This is a guest contribution from Natalie Gowen.
Today I’m talking About Pages. Or, rather, I’m talking about About Pages. Either way – please don’t go screaming from the room.
Yes, your About Page is one of the most important pages on your site. Yes, it can make a deep emotional connection with your readers. Yes, your About Page can grow your readership and increase your business with tremendous effectiveness.
And yes! About Pages are the hardest pages to write. If you suffer from About Page Anxiety, you are not alone.
Getting clients to hand over About Page content for their website is the most dangerous part of my job. It’s like taking candy from a baby – where the baby is a starving lion and the candy is a fresh gazelle.
It doesn’t have to be that way. You can stand up to About Page Anxiety. You can write a compelling story about your site. You can tell writer’s block to go bother someone else. You can be the proud owner of an About Page that sells you and your blog and convinces people to keep reading.
All it takes is 5 simple elements:
1. Tell your readers why they should care.
When a new visitor comes to your About Page they want to know one thing – what’s in it for them? Answer that question and you also give your readers a reason to dive deeper into your site or add you to their bookmarks.
Your benefits can be real or intangible, either way – be clear about what your blog offers. For example:
You’re a humor writer and a mom – readers care because a good laugh brightens their day, and hey, at least they’re not cleaning poo-based finger paint off the walls.
You’re a business coach – they care because their dreams are like a frozen computer and you can teach them how to reboot.
You’re a fitness blogger – they care because you provide daily motivation to move a little bit more than they did yesterday.
Starting off your About Page by focusing on your reader is the best way to spark a connection.
2. Give them reason to believe you.
Giving people a reason to care about your blog and sharing the benefits you offer can lead you to make some pretty big claims. Using the examples from above:
The humorous mom can make her readers problems fade into the background with a few minutes of laughter.
The business coach gives hope that a side gig can become a full-time job.
The fitness blogger sells a vision of his reader’s future self, the one that can jump off the couch and keep up with the kids.
To help your readers believe you, they need to trust you. Do you have a degree? Are you featured on top blogs in your niche? Do you have clients that adore you? Is the proof in the (social media) pudding?
Your About Page is the best to explain enough about yourself that readers know you’re not just blowing smoke.
3. Get personal
Your readers will come back for the benefits you provide, but they will connect deeper if they can tell you are a real person, with real struggles and real victories.
Getting personal doesn’t have to mean divulging every last detail about your life. If you want to retain some privacy, let your personality show by sharing:
- Your values
- Your interests and hobbies
- Your goals, hopes and dreams for the future
Most of all – make sure you include a good, clear picture of yourself. It’s always easier to like someone if you can see their eyes.
4. Be available
Don’t play hard to get. After all, blogging is about connection – so be reachable. If someone really resonates with your purpose and wants to reach out, let them. You can make it easy:
- Using your website’s email forms
- Sharing your email address as an embedded link
- Adding links to social media and connecting off the blog
5. Extend an Invitation
Readers on your About Page have knocked on your door. Are you going to let them in?
Like vampires, first-time visitors to your blog need a specific invitation to go deeper into your website or come closer to becoming your client. Otherwise, they’ll close the browser and will soon forget all about you.
The best invitations are extended as a Call to Action. CTAs are traffic building, business-growing workhorses. The key to an effective CTA is to:
- Be direct
- Be relevant
- Be simple
If you’ve covered the first four About Page elements, you’ll be surprised what readers will do. They’ll follow you on social media, join your email list, read more posts or even buy your products. You just have to ask.
The Long & Short of About Pages
When you break it down, your About Page should be pretty simple. Whether you write in first or third person, it doesn’t really matter. If it’s long or short, that doesn’t matter, either.
At the end of the day, if you’ve covered the 5 main elements let your About Page be uniquely yours and kick About Page Anxiety out the door.
Natalie Gowen is a brand and marketing strategist for creative and passionate entrepreneurs. As part of her mission to eradicate boring About Pages, she’s the author of the e-course and workbook, About Page Mashup
Natalie I am with you on each tip.
#3 is my fave. Do you read Neil Patel’s blog? After building my recent blog and I hatched an About Page eerily similiar to his. OK each each was different because our stories differ much yet the real, authentic,genuine feel was similar. I used his About Page for inspiration. It was my benchmark, my example, my excuse to create something personal, authentic and really really. Something where I pored my heart out in a way, telling my story.
Note; do NOT rush through this! I ain’t saying you need publish a Bible-sized page of info from your life but let your readers have a chance to meet you and greet you and to get to know you.
I do a Wikipedia style breakdown with a little intro. Noting how my life began. Fam life, parents, a little bio explaining what mom and dad did, and my humble, average beginnings. I figure it sets up a story my readers may dig because they get to enjoy…..the rest of the story…..and few bloggers tell the rest of the story. I delve into my online career after the initial introduction by setting up where it all started. That seems appealing to me and since some of my readers think like me they likely dig it.
I also stress benefits. Why would readers want to read my blog? They wish to know, like and trust me. So I go thorough on my life and blogging story. But I stress how reading my blog benefits them. They can retire to a life of island hopping through boosting their blog traffic or income if you stick around and subscribe to my blog. I believe that’s a sweet deal. This deviates from a strict bio page and it’s where some well-meaning bloggers fumble things some.
Readers want to know how you and your blog will improve their lives. You want to know what I can do for you. You may love my blogging tips and travel stories and digital nomad advice but at day’s end you need benefits to stick around versus listening to me gab about me. I stress benefits to tell you about me AND how I can help you and that 1-2 combo helped me snag some 30 comments from readers on my About Page, although I shut comments down recently. At least I think so. People engaged and chatted and had a blast talking with me about my story because I was real, transparent, and I stressed the benefits of what I had to offer through my blog.
Thanks Natalie!
Ryan
Quite interesting post. Thanks for sharing your views with us.
I’m glad you found it informative. Hope you found some tips for enhancing your connection with your audience
Yes, Ryan, a heartfelt connection is the best way to go. I think that if we ask the question “why would my reader care about this?” and shape the content accordingly, we make a deeper connection with our audience.
I really jumped around in my room. bloggers don’t always talk about these things, but i tell you, an about page was one of my heaches when i started my blog. I really didn’t know what to write about myself and to make it eye-catching.
it took me almost a month to get my about page organized.
Writing and editing it almost every good day.
Thank you very much for this post.
I think i still have more work to do on my “about page” though.
Saibu – thank you.
It’s true. An about page is a very fluid thing. You can’t write it and forget about it. I know many bloggers that include updating their About Page as part of their content schedule. It should be updated 1-2 times per year at the very least.
I have to admit that #1 really snagged my attention, “why should they care.”
Writing my premise for starting my site in to a couple of sentences is a worthy endeavor that will be refined, and refined again. These are probably the two most important sentences… thanks for the assignment!
Absolutely, Doug. I’m glad you are taking on the challenge. If you always use “why should they care” as your barometer, you’ll write content that really engages your audience.
Nice article!
The content deals more on this article. The main reason why we do blog is to connect with our readers on what we want to share to them. The content served its purpose if the readers learned something upon reading it without any doubts.
Thanks,
Tom
Yes – I guess it’s similar to the real estate adage that says there are three important elements of good real estate; location, location, and location. In blogging it’s connect, connect, connect.
being personal and direct always works.. thank you for sharing..
Writing and editing the About page gives me a lot of anxiety. This article really helps to organise my thoughts about this page.
Also, this page weighs so much in importance that it puts a lot of pressure to make it sound ‘attractive ‘.
I didn’t cover so much the first two steps and the last one-so I need to work on that.
Thanks for this helpful post!