Expertise evidence checklist for your public profile

Before a potential client can decide whether to contact you, they need a coherent picture of your work. They should not have to reconcile an old social profile, a vague homepage, a hidden biography, and a handful of disconnected articles.

This checklist helps an individual review the public evidence around their expertise. It does not promise that a complete profile will produce a recommendation in any AI answer. It helps you make the information a person needs easier to find, read, and verify.

Use it before publishing a profile or About page, and again after a substantial change. You can download the printable checklist.

1. Can a new reader identify you?

Check the pages that represent you publicly: your own site, a professional profile, author pages, and any page you expect to be found through.

• Is your name written consistently enough to distinguish you from someone else with a similar name?
• Does a clear headshot or other identity detail appear where it is appropriate?
• Do your relevant public profiles link back to the same personal site or contact route?
• Does your site make it clear that the person named on the page is the person offering the service?

You do not need to publish more personal information than your work requires. The goal is to prevent avoidable identity confusion, especially when a name is common.

If an AI answer names you, verify the surrounding details and sources before recording it as an appearance. How to check whether AI recommends you explains the evidence to save.

2. Is the work you provide stated plainly?

Read the first screen of your profile on a phone. A prospective client should be able to answer these questions without scrolling through a career history:

• What specific work do you provide?
• Who do you usually help?
• What problem, decision, or project does that work address?
• Are there locations, languages, sectors, or formats that materially affect fit?

Mark any sentence that could apply to almost any consultant, adviser, coach, freelancer, or expert. “I unlock growth” and “I build better futures” do not tell a reader what they can ask you to do. Replace broad labels with a factual description of the service.

For example, “I am a marketing strategist” might be true but incomplete. “I help B2B software teams review why paid-search leads are not turning into qualified opportunities” gives a reader a clearer reason to continue.

Use the personal About page template to rewrite a weak opening in your own language.

3. Are the claims supportable?

Go line by line through claims about clients, results, credentials, awards, years of experience, and past roles. For every material claim, decide whether you could support it if a careful reader asked how you know it.

Do not add a result because a competitor uses one. Do not make a confidential project sound public. If a claim needs too much explanation to be defensible, the page may be stronger without it.

4. Can a reader inspect the evidence?

For each fact that matters to a client, look for a useful path to supporting material. A link is helpful when it lets a reader see the relevant work, not when it sends them to a generic homepage.

• Does a published article have a byline that identifies you?
• Does a talk, workshop, report, or case description show your contribution accurately?
• Does an external profile or professional directory still point to a current page?
• Do your own articles link to a page explaining who wrote them and what work you offer?
• Are broken links, old bios, and obsolete offers removed or updated?

One strong evidence path is enough to begin. A public talk can link to your profile; a profile can link to a relevant article; an article can identify its author. The connections should match the work you actually do.

A cited article is not automatically a recommendation to hire you. Keep citations, name mentions, and recommendations separate in your notes. This guide shows how to read those signals.

5. Is the page useful to the person reading it?

Treat accessibility and maintenance as part of evidence quality. A public page that cannot be read clearly cannot support a client’s decision.

• Does the page have one descriptive page title and one clear main heading?
• Is text readable on a small screen without overlapping controls or tiny type?
• Do links say what a reader will find?
• Does each page load without requiring a private account?
• Are images given useful alternative text when they carry meaning?
• Is the contact route visible and functional?

Google’s guidance for people-first content emphasises useful, reliable information, clear sourcing, and background about the author or site where readers would expect it. That is a good standard for a personal profile. It does not guarantee search visibility or inclusion in an AI answer. Google’s helpful-content guidance

6. Keep a small evidence record

Make a simple note with the public pages you have reviewed, the factual improvements you made, and the date. You do not need a complicated content calendar.

This record makes it easier to remember what changed before a later rescan. It does not prove that a change caused an answer to change.

Before you publish or rescan

• Your name and contact route identify the same individual across relevant public pages.
• The first paragraph states the work you really offer and who it is for.
• Public claims are accurate, current, and permitted.
• At least one relevant piece of public work or background can be checked.
• Links and contact routes work on a phone.
• You have saved a short record of what you changed.
• Your discovery questions remain unchanged if you intend to make a comparable rescan.

You can now use a saved question set to inspect the answers again. Keep any failed or missing responses marked as unmeasured, and read the underlying answers before drawing a conclusion. Use the buyer-question worksheet if you need to define that set first.