10 Modern About Page Tips

While About pages may be timeless, the fact remains that the presentation and approach will continue to change. Since the world didn’t end and you’ve decided to leave Vault 21, the following are the most important aspects for engaging your audience:

1. Credibility. If you don’t have an About page, no one can verify who you are. Get in the game. Anyone who is anonymous is either clueless, scared, or doing something illicit.
2. Authorship. That’s right. This is where you add to your author rank and place the code to get your mug next to search results.
3. Audience. Cue the music. Carly Simon begins “You’re so vain …”. It’s not about you, but what you do for your audience. Tell them succinctly right upfront.
4. Interesting. Now that was a pretty good blog post. Let’s see who – and then you can pretty much hear the brakes screeching in your mind. The worst mistake after not having an about page is hitting your readers with 5 paragraphs of text or boring rows of author pictures with bylines.
5. Research. There are many great about page examples and articles on the web, but you should check out your competition too. When you all are leading and pretty much say the same stuff, you’ll become a little more motivated to improve your about page.
6. Media. Have a pleasing layout, tell a visual story with graphics rather than text, and throw in a video or podcast. Take that 4Ws and 1H of paragraphs and transform them into something more compelling.
7. Brevity. It’s a date. Use a unique angle and hold something back. People want an impression at a glance and won’t scroll more than once.
8. Factual. For whatever reason, seeing numbers breaks the monotony of a sea of text while providing validity. Possibly you were the first whatever. Remember that the numbers must be defensible.
9. Actionable. Yes, you must have a photo, contact information, and social media icons. Woven into the mix, decide how overtly you want to make your pitch or simply ask to follow and like.
10. Dynamic. At least annually, update your about pages using the tips above. Think different and don’t have the same boring lines for profile pages around the web either. Personalize each profile to fit the service. Now, go fix your about pages.