Writing your About page is hard because it plays such an important role on your site. It conveys what your brand is all about to new readers (Are you a designer? Fashion blogger? Do you have an Etsy store?), it helps your new readers get to know you a little more personally (What are your hobbies? What do you do in your free time?), and it serves as a great place to lead new readers and new, potential clients to your most important content, products, and services.
Kory here! Aside from how important About pages are, I think we can all agree that actually sitting down to write about yourself just isn’t that fun. I’ve written, rewritten, and even hired someone else to write my About page copy in the past. However, I’m sharing a few tips with you today to help get you started that made things easier for me the last couple of times I was writing content for that page.
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Where most people go wrong
Before I share with you my steps, though, there are a few key ways that people go seriously wrong when they’re writing their copy. If you’re making any of these mistakes, don’t freak out. We’ll talk about how to spruce things up, and I have a free workbook for you later in this post.
Not sharing anything about you as a person
Most people get so caught up in sharing the perfect professional bio that they forget one key thing: your audience and new, potential clients want to know about you as an actual person. You don’t have to tell your whole back story or share super personal details, but it’s important to share some things that will help you better connect with your people.
Writing the entire page in 3rd person
This is a practice that probably makes sense for the corporate world out there, and if you came from it, then you might be stuck thinking that this is the best way to present yourself to the new people landing on your site. Unfortunately, it’s not a good idea because it feels super impersonal and not relatable. The only time these make sense are when they accompany guest posts on someone else’s blog.
Not clearly explaining what you do and who for
One of the most important things your About page can do (as I mentioned before) is explain to new people what it is you do and who you do it for. While your blog posts will likely convey what it is you do, your About page is an important place to let new visitors to your site know that quickly and easily. If they’re confused about what it is you do, they might leave your blog and not come back.
How to clearly communicate about your brand
So now that you understand where you might be going wrong on your About page, it’s important to cover the important places that you get things right. The first place to make sure you’re getting right on your About page is clearly communicating the details about your brand. This is usually a great way to begin the copy of your page, so you can grab new visitors right away, especially if they need help with your area of expertise.
The question is how do you clearly communicate your brand to new visitors, right? Well, you want to make sure that you understand your own brand. Ask yourself these questions:
- What is the mission / purpose of your blog?
- What is the unique story behind your blog? Why did you get started? What keeps you going?
- Who is the target audience of your blog? Get specific here.
- How do you help your audience? In what ways are you providing them value?
Answering these questions means you truly understand your brand, and they’ll help you get started with your copy. The trick here is to be concise but still understandable. If you’re feeling a little stuck, here’s a template you can start with:
I’m [insert name here], and I’m a [your title, ex: fashion blogger, WordPress developer, etc], and I help [your target audience, ex: creative business owners, overwhelmed moms, etc] to / do ________________ [how you help them].
How to clearly communicate about you
After you’ve communicated the details of your brand, it’s time to talk about you. This is a tricky spot because we all have different levels of comfort with sharing personal details online, and I totally understand that. Sharing personal details about yourself doesn’t mean you have to share everything under the sun, but it’s a great way to let your audience really get to know the person behind the brand.
Krista and I both do this in short paragraphs on the About page for Coded Creative. One paragraph may not seem like enough of a bio for some of you, and that’s okay. For us, though, we think that’s a good start.
Strategically including a call-to-action
The great thing about About pages is that after you’ve told your new visitors who you are and what you do, it’s the perfect place to share a call-to-action that will lead people to the places around your site that you want them to go to instead of hoping that they land on the right pages.
So what sort of content should you be leading people to? Well…
- Your best content: You can link to your most popular or relevant posts to what you’re talking about on your About page (like your services / products). You could also link to a Start Here page, if you have one, because it’s a great place to show your best posts in your top categories.
- Services: If you’re a service based business, this is a great place to organically lead new visitors to check out your packages or your portfolio, if you have one. If you want to do this more casually, you can link to these pages in your bio where you mention what you do.
- Courses, workshops, etc: Similarly to your services, if you have an ecourse, workshop, ebooks, or something similar, this is a great place to share a link to it and how it relates to what you do overall.
The important thing here, though, is that you don’t overwhelm your visitors with too many calls-to-action. Yes, you may have a variety of services, courses, workshops, popular posts, and the like; however, you’ll want to pick the most important things that you share on your About page and truly be strategic about it.
Now you’re ready to write an effective About page
Because writing an About page is so difficult, even with the tips above, try not to get frustrated if you find yourself rewriting things a couple of times. It’s always challenging to write about yourself, so it’s only natural that you may want to revisit your copy a few times before publishing it.
