Your About Page

Perhaps the most important page on your blog is the “about” page. It’s typically one of the most popular pages on the site. People are curious about who you are, what this blog is about, and what they can get from it.

So, because it’s one of the most popular pages and important pages on the site, we’re going to do a MUCH better job on this page than most bloggers ever do with it.

And I gotta say right up front: the biggest mistake you can make on your about page is to make it all about you. First and foremost your about page is about your reader, what they struggle with, and why it matters. And after you convey that, then it’s about how you can help them, why you’re qualified, who you are, and why they should read and subscribe to your blog.

To really nail your about page you need to do 5 things. Here are the 5 elements of a killer about page:

1. Define your ideal reader

Your ideal reader is the person your content is focused at. When you start out this should be very focused, arguably, focused on one specific person.

That might sound weird but here’s an example of why this is helpful. Let’s say your blog is about home audio. Who is your ideal reader for this blog?

Is it a wealthy person who is semi-retired and looking to build an amazing (and expensive) multi-room system to have fun with and show off to his friends?

Or, is your ideal reader a younger person who loves music and wants it to sound good, but doesn’t have a lot to spend?

These are two vastly different readers, which means the about page will need to be customized and tuned to one of them to really resonate.

So your ideal reader matters a lot in terms of how you shape the content on this page. What tone of voice you use, how much you assume they know about your topic, and more. So getting really clear in your head about who your ideal reader is, is the first ingredient in an excellent about page.

2. Define their problem or desire

The next step is to empathize with your ideal reader, to really slip into their skin, walk a mile in their shoes… and then think “what pain or desire does this person have about your topic?”

What you’re looking for is the transformation they want in their life. From this to that. From I want to start a blog but don’t know how, to I’ve got a blog started and a solid strategy. From I want some good sounding home audio gear but don’t know where to look, to I love entertaining in my house because the music sounds so great.

A little caveat here: you can brainstorm all you want, but nothing compares to hearing it straight from your reader’s mouth. If you haven’t yet, I highly recommend taking our course on Customer Conversations, so you can find out the truth and hear the evidence yourself of exactly what problem your potential customers want solved.

3. Communicate the big why

As I said before, this is a mistake I see blogs make ALL the time: they don’t effectively communicate WHY I should read their blog.

Now, we’ve already done the work for this one, when we wrote down our compelling reason why someone should read our blog. So you have the raw materials for this one; you just need to make sure you include it on your about page.

4. Share your qualifications

This is the about page, and you should share about yourself… but in a particular way.

As you can tell already, this page isn’t for you to sort of vomit your life story at readers — it’s designed to convince them that this blog is valuable to them and they should stick around, read and subscribe.

So, share some reasons why you’re qualified to help your reader on this journey. Tell them how your life shaped you to see things in a certain way, how you struggled and then found the solution. Tell them how you know their pain and can see beyond it now.

5. Ask them to subscribe

In this course we haven’t yet talked about how important your email list is to you as a blogger. Arguably, we blog so we can grow our email list, not the other way around. One of the central strengths of blogging is its ability to grow an email list so you can directly communicate with people.

But, people don’t sign up unless you ask them to, unless you put a form in front of them and tell them why they should subscribe. We don’t have to be pushy, but we can be honest.

So, we want to make sure we do this on the about page because it’s one of the highest trafficked pages on our site. Be sure to add a subscribe form from your email list provider to your about page and tell them why to subscribe.

Time to write!

Ok, I’ve added notes below on the 5 elements of a killer about page and I’ve also included several examples of about pages so you can compare and contrast and find one you want to model yours after.

It’s time to write your about page. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be long or short. Right now it just needs to communicate clearly. If you follow the 5 elements we’ve laid out here you’ll already be miles ahead of the pack.

When you’ve completed your about page, I’ll see you in the next lesson where we’ll start the 7 step content plan.

Bonus: Recorded Coaching Session #4

When this course first launched, we led a cohort of students through the material and assignments over the course of 10 weeks. These coaching sessions are very in-depth (each session was 90 minutes to 2 hours). We spent most of the time answering student questions and reviewing assignments.

These sessions are recorded if you would like to follow along. They will appear here, at the end of lessons throughout this course. Keep in mind that each session covers more than one lesson, so only 10 of the 17 lessons will include recorded coaching videos like this.

Enjoy! Here is session #4, which covers lesson 6: