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Oh God…Every time I look at my blog, I can’t stop crying about my about page. Whenever I look at my site stats I know that the about page is the most visited page. Damnit, I am a communication expert, I have huge experience with analytics, I can totally see that coming but still I can’t get to create a good, stable and sustainable about page. Well, it’s certainly got better and better over time, but still I always feel like it could be better.
At least, I’m consoled by seeing how many influencial bloggers and social media experts have appauling about pages. Still, it should not be an excuse to let your about page getting dusted.
So let’s talk about it. What do we want to reach with our about page? Promote yourself? Boost your personal branding? Be left in anonimity? This should be your first question.
If you are communication consultant you probably want to be visible. You want to show what you think, what you have done and what you can offer.
There two about pages I like in particular that offer two different alternatives.
The first one belongs to David Meerman Scott. He is a world famous marketing strategist. He is an innovative man, great speaker and motivator. He talks about himself in third person (providing a more professional image), he adds samples of his work and even shows an introductory video. From this page you instantly understand what you can expect from him and which level of expertise and seniority you are looking at.
The second belongs to Jon Worth. Jon is well known in the Eurobubble both as a communication consultant and opinionist about UK and EU politics. I like his personal touch when he explains “why you should trust his blog.”
I feel in between these two formats. I am a communication professional but I don’t exclusively discuss about communication. I wear a tie on my tiny Twitter bio but I like to have a picture of me on a camel on my blog. I probably need a shrink to figure out what’s best…
To sum up, the elements that should never miss in an about page:
- a photo
- a bio
- some personal facts
- contact information
- social media presence
All the rest can be left to creativity.
What do you think about about about pages?
Thanks for the link! 🙂
The “why you should trust this blog” page came about as a result of the training work I do, when loads of people asked me how to trust blogs. So I set about trying to answer the question in my own way. It’s also an important point for my own blogging – that I try to stick to topics I know.