Your ION profile: Setup and management

Overview

Your ION profile is what Job Posters see when they find you in the directory, and it is the difference between being contacted and being scrolled past. It is also what decides which searches you appear in at all.

This article covers what is public and what is private, how to fill in every section of your profile, how location pins and availability affect where you show up, and how directory ranking works.

The iGUIDE Pro sections described here only appear once your account includes the Find Work (Pro) role. See How to sign up for ION

What is public and what is private

Your iGUIDE Pro profile page is public. Anyone can read it without an account, without signing in and without you knowing.

Anyone can see:

Company name, logo, operator name, city and region
Your business description
Your industry and any other industries you serve
Your phone number and email address
Your secondary email address, if you add one
Website and social links
Team size and team member names
Your location pins and service coverage map
Your availability grid
Portfolio tours, photos, drone footage and video
Your Google rating and Google review text

Only you can see:

Your account type
Your iGUIDE customer ID

Only you and the other party can see:

Messages
Your bids, active work and delivered files

Your phone number and email are published as live links. They sit in the page source, readable by anyone and reachable by automated scrapers. If you would rather not publish a personal mobile or inbox, put a business line and a business address on your profile instead.

Everything under Edit Profile, My Jobs and Messages is private. Those pages redirect anyone who is not signed in to the sign in screen.

Getting to your profile

Select your initials in the top right, then Edit Profile. Everything sits on one page, with a menu down the left to jump between sections. Each section saves on its own, so save as you go.

Personal details

Field	Notes
Profile photo	Select Add a photo
Full name	Required
Email address	Required, and read only. It is set when you sign in.
Phone number	Required for iGUIDE Pros
Secondary email address	Optional, and shown on your public profile alongside your main address

Account type

Choose Job Poster, Find Work (Pro) or both, then select Update account type. Adding a role prompts you to fill in the extra fields it requires.

Company details

Field	Required	Notes
Company logo	No	Upload an image
Brief description of your business	No	Describe your experience and what makes your team stand out
Company name	Yes
Website	No
Social media	No	Add as many as you like
Location	Yes	Your city and region
iGUIDE customer ID	Yes
Industry	Yes	Your main industry
Other industries you serve	No	Pick any others, which widens the searches you appear in
Years providing iGUIDE	No	Under 1 year, 1-2 years, 3-5 years, or 5+ years
Team size	Yes	Solo operator or Team

Your iGUIDE customer ID links your ION account to your iGUIDE account. There are two places to find it:

In the iGUIDE Portal. Go to Dashboard, then Billing Details. It is listed there as your Customer ID.
On any iGUIDE invoice. It is listed as Customer ID, and it is also the first six digits of your invoice number.

Both Job Poster and iGUIDE Pro accounts need one.

Fill in "Other industries you serve." Your main industry is what shows on your directory card, but the extra ones widen the searches that surface you. Leaving them blank narrows your own reach.

Service area and equipment

This section decides where you appear on the map, so it is worth getting exactly right.

Homebase is your primary coverage area. It is your first pin on the map.

Camera locations add the rest. Job Posters see every pin you place, not just your homebase, so this is how you show up in more than one region.

The rules:

You get one location pin for every iGUIDE PLANIX camera that has been active in the last 12 months.
Add the accurate number of cameras you run. Your first sits at your homebase, and you add one for each other area.
Place each pin in a region you genuinely operate in with no travel expenses. A pin is a promise that you cover that area at your standard rate.
You do not need to use all your pins. If you run four cameras but only work two regions, place two.

Camera counts are self-declared, the same as they are today, and iGUIDE may spot check them.

Availability

Your availability tells Job Posters when you are free to work. Not every capture happens inside a typical business day, roughly 9am to 5pm on weekdays, and a job needing an early start or a Saturday goes to whoever has said they are available for it.

The Availability grid on the ION Edit Profile page, crossing weekdays and weekends with mornings, afternoons and evenings

The grid crosses Weekdays and Weekends with Mornings, Afternoons and Evenings. Every slot starts as Not available, so tick the ones you work.

This starts empty. Until you set it, your profile tells Job Posters nothing about when you work, and you will not appear under the Available weekdays or Available weekends filters in the directory.

Portfolio

Your portfolio is what Job Posters look at when they are evaluating iGUIDE Pros for a project. It is the closest thing to showing them your work in person.

iGUIDE tours. Paste a tour URL and select Add another tour for more.
Other work. Upload drone footage, photography or video.

You can add up to 10 media items, and the section shows your count as you go. Real delivered tours are the strongest proof you can put in front of a Job Poster.

Connected accounts

Google Business Profile, shown as connected or not connected, with a Connect button.

Connect it. It is one of the highest value things you can do to your profile:

It confirms you are a real, operating business, which carries weight with Job Posters choosing who to contact.
It brings your star rating and review count onto your ION profile, so people see proof of your work before they get in touch.
Both of those feed directly into how you rank in directory results. Without the connection, two ranking factors are simply blank for you.

Your Google reviews are republished on ION in full, text included. They come from your Google Business Profile, so they reflect whatever that listing covers. If your Google presence spans a wider business than your capture work, those reviews appear on your ION profile too. Read your own profile the way a Job Poster would.

The Google rating only appears if you have Google reviews. With none, ION leaves the field off rather than showing a zero.

What a Job Poster sees

*A public iGUIDE Pro profile with each section numbered one to eight*

#	Section	Shows
1	Header	Company name, Google rating, operator name, location and industry
2	About	Your business description
3	Contact details	Primary location, primary contact, website, phone, email and social links
4	Team size	Each member and their role
5	Equipment	Each camera model and the city it is based in
6	Reviews	Your Google rating and the full text of your reviews
7	Service coverage	Your coverage area plus a map of your pins
8	Contact box	A message form and a Request a quote option

Your portfolio appears alongside these once you have added work to it.

Visitors who are not signed in see all of this. The only difference is the contact box, which asks them to sign in first.

How directory ranking works

Where an iGUIDE Pro appears in directory results comes down to a handful of factors, and a Pro can influence most of them directly.

Who appears at all

iGUIDE Pros with a location pin within the search radius, which defaults to 75 km (45 miles) of the searched location.

How results are ordered

National Provider badge. National Providers appear at the top of results.
Top Provider badge. Applied to iGUIDE's most experienced operators based on capture volume, reviewed quarterly.
Google star rating.
Number of Google reviews.
Distance from the search location.

A Job Poster can also re-sort results by Best match, Highest rated or Most jobs completed, and filter by Advanced Capture Certified, National provider, weekday or weekend availability, and Pros they have worked with before.

What that means for your profile

Most of that list is something you can act on:

Connect your Google Business Profile. Your star rating and review count are two of the ranking factors. Without the connection, both are blank for you.
Place a location pin in every region you genuinely serve. A region with no pin is a region you do not appear in.
Set your availability. It is what puts you under the weekday and weekend filters.
Complete your industries, portfolio and description. These do not move you up the list, but they are what turns an impression into a message once someone opens your profile.

Your visibility depends on your profile being accurate and current, so keep it up to date.

Profile badges

Advanced Capture Certified. The iGUIDE Pro has completed iGUIDE's Advanced Capture training. Any iGUIDE Pro can earn this one by finishing the online course in the iGUIDE learning portal. The badge is applied to their profile once they pass.

National Provider. The iGUIDE Pro delivers work across the country rather than in a single region, and National Providers appear at the top of directory results. This badge is applied by the iGUIDE team rather than earned automatically. Contact iGUIDE Support if you think your business qualifies.

Top Provider. Applied automatically to iGUIDE's most experienced operators based on their capture history, and reviewed every quarter. It reflects recent activity, so it can be gained or lost as volumes change.

Keeping your profile current

Update it when:

You add a camera, retire one, or move one to a different region
Your service area or availability changes
You add or lose a team member
Your contact details change
You finish work worth adding to your portfolio
You earn a new certification