A good ‘About Me’ Page doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated. In fact, it just needs to communicate a few key things. And yet people keep making these same 7 mistakes over and over again on their About Pages.
1: Surprise! Your ‘About Me’ Page isn’t about you.
Nope. It’s about the person who visits the page. This is where you tell that person why they should bother with you, or products or your site.
Talk about their problems which you solve. Talk about how you can help them to achieve their goals. Let them know what’s in it for them. And only talk about yourself in the context of how you help your readers.
2: You’re talking too much.
Your About Me Page should be interesting, not mundane; just long enough, but no longer. Write your rough draft for your About Page. Set it aside for a day or two. Come back and remove everything that doesn’t move your prospect closer to knowing you, liking you and trusting you. Then have a friend read it and tell them to point out all the parts where they were losing interest, and either fix or remove those.
3: Your writing is boring.
Borrrrrringgggg. Snooze… Write in your own voice, lose the hype and the jargon, be a little funny and most of all, be your real self and not some drone.
4: You’re using only video.
Sure, video is great for establishing rapport… with those people who like video. But you’ll have visitors who don’t want to have audio blasting for everyone around them to hear, and you’ll have other visitors who don’t want to sit through a 5-minute video.
If you do use video, keep it short and be sure to include text, too.
5: Your picture is AWOL.
Okay, having your photo on your About Page is optional. I know some people like to keep their face on the down-low because, well… trolls. But if you don’t mind having your photo online, then by all means put it on your About Page to give people a better sense of who you are. It will also help them to remember you, too.
6: Your name is missing.
Have you ever been on a website with awesome writing and you wanted to know who is writing this stuff, but the About Page just has some corporate mumbo-jumbo and nobody’s NAME? I have. You need a first name and a last name, so don’t just say, “Bob” because I want to know, Bob WHO?
If your name is too generic, such as John Smith, you might add a middle name to everything you do online to make it easier to find you in the search engines, such as John Vincent Smith. If you don’t want to use your REAL name, that’s okay, too. Many people work under professional pseudonyms. Also, remember to add any professional, relevant credentials you might have.
7: You don’t have an About Page.
If you’ve read this far, then I’m guessing you understand the importance of an About Page, even if you don’t have one yet. If you’re hoping no one has noticed that you don’t have one, well… we have.
And if you’ve given it some totally clever name like, “Guess What?” “The Deets” or “Check This Out” then it would be a great idea to rename it to “About” or “About Me.” Why? Because if I’m looking for the “About Me” page then I’m going to pass right over all those ‘clever’ names and assume you didn’t bother to create an About page.
