Without an About page, you’re nobody. It’s not only one of the first places new visitors will head if they like what you’re serving up on your blog, it’s also your calling card. The problem is, most About pages are about as enticing as putting your hand into an alligator’s mouth. In fact, to be fair, at least that would have an element of excitement, which is more than can be said for your garden variety About page.
So how do you make your About page worth visiting? Luckily, there’s a ten step program for that (twelve is so 1995). In this 101 post we’ll focus on getting the basics right with five things to keep in mind when carving out an introduction to yourself and your blog that doesn’t scream “nothing to see here, move along.”
1. Know what you want to do with it. Your blog or site exists for a purpose. If you don’t know what that is, and don’t set about making it abundantly clear, your chances of having people stick around to read your content are on the fast track to nowheresville. Imagine you were running a roadside BBQ emporium. If the sign for said emporium had pictures of yoga poses, moustaches, kittens, and hotdogs on it, you’d probably be failing to connect with your potential audience. Your About page is that sign. It’s your chance to inspire them into action. Know what it is you want to inspire them to do. Do you want people to get in touch? To realize that you’re an expert in fossilized monkey dung? To hire you? To follow your blog? To seek you out on Facebook? To laugh until they pee? Have a goal, and everything else falls into place.
Action time! Set a timer for 90 seconds. In that 90 seconds, jot down 1-3 things you’d like your audience to feel, think, and most importantly of all, do, when they read your About page.
2. Meal vs. shopping list. A shopping list and a delicious meal have a lot in common (okay, ingredients), but they’re not the same thing. Imagine a hungry friend comes over for dinner. But instead of serving them your signature dish, you read them a list of ingredients. “Pasta” you say. “Cheese” you say. “Tomatoes” you say. Half an hour in, they start to cry.
That’s exactly what most About pages feel like. “I come from blah blah” you say. “I like dogs” you say. “My best friend Winnie thinks it’s cute when I blow my nose trumpet” you say. But none of it holds together. It’s a shopping list. Your job is to put those parts together and make them into something greater than their sum. Tell us a story, connect the dots: “Living in the mountains of Switzerland as a teenage shepherd, I learnt the art of playing the nose trumpet to communicate with the first of my many canine friends, Winnie. My love of dogs, mountains and nose trumpeteering has continued to this day, only now I play nose jazz in Seattle while Winnie’s son Mr Ruffles dances a doggy tarantella. For cold hard cash.”
Action time! Get that timer out again. Give yourself 60 seconds this time, because you like living on the edge. Scribble down, at breakneck pace, any words that spring to mind to describe you (“book nerd,” “cat fancier,” “walrus trainer”). Take another sixty seconds and do the same for your blog (“hilarity fiesta,” “doom machine,” “cat photos”). Take on one more bout of sixty second scribbing, because, hey, what’s three minutes between friends, and do the same for important events in your life (“dog bite,” “cheese aversion,” “psychokinetic prom fire”). Now you have all of your ingredients on the page, give yourself 90 decadent seconds to draw lines between all of the above and see how you can connect them all into something greater than the sum of their parts.
3. Front load it. The first sentence of a good About page is there to get the reader to the second sentence. The second sentence’s job is to get them to the third sentence. If people aren’t getting to the fourth sentence without letting out a gut-wrenching yawn, you’re probably veering off course from your goal. Which is to make people do something. The right people. Your people. The others you don’t mind. They don’t belong here. “Get off my land!” you might say to them. But the people you’re addressing, the ones you hope will stick around? Make sure you’re reeling them in from sentence one.
Action Time! Imagine for a moment that you’re one of those poor deflated looking people on the street trying to get strangers to take fliers from you. Only, instead of fliers, you’ve got your blog. You have half a second to get their attention. What are you going to say in that half a second to make them stop in their tracks? Set a timer for, say, two minutes. Jot down as many opening lines as you can come up with.
4.Elevator pitch. Nobody’s saying you need to boil your About page down into haiku-like super-brevity, but it IS a good idea to have a short, scannable, one-liner version of it to complement the fuller-bodied story of you. Think of this as your way to get a foot in the door of your reader’s rapidly dwindling attention. How can you boil down everything you’ve said in your bio to a single, inviting, enticing soundbite you can use to reel them in?
Action Time! The timer’s off for this one, because being concise is challenge enough. Try to capture the essence of your About page in a single sentence, like the tagline for a movie.
5. For realsies. When we sit down and write it’s very easy to slip into English Class 101 pretentious writing mode. You break out your best adjectives. You toss around flowery verbs. Before you know it, you have the most stilted, unnatural chunk of snooze-text you’ve ever seen. Write your About page as if you telling this to a friend over coffee, beer, or a less stimulating but no less refreshing beverage of your choice.
Action Time! If you really want to put it to the test, go and do that — pitch your About page to a friend. Rehearse. And tell them about your blog. If you see them wincing, you probably need to rewrite your About page so that feels more natural and down to earth. Bonus points if you try this on a stranger at a bus stop.
Hopefully that gives you a little something to shake up your About page. Coming up, in About Page 201: The Meat Grinder, we return like champions to a feast to make minced meat of the most important page of your blog, and ratchet that beast up several more mixed-metaphor notches to excellence.
Until then, link up your own About pages (or those that have inspired you) in the comments and show us how it’s done. Or if you’re hungry for more ways to personalize your site without alienating your audience, check out our earlier post on three ways to make your blog your own.
Image credit: Based on You are Here by Roland Tanglao, CC-BY-2.0
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In mine I needed to tell people about myself, my blog and my background in as light a way as I could. I think I’ve succeeded. Can I add just one thing to your post above, please? And that is it’s a good idea for people to write as ‘I’ in other words using first person singular. I don’t know about other people but for me the most offputting thing in many About pages is when it reads like a CV and is described by someone else (when in fact the person’s written it his or herself!)
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Here is mine:http://djdblogginghere.wordpress.com/about/
It bothers that this text appears in so many places. I like it in the sidebar, but find it redundant appearing on the end of each post.
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Reblogged this on belgradestreets and commented:
I had been thinking it was about time to update my “about” page and then I read this Daily Post from wordpress.com, perhaps you’d like to take a look and find out what belgradestreets is all about…. thanks again for following, looking forward to sharing more with you as the time for snow on belgradestreets approaches….
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http://kamisbeautifulmorning.wordpress.com/about/
Gonna put the five steps to work and see if I can ramp this one up. Or tone it down, or cinch it tighter.
Great helps! Thanks!
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fabulous ideas i shall try. come see what you think…i’d love an objective review. http://countrywomanpaints.com/about-me/
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Thanks, I should take a look at mine again!
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Wow, I just re-read my About page and find that it’s full of no-no’s! Gonna rework it for sure.
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Heading back to my about page to find “edit”…. 🙂
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By the way, here’s a link: http://theteentheme.wordpress.com/about/
Thanks!
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I admit I’m impressed with this post. You hit the nail squarely on the head.
Here’s my About page:http://sanctifiedbrother.wordpress.com/about/ and, for my other blog, se here: http://the98poundweakling.com/about/
i’m going to read some of the About pages posted here to see what others have written.
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Ok. I just redid mine based on the advice given here.
“I am a professional photographer specializing in weirdness and this is my life.
Photos on the blog are copy-written by me, even the crappy ones.”
I have honestly never written an “About” summery I liked.
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I renamed my About page to “behind the closed door”. It’s short, less than 200 words. I tell a story so what I write about makes sense, or that’s the goal at least. http://deliberatedonkey.wordpress.com/behind-the-closed-door/
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This was so helpful, thank you! I hadn’t even bothered with an “about me” page until I read this. http://verblightly.wordpress.com/about
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I needed this. Thanks! 🙂
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I have been procrastinating since August. Thanks for inspiring me to finally draft my “about page — http://wendygblog.wordpress.com/about/
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i decided to dive in and give mine a bit of a makeover and would love some feedback, especially if any of you saw it before [managed to de-wordy it a little which for me is huge!]
thankx – http://brettfish.wordpress.com/about – and really thankx for this post cos it really was helpful!
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Great tips in the first and second improvement posts. I have personalized my blog a lot! Check out my new “about” page: http://luciustheninja.wordpress.com/about/
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Thx for the tips
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Thanks for the pointers. Mine is primarity a technical blog with tinges of entertainment. categorized the About page in 3 sections – Why I moved to WordPress, Who I am and how to contact me:
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Reblogged this on stuwest.org.
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“About” is boring. I like “Welcome” better. “Welcome” is also boring, but it contains an element of friendliness, like an invitation.
Advice about blogging so often starts with identifying the purpose of your blog, setting the boundaries. I believe this is good advice. But it doesn’t work for me. How long do some people have to live before they discover their purpose?
Purpose is often closely related to talent. Some people know their talent and their purpose early; some never do. You either have it or you don’t.
For some, life is a journey, not a single place. We’re in a constant state of learning, changing, repenting, starting over. Some have goals and achieve them; many journey far without arriving at a destination. Even for those endowed with talent, it’s often a matter of practicing the talent, not necessarily of perfecting it.
My life changes, and so does my blog. I can’t settle. I can’t nail it down. (Perhaps I can’t commit?)
The last thing people want is another sales pitch. (Just my opinion.) I’m not selling a product. I don’t want to reel anyone in. I’m not trying to make anyone do anything. The blog is an invitation to read and comment. Come as you are. No need to RSVP.
I need to converse, to communicate. That’s the blog. I also need to listen more. The “About” page is http://johnhaydeninmd.com/welcome/
A blog I sometimes read, sledpress.com, has an unusually good “About” page.
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That url is http://sledpress.wordpress.com/foreman/
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Great comment, John. I agree with everything you’ve said here.
On the idea of setting boundaries: I’ve explicitly rejected boundaries in my About page, which is a kind of boundary setting in itself, I suppose. I see you’ve done a similar thing with yours. It’s a great About page you’ve got.
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Thanks for the thoughtful response, John. I’d argue that there’s always a purpose to our sitting down to write and publish, whether that’s as specific as a sales pitch, as amorphous and mercurial as a personal journey, or as humble as the desire to put something of ourselves out there and hopefully strike up a conversation around what we’ve shared.
By the same measure, readers, with the almost infinite amount of content out there vying for their attention, are often looking for something that specifically speaks to them, whether to change their mind, confirm or deepen their understanding or beliefs, or just to know that somebody out there shares the same concerns or experiences as them.
In any case, while our goals or observations are very likely to change over time, signposting what a reader might expect from us early on gives them the chance to figure out at a glance if they’ve come to the right place, or if this perhaps isn’t for them. Like it or not, a glance is often all the time we have to welcome them in with everything else out there competing for their time and attention.
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You’re so right about the overwhelming abundance of content and shortage of time to engage. I agree completely about the importance of introducing ourselves to our readers.
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I renamed my about page The Author (here is a link: http://wp.me/P231sX-2). It’s stayed like this since almost the beginning… maybe it does need a revamp. Have a look and comment (either here or there!). It would be nice to hear your opinion 🙂
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My about page is a bit stiff and formal according to these rules, but it’s also friendly and engaging (I think it is anyway). Also, I speak like that!
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Reblogged this on Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors and commented:
Though this article is about how to write and about me page for your blog, the same steps and rules hold true for writing an author bio.
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Great article – and fun, too! 🙂
here’s my about page – mostly book related 😉
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Hello, here is my about page http://busyellebee.wordpress.com/busyellebee/. I am always looking for tips and ideas to improve my website, so would be grateful for feedback and comments. Happy to do the same for others. Thanks for reading 🙂
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Hi Elle, just read your page and I like the style and images. My only suggestion would be to write in the 1st person, not the 3rd as the blog is by and about you, even if you are using the bee persona. Just a thought…
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Thanks for the feedback Julie, really appreciate it. Am changing the about me page accordingly 🙂
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My About Page – simple tells it how it is. I have the propensity to ramble hence my title http://ramblingsfromamum.wordpress.com. I don’t have a hidden agenda to get followers, I never once assumed that anyone would want to follow me and yet they have and they have been genuine in their response to my posts. My ‘goal’ if there was one was to communicate with other bloggers, to hear their stories, to share mine. I am happy with my outcome, happy and in awe of those that like what I write. I don’t think I need to change …for that wouldn’t be me. I am like John Hayden – life ever changing..posts every changing and to be honest if my About Change is not enticing than so be it.
Thought provoking post though- so thank you.
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thanks for a great tips.
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http://blog.judeofalltrades.com/about/
(Oh man, I hope I’m not a snooze.)
LOVE the timed action items – very helpful. Thanks!
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I didn’t snooze and I was intrigued. From vacation to relocation and you didn’t even speak the language. That’s adventure!
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Brave and crazy…I guess that’s me. 🙂 Thanks for following, Melanie. I’m really looking forward to reading up on your experiences. I can tell you’re someone I will learn a lot from.
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I JUST redid my About page a few weeks ago because it was three years old and the focus of my blog had changed a bit over time so it no longer reflected what my blog was actually about. I did pretty much exactly what you suggested on my own, but I’m happy with what I came up with: http://thedragonflywoman.com/about/
My About page is written in my style and should give readers a very good idea of what I write about how I write about it. It’s also not short, true for most of my posts, but allows readers to dive in as far as they want to. I’m all about choices!
Thanks for posting this! These are really helpful suggestions
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Thank you for the advice. That was exactly what I was looking for.
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