6 Ideas for Your Blog’s About Page and Why they Work

February 4, 2014 by Daniel Sharkov|

Does your blog have an about page?

I’m pretty certain that the answer here is yes. It is common sense that revealing a bit about yourself can make it easier for your readers to trust what you are telling them.

Giving away personal details about your life shows dedication and authenticity.

And in a world with millions of auto-blogs that do nothing, but scoop up information from around the web and stitch it to look as though it’s their own, finding credible sources of information, outside the already-established ones is not always easy.

But then again creating an about page is simple. Turning it into an effective conversion tool however is a bit trickier…

That is exactly what I will be walking you through today!

Lately I’ve been spending some time, polishing my own about page, playing around with its elements and making sure more people actually visit it. All of this inspired me to share with you some of the ideas that I incorporated to make it a useful supplement to my content strategy!

Tips on how to bring more visitors Ideas on what to write about Ways to get more conversions And how to keep visitors “in the loop”1. Consider Coming up With an Actual Headline

Okay, so let’s assume you come across two articles about Twitter…

So one of the posts is titled “Useful Twitter Tips”, while the other one has a bit more descriptive headline like “ 5 Effective Steps to Help You Build a Strong Twitter Presence” (any resemblance to actual articles is coincidental).

Now which of the two would you rather choose?

Chances are you’d go for the latter.

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It just feels like more thought went into it plus you know exactly what to expect!

Okay, back to the about page.

It’s pretty much the same thing here actually. Most about pages you will see around the web simply go under the name “About”. And it’s not that you don’t know what to expect, but it just doesn’t sound enticing.

I mean with thousands of pages under the same name, why read that one specifically?

Exactly!

So why don’t you just take a second (almost literally), go ahead, click the “Edit page” link and write something interesting!

For mine I utilized a call to action: “Want to Know More About Me and This Blog? Read on!”. Derek Halpern‘s goes like “Here’s What Social Triggers Is All About”. Francisco Rosalesof Social Mouths on the other hand has gone a little more causual with “Who Is This Dude?”

You go the point, now start working on it!

NOTE:
To keep the navigation bar display a different title, you should go to the WordPress Dashboard -> Appearance -> Menus . Now select the navigation menu from the dropdown list, find the tab for your about page, click on the arrow at the right-end to expand it and change the navigation label to “About Me” or a shorter version of the headline you came up with.2. Don’t Tell me You Don’t Have a Photo!

When you are looking for someone on Facebook, isn’t their profile image the most important proof that THIS is the person you are actually looking for?

I mean there could be a ton of people with the same name!

Or…

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What’s the common thing between personal profiles on platforms like Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn and and pretty much any other you can think of?

That’s right – the profile image is located in such a way that it is the first thing anyone visiting a profile will see.

Is it a concept that works?

Yes.

Then the same will work on your about page. After all the latter is almost identical to a personal profile page on a social network!

Make your face clearly visible DON’T look grumpy (smile!) Don’t use an avatar-sized photo (go for 200px at least!) 3. So, What do You Tell (or How do You Tell it)?

The first and most important thing is an about page isn’t an autobiography!

While the page is about yourself, it really isn’t.

In other words your goal should be to persuade the visitor that you are someone worth following and that your content is exactly what that person is looking for.

How do you do that?

By making it about THEM first.

The very first lines should be focused on how you can be of help and what the reader should expect to learn. At this point your name is the only personal information you need to share.

The reason?

Chances are a good number of the people who visit your about page are first-time visitors. The one thing they want to know is whether they should spend more of their valuable time on your blog in the future.

If you start with details, like when and where you were born and where you moved, you will probably lose most of those first-timers who aren’t that much interested in you.

Only once they know what’s in it for them, will they (or not) be willing learn more about you.

That information can easily be squeezed into just a couple of sentences but it HAS to be there!

4. The Follow Me Links

You probably have a sidebar widget, displaying the networks you participate in and providing a way for visitors to connect with you.

That’s all good, but a lot of people develop the “sidebar-blindness syndrome”.

It’s just that when you are focused on reading an article,
you rarely pay attention to the widgets you scroll by.

However when someone visits your about page, their focus lies on you more than on any other page!

So one thing you could do is build the links to your profiles into the page’s content.

See the “Follow Me” box on mine (which I also use to display related posts) ?

Here’s how to add one to your page!

The following HTML goes right into your about page:

Follow Me

Your Profile URL “>On Twitter
Your Profile URL “>On Google+
Your Profile URL “>On Facebook
And…
Your Profile URL “>On Pinterest

To add the appropriate styling and make it all look like a box, place the following CSS in your stylesheet:

.related{border-radius:4px;-moz-border-radius:4px;-webkit-border-radius:4px;box-shadow:0 -41px 55px #eee inset;-moz-box-shadow:0 -41px 55px #eee inset;-webkit-box-shadow:0 -41px 55px #eee inset;width:25%;float:right;border:4px double #dadada;background:#f6f6f6;padding:12px 12px 0;margin:20px 0 20px 20px}.related h3{font:italic 25px “Palatino Linotype”,”Book Antiqua”,Palatino,serif}.related p{width:88%;border-bottom:1px dotted #c4c4c4;border-top:1px dotted #c4c4c4;font:italic 16px “Palatino Linotype”,”Book Antiqua”,Palatino,serif;margin:17px auto;padding:10px 0}

NOTE:
Make sure to add the rel=”author” tag to the URL of your Google Plus profile if you want to take advantage of Google authorship. It should look lke

5. Did You Provide Examples of Your Work?

If you followed tip number three, then you have set the reader’s expectations. Now they know what you offer…

Or do they?

You said you provide practical and to the point tips?

Prove it by placing links to a selected number of posts that you believe best describe your statement!

Oh, and if you are getting a lot of comments, a lot of Facebook likes, consider including the number that the selected posts have reached.
Social proof is always a good way to get people interested (it’s the same thing I did for my links, though I showcased the number of retweets) .

6. Where’s Your Opt-In?

About page and a subscription form… do the two really go together?

Well yes, in fact they do.

Actually I like to believe that an effective about page is only partly about educating the reader. The more important aspect is its purpose as a conversion funnel.

And here’s how it goes…

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You basically start with the general information and slowly narrow it down to the specifics:

That’s my name and here’s how I can help you Here’s my background information Here are the examples that back it all up Here’s the social proof to further solidify credibility …Now feel free to follow me & subscribe to stay tuned

The further down the (right!) visitor goes, the more proof he gathers that you are the one he’s looking for.

In that case it is only logical to include an opt-in at the end.
Otherwise you are simply wasting on a really good opportunity to not only expand your list, but to also hook new and genuinely interested readers into your content!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed the read friends!

The main takeaway from this post is to consider your about page as something more than just that. Rather than providing general information about you, you should strategically structure it so that it also becomes one of your best conversion tools.

With that in mind you should also consider bringing as much traffic as you can there.

How to achieve that will be the topic of a soon-to-come post, so stay tuned!

Now I would really love to hear your thoughts!

Which points do you agree with and which you disagree on and why? What are some of the other about page ideas that you have in mind?

Please take a minute to comment and/or share the post with your friends if you liked it!

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