Your LinkedIn profile can either present a compelling presence for you online, or it can just lie there like roadkill for people to pass by again and again.

You can do absolutely nothing to drive people to your LinkedIn profile, but they will find it. This is because when someone does a Google search for your name and you have a profile or page on a major social networking site, it will pop up in those search results.

If your profile has been crafted properly, that’s a good thing. If not, you are missing an opportunity to showcase your skills to potential clients and referral sources. Recent research shows that, like Facebook, Linkedin is really growing as a traffic referral source for websites.

LinkedIn is the best online tool for professional networking. It is the preferred network by far for in-house counsel and businesses, and produces results that you can easily measure.

The most important piece of real estate for lawyers on LinkedIn is your profile. You need to spend the necessary time to build and maintain it in order to stand out from all the other lawyers on LinkedIn and cultivate those important referral relationships.

LinkedIn has become the de facto online Rolodex for keeping up with contacts and referral sources, and is a must for B2B law firms seeking ways to connect with prospects. So why wouldn’t you do your best to put your best foot forward at all times?

The visual guide below created by LeisureJobs is a wonderful cheat sheet for creating the ideal LinkedIn profile. It includes SEO tips that will help your profile appear in search results, how to get recommendations and some hidden features within LinkedIn that will enhance your profile.

This post was authored by Lynda Collins.