Today your task in the 31 Day Project here at ProBlogger (this is Day 5) is to Conduct an About Page Audit.
One of the key pages on a blog is the about page. This page is often used by new readers to a blog to gather information about you and your blog and based upon what they find on this page they could be making a decision as to whether they’ll subscribe to your blog or not.
As a result, your About Page is a key conversion page on your blog and it therefore needs to be reworked regularly.
As a result it’s essential that you provide up to date, useful and well written information on this page.
Include compelling reasons for people to keep tracking with your blog and provide them with the means to do so within the content (RSS, newsletter etc).
Take some time today to do an audit of your About Page. What does it communicate? How could you improve it?
I’m going to take some time out this week in the lead up to my blog’s redesign launch to rework mine – so join me and share what you learn in comments below.
I’ve written a previous post on some of the aspects to include in an About Me Page which might help you as you do it.
Please take a look at my website and tell me what is missing. I am on blogger so, I can’t add a full About me page but I have About me link there. Please tell what is needed to be implemented.
This is one of the key feature that I need to add to my blog. I work on it through the week-end and publish it then. Since I use blogger there’s a default “About me” page though I’ve never liked it.
I’m thinking of using a post as my ‘About Me’ page, since it would be easy to update and modify. Is that what you’d recommend?
I have a pretty long and extensive About Me page and probably offer too much info, but I appreciate reading other About Me pages that do the same. Maybe when I get as popular as you, I’ll have to start respecting my privacy more heh? ;-)
You are right though, the About Me page is where you learn enough about the person to trust them and follow the vision of their blog.
Very good post you have here. As of right now I do not have anything on our site relating to what we do and how we have come to where we are. Apparently this is something worth looking at. I have been throwing ideas around for a while and will start on this essential addition to the site. Thank you for the information.
Thanks for this! I think I’ll spend the afternoon working on my About Me!
A blogger’s about page is like a resume or a cv in many ways. I have been updating mine, and needed to do so again. Thanks for the kick in the butt, Darren. Here’s the revised About Me page.
Is it possible to have an ‘About Me’ page with blogger???
I have been meaning to put up an About page and your post was my motivation. I just put it up, after nearly six months! How bad is that?
I have noticed that a good amount of the pageviews on my blog are from the About Me page…
The about page is extremely important when trying to get more readers. When I go on a new site for the first time, that’s one of the first things I look for. It kind of turns you off if someone doesn’t have an about page or didn’t put much thought into it.
http://alltalksports.wordpress.com/
Read your post and went to check just how up-to-date mine was, only to discover that somewhere along the line, I’ve deleted mine. Looks as though I have another item to add to my get-it-done-right-away list.
It’s also frustrating to have to search for an about page. Main nav? Top left liink – or buried somewhere in the navigation bar? Footer link? I agree with Darren, it should be prominently posted, WordPress does a good job of that with its page management function.
Re: the Blogger question that Danielle mentioned, that’s one of the weaknesses of the Blogger platform. You can link to your profile, in Blogger’s format, but the blog tool doesn’t support self-created static pages. The best workaround is post an “About” post, and add a custom static link to it in your navigation bar.
I have been meaning to write an about page all of this month but couldn’t come up with something without having to put some personal info especially when I am not sure what my ‘niche’ is. Now that I am trying to follow along this project I will have to create this page, although not sure how to go about in my situation! anyone any suggestions?
Blogger provides a profile page for bloggers, but I’m betting that’s not good enough, huh?
Is there a better way in blogger than simply using a post as your about page?
The About Me Page is kind of difficult to write. But I agree it is important and I should put more emphasis on that.
Here’s a list of elements that I have on my About Us page (http://www.nofactzone.net/?page_id=2) that might be helpful to bloggers looking to create their own page:
* Why I started the blog
* The meaning of the blog name
* Clear mission statement for the blog
* Unique aspects of my blog (what makes me different from other blogs)
* Site stats at a milestone, in our case, our 1-year anniversary
* Major links to our site (from Mainstream media and prominent bloggers, such as HuffPo, Popwatch, TV Squad, etc.)
* Projects that our site has done (blog entry series, subsites relating to the subject matter)
* Tech talk (WordPress talk, theme, how the site is built mainly)
* A “thank you” to the readers of the blog
* Bios of all of the contributors to the blog
I can imagine SO much more to put on my about me page… but then it’d be like 100 pages long!
Thanks for prompting me to do this Darren. Mine needs some work.
Thanks for sharing the link to the earlier article. I was about to ask, “What exactly should be on this page?” But you pre-empted me.
Hey guys, would appreciate if you all could give me some feedback on my about page. Thanks!
With the About Us page being one of the most popular on a site, it’s a great reminder that we do need to focus, or re-focus, on exactly what goes into it. No more the days of a one paragraph blurb as an afterthought to hours of site-building. Thanks.
I’d appreciate a little feedback on our About 2Dolphins page. I’m a bit concerned that I didn’t manage to get our contact info in “above the fold” and have wondered if that’s really a problem.
One thing I’ve noticed with other bloggers’ About pages is how seldom photos are posted of the author(s). Seems to me that doing so humanizes your blog – or literally, puts a face with a name. What’re everybody else’s thoughts on that?
Thanks for the tip, Darren. I thought my “About JD” page said PLENTY about me–probably more than anyone cares to know–but I realized I hadn’t really said anything about my blog. So, thanks to your tip, I added a new question to the “interview” on my “About” page to help clarify that. This also allowed me to link back to my very first post. Thanks again for the great idea!
My “About JD” page:
http://idothings.info/?page_id=2
Thanks Darren, you got me on the case. Job done :)
It’s the little things that add up to something great… am loving this line of tips so far.
After months of stalling, I finally made my About page. Frankly, do-it-yourself root canal surgery might have been easier and less agonizing… But anything so very difficult must be very important to tackle, right?
What would you recommend calling it
I call mine
“this shedblog”
which i think is confusion….
Last month, when I publish my blog on forums. I forgot to create about page. I knew it from statistic, after that I create about page.
OK, thank you, Darren for inspiring me to do a real “about” page instead of using my Blogger profile. I’ve finally finished it after thinking about it for weeks.
Jerri said: “You can link to your profile, in Blogger’s format, but the blog tool doesn’t support self-created static pages. The best workaround is post an “About” post, and add a custom static link to it in your navigation bar.”
This is exactly what I’ve done, and it works very well. I also have a “favorites” link on my top menu using the same technique.
Great advice. I’m finally taking it!
http://themeplayground.com/about
Thanks again.
Thank you thank you thankkkkkkkkkkkkkkk you!
Ok now back to doing the rest of this.
Hi Darren
I’m joining the party late as usual. This is a great series, and I’ve just revised my about page on Get Paid To Write Online to include a bit more about the blog. I’d be happy to know what people think.
Wowsers..seriously, I just *added* an about page after reading this tip last week and increased my pageview daily average from 2000 to 2500.