a Friday night, and he asks them who they use for pension advice. Two names are offered.

John notes these down and continues with his evening. In times gone by, on Monday morning, John would have called one of the advisers and booked a meeting.

But things are different now.

Google sits between someone becoming aware of you and them taking action.

So instead of picking up the phone, John searches for the two advisers he’s been recommended to on Saturday afternoon. When he Googles their names, he’s offered a bunch of links, including the advisers’ LinkedIn page. Curious to learn more, John clicks through to the advisers’ LinkedIn profiles.

What does he see?

1. The first adviser has an impressive profile, demonstrating their expertise, specialism and the benefits of working with them throughout.
2. The second adviser’s profile is partially completed and has had no love, care or attention paid to it in many years.

Pretty obviously, John’s going to be drawn to the first adviser, not the second.

We want John to be as impressed by a LinkedIn profile as he would be if he visited the adviser’s website or their VouchedFor profile (which, incidentally, are the two other key links Google is likely to show when a prospect searches for a specific adviser/planner online).

Even if you don’t use LinkedIn regularly, Google will index your profile, (if you have one), and people can find it. So it has to impress everyone who visits it.

Obviously, if you’re active on LinkedIn, distributing content, commenting on other people’s posts, and interacting with other users (there are 35 million in the UK alone!), people will visit your profile and make a judgement call.

Think you have some work to do?

You’ve previously read our step-by-step guide to creating the perfect LinkedIn profile and 50 top tips to help you get more from LinkedIn and up your game. Now though, we’ve gone even further.

Abi Robinson, our head of social media, has created a free scorecard which you can use to review your existing profile, identify any issues, and fix them.

The scorecard:

• Is free
• Has 32 questions
• Takes 5 minutes to complete.

Click here to get started. Once you’ve completed the scorecard, if you need our help to fix the issues it identifies, we’re here to help.

Email abi@theyardstickagency.co.uk or call 0115 8965 300.