I’ve covered the ‘About us’ page before, but many of Writing For SEO’s readers need ‘About me’s. That’s the way of the world. A huge percentage of the world’s blogs are written by one person, and many online stores are the web face of microbusinesses.
So here’s how to write a great About me page. The principles are similar, but some of the ideas are a little different.
Why is your About me page so important?
Some sites don’t even have an About page. If yours is one of those, you should start remedying that immediately you’ve finished reading this piece.
But why is it so important? Over my SEO career I’ve seen countless sets of stats for websites, and there are two pages that are almost always in the top 5 or 10 most popular. The Home page and the About… page.
Your About me page may not rank as highly in Organic Search as some of your other pages, but it gets traffic in other ways. Primarily, people who are thinking about buying from you or hiring you.
They click on a link to your About me page because they don’t buy from websites, but from people. They need to see the person they’re dealing with. They need to be happy with you.
Don’t mess up your first impression!
Think about your About me page
Your About me page needs to achieve a balance between being about you (naturally) and engaging with your reader. Think about how you can make your page about your reader rather than yourself.
Overcompensate if you’re not an experienced writer. Simply because you will automatically be drawn into talking about yourself as that’s the title of the page.
What are you trying to achieve with your page?
This is a key question. ‘Telling the reader about me’ isn’t the answer. Think about these possibilities for a start:
- To engage more effectively with your readers. If they like you, they’re much more likely to come back for more. You’ll be building your community more effectively
- To make the reader more happy about handing over their e-mail address when they subscribe to your e-mail newsletter
- To make the reader more happy about buying your product or service
What outcome are you looking for?
You want to :
- Give your readers a nice warm feeling
- Get them to sign up
- Get them to complete an enquiry form, e-mail you or telephone
Lay out honestly what you’re about.
That doesn’t mean you have to tell all the gory details. You’ll need to buy me a serious bottle of red wine or two before I do that 😉
How many of you are shouting ‘Lying by omission at this point? Man up, will you? Making a pitch that turns the reader away is a double whammy. You lose the business and they lose the chance to benefit from your expertise.
Leave it up to tour reader to make the decision if they’re interested in engaging with you. It’s not your job to turn them away.
So aim for authenticity. Speak with your voice, from the strength of your knowledge and experience – it’s very different from anyone else’s – and don’t whatever you do, fall into that dead cold style of so many corporates.
You’re automatically more attractive to most of the people reading your page than those in their corporate ivory towers (unless I’ve had a chance to make them more human, of course).
Ask yourself some questions
OK. Let’s get a bit nearer writing your page.
Think about how you want your readers to feel. If you’re an after-dinner speaker or an entertainer – or even a script writer or blog writer – you may want to make your reader laugh.
If you’re a plumber, builder or other kind of craftsman, you need to convince your reader that you’re professional, approachable and fairly priced.
If it’s someone like me, I need to communicate that I know what I’m doing, have a style and approach you’re happy with and that I’ll give you the results you’re looking for.
Thank about how you can stand out from the crowd.
If you’re stuck, spend an hour reading others’ About… pages. Work out which ones are best – which ones appeal to you? And why they’re best.
Follow their examples.
Write your page
Your About me page should conform to all the good practices of writing any web page. it should have:
- A headline – it occurred to me the other day when I was rewriting my page that I just said ‘About me’. How lazy and uninspired!
- Subheads to help signpost the way through the post and to make your pitch easily digestible by someone scanning the page
- A clear call-to-action – the reader has already opened the door a crack and you need to invite them fully in.
Try this structure
- Think up a big opening hook – expressed through a headline and the opening paragraph.
Say who you are and what you do
About your journey to where you can help your reader – this is your personal story told in a away that engages the reader’s attention. Perhaps why you’re offering the product or service.
Try a few quirky bits and pieces.
The call-to-action – or even place a series of CTAs in the copy.
Help your page
Back in the day, I used to love writing covering letters for direct mail campaigns. I saw them as the real proof of a writer’s abilities. They were, on the face of it, just like any others that dropped through the recipient’s letterbox. So there was little design-wise to help the copy work.
They’re were no pictures either.
Just the words. And normally in plain old Courier (typewriter face) because someone had worked out that this was the best face for the highest conversion performance.
So no help. I was absolutely on my own.
That’s not the case for you, of course. Your writing doesn’t have to withstand the ultimate challenge.
Make sure you:
- Include photos – mugshots, examples of your work, property shots, your performances, happy customers. Whatever helps your page
Testimonials – words from happy customers or clients are so powerful.
What you shouldn’t put in
I’ve seen many pieces of advice sating you should include links to posts and guest posts you’re proud of. And that you should put links to all your social media pages.
DON’T DO THIS!
Did I say that loud enough?
The people reading the About me page are nearer to actually buying from you than almost any others on your site. Don’t distract them with examples of your work. Chances are they’ve already seen enough to make them want to find out more. Don’t send them around the circle again, as you’ll risk losing them.
You can see why this isn’t the place for social media links either.
You want their details so that you can send e-mails to them or see if you and they want to work together.
Don’t let any distractions get in the way.
I’ve just re-written my About me page. What do you think of it?
Thanks to Derek Key, Kristian Bjornard, photosteve101 and Jasleen Kaur for making their images available via Creative Commons.