The “About Me” page is a specific section on your website that establishes who you are, why you are there, and why your readers should be there. Unfortunately, even though it is one of the most important pages on a website, an About Me page can be a bit difficult to write sometimes. The following tips should help you come up with an exceptional page about yourself.
- Who You Are and Why You’re There: For a more personal feel, write in the first person. Establish who you are, what you do, and who your site is aimed at. Outline your experience and passion. Let your readers know what sets you apart from everyone else, and keep this information relevant to the topic of your website.
- What You Can Do For Your Readers: This is the part where you get to sell yourself. Outline what your readers can gain from your site. Perhaps you are selling a product that they need or can improve their lives. If you’re an expert on a certain topic, let them know. List any achievements and accomplishments that are relevant to the topic of your site.
- Don’t Be a Bore: This section of your website should be interesting and a little creative. Don’t make it dry and boring. Keep it entertaining, and engage your readers. Make them want to know more and read more.
- Keep a Positive Attitude: No one wants to read depressing things, so keep it positive. Most importantly, never sound like you doubt yourself. If you sound as though you doubt yourself, that will make your readers doubt you.
- Give Yourself an Edge: Be a little competitive, and scope out some other About Me pages written by similar websites. You don’t have to prove, beyond a doubt, that you are better. Instead, your goal should be to make yourself seem more unique, and to stand out of the crowd in the readers mind.
- Honesty is the Best Policy: Keep your information accurate, and stay honest. Never lie, as this can come back and bite you where you don’t want to be bitten. If you provide less than true information, people WILL find out. After people start finding out that you’re being dishonest, you can kiss your credibility goodbye.
- Show a Great Photo: A great photo is the icing on an otherwise great About Me page. It puts a face behind your words, and it shows that you’re not just hiding behind a website. While it doesn’t have to be a professional shot, it should be a good one, which shows you doing something related to your topic.
- Link to Yourself: The About Me page is a great place to include links to your other pages or great posts. Add links for your readers to follow you on sites like Facebook or Twitter. Insert links to your best posts or products, or, if you have one, your mailing list.
- Stay in Touch: Provide an easy and convenient way for your readers to contact you. Email links are nice, but contact forms are better. You can get these for free from a number of sites, and they can be embedded right into your site.
- Keep it Current: The About Me section on your site should be kept as up to date as possible, and it should always be considered a work in progress. Make it a habit check it every few months. Rewrite or add any new information or accomplishments if needed.
Even though the About Me page can be hard to write, it should never be overlooked. It is essential. This section can make or break your site. Write it wisely.
This is a guest article by James Adams from Cartridge Save, an online supplier of HP 350 ink cartridge and other office supplies.
Indeed, “about me” pages are very important to all kinds of website. I was surprised to see how popular got mine after I rewrote it!
It’s the first page I tend to look at when I visit a new website/ blog.
.-= Zhu´s last blog ..The Supreme Court of Canada =-.
Very good overview. One may add that profile pages on social media or any website one has an account with should follow some of these guidelines. Even if you just sign up with a forum to leave a post and signature backlink it would benefit to offer a real profile, including photo and avatar (if these features are enabled). Personally I find a photo to be the most important. Its the first thing I look at and search for, before reading anything. Unfortunately some marketeers use fake pictures and pretend its them. Like these one page special offer sites. Its not too hard to catch these though.
I also cannot stress enough how important an about me page is! I previously thought that no one read about me pages until a reader pointed out that that was one of the first things she visits whenever she goes to a new website. If a website didn’t have it, she loses interest and never comes back. So set up your about me pages everyone!
This is timely for us. We just redesigned our website and have been updating pages. Our About Us page is sorely in need of an update. Our kid’s ages in it are 3 years off! Yikes!
An about page is a very important page of any blog. Basically that’s the real web identity of the blogger behind and as you rightly said it has to be having good ‘about’ information, a great photo (the face sells…), and definitely hints on how the blogger can be of help to his/her readers.
I had a reader of my blog come to me and ask me why I didn’t have an about me page. That was the only time I thought about writing an about me page and boy, was I glad I wrote that when I did. My page rank has gone up a point and interestingly enough, I have more readers. I didn’t even change my writing style or what I wrote about!
I’ve always underutilized the about me page I feel. I don’t really have any blog with a solid readership that an about me page has been necessary. Most of my blogs get traffic from search terms in google and then bounce right away. Is this page still that important when managing multiple blogs with high bounce rates?
It’s always important – even if your site only gets 10 readers a week. Any one of those readers could want to advertise, guest post, or even make an offer to partner or buy your site.