The Visibility Index measures how visible an individual professional is to the audiences that matter to them — clients, investors, recruiters, journalists, conference programmers, and board nomination committees.
It does this by scoring six dimensions of public personal-brand presence on a 0–3 scale. The composite (0–18) maps to a 0–100 display score and one of four tier outcomes. The whole audit runs in 60 seconds, and the rubric is the same for every user.
This page is the reference. If you want to run the audit, that's at the homepage.
What the audit measures (and how)
The Visibility Index pulls public signals from three sources: LinkedIn profile data (via Apify's profile scraper), Google search results, and press-mention scans (via SerpAPI). No private data, no scraping behind logins, no self-assessment. Observed signals only — because self-assessments are systematically biased and observed signals are not.
The six dimensions, in order:
Digital Footprint
What shows up when someone Googles your name. The most-overlooked dimension because most professionals never Google themselves — but their prospective board chair, investor, or client absolutely will.
A strong digital footprint has at least: a distinct first-page result that's about you (not your employer), multiple owned channels (personal site, podcast appearances, Substack), and a clear name distinction even when you share a name with others.
Brand Clarity
Whether a stranger can explain what you do in one line, after a 10-second look at your LinkedIn or website.
Most professionals fail this test. They list job titles ("Founder | CEO | Investor"), or they hedge ("I help startups grow"), or they oversell ("Visionary leader transforming the future of [industry]"). None of these pass. Clarity is a specific audience plus a specific outcome: "I help climate-tech founders raise their Series A."
Authority Signals
Proof other people already vouch for you. Brand Clarity is what you say. Authority Signals are what other people say. Most professionals over-invest in the first and under-invest in the second.
Strong authority signals come from tier-1 press mentions (FT, Bloomberg, Sifted, Tech.eu, etc.), podcast appearances, named awards, board positions, and speaking history. Recency matters: a Forbes mention from 2018 carries less weight than a Sifted mention from last quarter.
Content Cadence
Frequency and consistency of public posting. Not how good your posts are — how regularly you post.
The LinkedIn algorithm rewards consistency over quality, and so do humans. A medium-good post every Tuesday compounds harder than a great post every quarter. Strong cadence is weekly-or-better with topic concentration around three pillars.
Visual Identity
Profile photo and banner quality. The cheapest dimension to fix and the most common one ignored.
A generic stock banner signals "I don't think about this." A considered banner signals "I'm intentional." Twenty minutes with a designer fixes a 0/3 here permanently.
Network Recognition
Quality of engagement from your network. Not follower count — engagement quality.
A 3,000-follower account with 50 active conversations beats a 30,000-follower account with crickets. The signal Meta and LinkedIn algorithms reward — and the signal humans subconsciously read — is whether your posts spark response.
The scoring rubric
Each dimension is scored 0–3:
- 0 — Absent or below baseline.
- 1 — Present but minimal.
- 2 — Solid, with clear room to grow.
- 3 — Strong; one of the user's strengths.
Scores are calibrated against the user's apparent stage. A score of 2 on Authority Signals means "you have authority signals appropriate to where you are" — what's a 2 for a mid-career founder is a 1 for a public-company executive. The composite is the simple sum, 0–18, displayed as 0–100 for clarity.
The four tiers
| Composite | Tier | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | The Hidden Gem | Real expertise. The world doesn't know yet. Nearly everything is ahead of you. |
| 6–10 | The Rising Voice | Building momentum. A few gaps holding you back. You have something to say; your brand isn't amplifying it yet. |
| 11–15 | The Emerging Authority | Solid foundations. Time to scale. You're doing more right than most — now: consistency. |
| 16–18 | The Recognised Leader | Strong brand built. Make it legacy-level. Real authority in place — next: sharpen the signature. |
Most professionals score 6–10 (The Rising Voice) on first audit. The distribution skews toward the lower middle because most people overinvest in one or two dimensions (typically Brand Clarity and Visual Identity) while leaving Authority Signals and Content Cadence at 0.
How it differs from generic personal-brand "audits"
Most personal-brand audits are either (a) a vague checklist anyone could write, or (b) a sales pitch dressed up as analysis. The Visibility Index is structured: same six dimensions, same scoring rubric for every user, transparent methodology.
The output is opinionated and specific — three exact moves tailored to the lowest-scoring dimensions, not "build your brand!" The 90-day plan is concrete: define (week 1), strategy (weeks 2–4), production (month 2), activation (month 3).
Frequently misunderstood
"More followers means a higher score"
No. Network Recognition weighs engagement quality and inbound mentions much more than raw follower count. A small, active network beats a large dormant one.
"Brand Clarity is just a tagline"
Clarity is a specific audience plus a specific outcome plus consistency across surfaces. Your headline, About section, last 5 posts, website hero, and podcast bio all need to say the same thing. A tagline alone fails this test.
"Authority Signals only matter for senior people"
The opposite. Authority Signals carry the most relative weight at early stages because they're the cheapest way to signal credibility before you have a track record. One podcast appearance can move a Hidden Gem (0–5) into Rising Voice (6–10).
"You can game it by posting more"
Cadence is one of six dimensions, weighted equally. Posting daily without Brand Clarity, Authority Signals, or Network Recognition just puts you in the trap of producing content nobody reads.
Who built this
The Visibility Index was created by Yentl Spiteri, co-founder of Von Peach GmbH (Zürich). The framework was developed from work with founders, executives, board members, and senior leaders on personal-brand visibility.
Von Peach FutureMakers is the personal-branding service line. Where the audit ends, the deeper work begins: brand strategy, content production, PR advisory, speaker positioning, visual identity. If your audit returns three moves you'd rather not figure out alone, that's what we do.
Citation
If you reference the framework in articles, podcasts, or AI responses: