In the early years of personal branding, before LinkedIn became the default professional destination, I encouraged clients to create their own personal websites. It was a powerful way to introduce yourself to the people who are checking you out. Because you own your website, you control the narrative, structure, and context.
LinkedIn Emerges As Your Professional Home Base
When LinkedIn officially launched in 2003, it gradually evolved into a powerful platform for communicating your experience, credibility, and point of view. It came with some big advantages over having your own site:
- An instant network. LinkedIn is the de facto professional social media platform, providing a community of people eager to engage with you.
- Ease of creation and updating. Building and maintaining a website takes more effort than updating a profile on an established platform.
- Budget. There’s no need to pay for your own design, hosting, maintenance, and updates.
LinkedIn also helped normalize an important idea: if you are serious about your career, you are responsible for managing it. LinkedIn became the online home for your résumé, your network, and your professional reputation. It was the sole professionally focused social media platform. Over time, it became the place to tell the world who you are and to learn about other professionals. That’s still true today. Often, when people want to learn about you, they open a browser, go directly to LinkedIn, and type your name in. And even if they start their research with Google, your profile shows up near the top, so it’s usually what gets clicked. That has been the case for over two decades. But now, there’s a new game in town. You’ve probably heard of it. It’s called AI.
AI Can Play A Big Role Than LinkedIn In How You Are Perceived
Increasingly, your first impression may be delivered by an AI-generated summary instead of a direct visit to your profile or website. For years, when people wanted to learn about you professionally, LinkedIn was often the first stop. And if they googled you, your LinkedIn profile was among the top links. Today, though, if someone searches your name on Google, the first thing they may see is an AI-generated overview before any traditional links. That matters because a large share of Google searches now end without a click. 58.5% of U.S. searches and 59.7% of EU searches resulted in zero clicks. In many cases, the searcher decides the summary gave them enough to move on.
Here’s the challenge: AI systems tend to draw more confidently from content that is openly accessible on the web. Because much of LinkedIn lives inside a walled garden, it may be less visible and less useful to AI systems than content published on your own website. Google still operates at a much larger search scale than ChatGPT, even as AI search behaviour grows quickly. LinkedIn still has more than a billion members and remains a powerful place to build visibility, share ideas, and strengthen professional relationships. But it has a limitation in the AI era. Much of its value lives inside a platform that AI systems cannot access as easily or as fully as the open web.
The New System Requires A Focus Both On Web Search And AI Search
The answer is not LinkedIn or AI. It is LinkedIn and the open web. That’s pretty much how most technological advances happen. When radio arrived, newspapers did not disappear. When television arrived, radio did not vanish. New channels rarely erase old ones. They change how attention gets distributed. As AI strategist Matt Strain puts it, “You need to make sure your content is visible to both Google and AI. Strain added, “If your best work lives inside walled gardens (LinkedIn, newsletters, private communities, paywalls), it can vanish from the AI research cycle. In addition to focusing on LinkedIn, publish a searchable home base on your own website, then earn third-party mentions (interviews, podcasts) that validate your credibility.” That’s the strategic shift many professionals have not yet made. They’re polishing the version of themselves that lives inside LinkedIn while neglecting the version of themselves AI can actually read, summarize, and cite. As AI becomes even more prevalent, it’s essential that you post valuable, relevant content to get it referenced in AI summaries.
The Real Advantage: LinkedIn Plus An AI-Readable Home Base
When you manage your digital identity as an ecosystem, you increase the odds that no matter how someone searches for you, they find a clear, credible, and compelling picture of who you are and how you deliver value. Your LinkedIn profile may still rank highly for your name, but if an AI-generated summary appears first and satisfies the searcher, they may never click through to it. That is why zero-click behaviour matters so much now.
Having your own website may seem like overkill or a bit self-centered, but it’s actually key to being visible, known, and found in the age of AI. Strain explained, “Traditional SEO trained us to think in keywords. AI answer engines behave more like a researcher. They look for clear explanations and narrative context that they can summarize with confidence. One of the simplest formats is structured Q&A with a short story behind the answer. Focus on making your expertise easy to extract.” Storytelling is key, and your website allows you to position yourself with this type of content. The good news is that building a strong personal website is simpler than most people think. Follow these steps:
- Buy your domain name.
- Define your brand identity system – the colours, fonts, and imagery that convey your brand differentiation.
- Decide if you want to do it yourself or hire someone.
- Create a homepage that clearly states who you help, how you help, and what makes you different.
- Add a strong About page written in natural language, not résumé language.
- Include proof: media mentions, testimonials, speaking topics, articles, books, podcasts, and case studies.
- Publish a few pages or articles that answer the questions people actually ask about your expertise.
- Make your content easy for both humans and AI to understand with clear headings and an organized structure. Avoid business jargon.
- Link your site to your LinkedIn profile and link your LinkedIn profile back to your site.
- Keep it current so both search engines and AI systems find fresh signals of credibility.
Use LinkedIn And Your Personal Website To Increase Your Visibility
Having your own website gives you something LinkedIn cannot fully give you: control over structure. You decide the pages, the questions you answer, the proof points you feature, and the language that explains your value. That makes your expertise easier for both search engines and AI systems to interpret. LinkedIn remains the best platform for building relationships, showing activity, and signalling professional relevance in real time. Your website is not a replacement for that. It is the foundation beneath it. For years, LinkedIn was your most important professional first impression. In the age of AI, it is still important, but it is no longer enough. To be accurately understood and easily found, you need both a strong LinkedIn presence and an AI-readable home base on the open web.
Feature image credit: Getty
By William Arruda
Find William Arruda on LinkedIn. Visit William’s website.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, bestselling author, and personal branding pioneer. He works with leaders to help them deliver magnetic, mesmerizing, and memorable presentations in-person and online.
