Communicate Who You Are to Elevate Your Content and Make Connections
Although Circular Communication still is in it’s infancy have I already been blessed with a number of prominent visitors. Truth be told I (directly or indirectly) invited them to come and if I knew where to find you I may invite you to. One of the reasons I knew who to invite and how to invite them was that they write who they are and how to contact them on their blogs. Among them was Lorelle who when she visited luckily didn’t ask Who the Hell are you?, but instead struck up a conversation despite not knowing the first thing about me or this blog since my About page really wasn’t saying much about anything at the time.
Having decided to change that I researched a little and found a few gems on the subject that I want to share with you. If you haven’t made your own About page yet this is the perfect time to do so. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. You can always change it later, but chances are that the more you think about it and work with it the better it ends up becoming. With the help of Valeria Maltoni I was finally able to put the finishing touches on my About page (Please check it out and let me know what you think in the comments!). If you get stuck I therefore recommend asking someone who’s opinion you value and respect to have a look at it. What you absolutely have to consider, how important it is having one and how to actually make it are some of the things you can learn from the following articles.
Are You Who You Blog You Are?
“I believe protecting our privacy is critically important, especially as the personal identity and information protection is barely in its infancy. It’s up to us to choose what information we hand out, to whom, and when. Still, it is important that your About page should give us a glimpse behind the mask, whether or not you share your real name and any personal information.” Rely on Lorelle to bring up the perhaps most important point of all. This is exactly what I was struggling with the most. How much to say and how to say what I chose to say so that it is informative and helps people evaluate everything else I write. Most of my writing requires no knowledge of who wrote it, but some things are surely more easily accepted when you know the background of the writer. A must read before you even consider writing a single word on who you are where everyone can read it!
Why An ABOUT Page Is So Important
“Go read your About page now. Please. Fix it up. Tell me who you are, what you’re about, why I should care, and how I can get in touch. Cause I will … and so will a ton of other people too.” Ben Yoskovitz is quite a curious fellow who wants to know all sorts of things about you and he is not the only one. About pages are often (depending on the subjects you cover and your audience) the most visited static pages. The point is that you will miss out on opportunities if you don’t have a decent About page. Since we should embrace the opportunities that present themselves that is a compelling reason to finally get that About page written or updated.
What’s Your Blog Really About?
“As an information delivery platform, a blog only has value in what it can teach. A compelling “About” page must communicate in no uncertain terms what the reader can learn and why it’s important to them. In other words, your “About” page has to sell the blog before the blog can sell you.” If you aren’t convinced you need one and a good one at that after reading this article then you will never get it. Brian Clark is brilliant at making more points simultaneously when turning things upside down. First he makes a great introduction, then he reverses the focus and still you are in no doubt of what he means. It is thus not particularly concrete, but since the opposite is demonstrated on Copyblogger’s own About page can you always go there for more inspiration.
Adding an ‘About’ Page
“I can only speak for myself - but one of the things that frustrates me about many blogs is that they lack much in the way of information about the author/s of them. For some blogs this is more important than others (and its a personal preference thing about how much authors choose to reveal of who they are) but I find pages without an About page can be quite frustrating.” Darren Rowse mentions transparency, engagement and the opportunity of highlighting your best writing as advantages of having an About page and goes on to define what he believes it should contain, how you make it and what else you should consider. Interesting is also that he uses the dual About page approach where one is about him and one about the blog. For that approach to make sense do you have to have a lot to say though so it is not for everyone.
The 4 Essential Elements of an About Me Page
“One of the most important pages on a blog is the about me page. When someone comes to your website for the first time the chances are they are going to check out the about me page and learn all about you.” I do not subscribe to the notion that people should necessarily be able to learn all about me on my About page. However, should they definitely learn enough for the rest of the blog to not suffer from the lack of background information. Neil Patel mentions the four points that everyone seems to agree are the absolute essential when writing an About page so you can consider this a check list or reminder of what is really important when writing one. Just like Neil do I believe it makes the most sense for most blogs to combine the pages about you and about your blog into one.
I will conclude with a plea from Liz Strauss: “If You Want Me to Care, Tell Me Who You Are“. Do you agree that you have to know who someone is to care about the writing? For me I would say it actually works the other way around. I have to care about the writing before wanting to know who the writer is. If you write something that interest me in a compelling way then I will want to know who you are. Knowing who you are may then add to what you wrote, but if the writing doesn’t hold up on it’s own you can be whoever you will and it will not make the slightest difference. In fact I unsubscribed from a number of prominent blogs for that reason. That you are prominent or interesting or whatever doesn’t mean you can write whatever you want and it will be worth reading. To me the writing make the writer and I will hence always look at the written first and at the writer second. Still to actually connect with someone do you need to reveal at least a little about yourself and what better way to do it than on a well written About page?
Related Articles
Comments
2 Responses to “Communicate Who You Are to Elevate Your Content and Make Connections”
Leave a Reply
I tend to read the first post or two, then, if I have any interest at all, I look for an About page. I generally don’t continue to read blogs that don’t give any clue as to who the writer is.
Hi Lillie,
I am glad you made an exception to your rule when visiting again despite the poor About page
Actually I believe what you do reflects how many do. I do have blogs that I read a lot before looking for an about page, but normally you instantly get curious about the writer when you like the writing.
Finding the balance between giving enough of yourself away to honor that curiosity and little enough to protect your privacy seems to me to be the key to an About page that works for everyone.