Last week I was checking out a blog from someone who had recently commented on my post. Something I always do when exploring a new blog is check out the ‘About Me’ page.
If you’re not familiar with this, it’s a default page that WordPress.com creates on any new blog, allowing YOU the creator to tell the audience a bit about who you are and what you’re doing.
Often when doing this I come across three common problems, they:
- are poorly written.
- don’t provide any context why I want to be here.
- is still in it’s template format, or doesn’t exist at all.
In need of this demand, I decided to write a post to help you write a great About Me page that will help inspire your desired audience to stay, read your content and subscribe.
How to write the perfect About Me page
To write a great About Me page for your WordPress.com blog, ensure to contain a summary under separate headers containing:
- Start with a story.
- Explain the vision for the blog, how are you trying to help your readers?
- Identify what the focus is of the blogs niche.
- Who is the person (or people) behind the blog.
- Display your post highlights.
- Finish with an action.
Why is an About Me page is important?
To explain why an About Me page is essential, I will direct you to this post from Hugh’s Views and News Why Every Blogger Should Have an About Me Page on Their Blog.
Hugh points out that often the ‘About Me’ page is the first place many people will go when they visit a blog for the first time.
Your About Me page is explaining what you write about. Put it this way – if you think of your blog as a business your About Me is explaining what services you are offering, therefore if this is missing or poorly written then it doesn’t give the ‘customer’ much reason to ‘buy’ into you!
When I visit a blog I often don’t have time to digest dozens of posts to see if I like your stuff, therefore the absence of a good quality About Me will mean I don’t subscribe, and you lose out on a new follower.
Writing the perfect About Me page for your Blog
Whether you are using WordPress.com, or something else, the rules for a good About Me Page are pretty much the same. At the start of this post I broke down the sections what this should contain, which I will go into further detail:
Start with a story…
Using story telling is important to include in your About Me page as it serves as the hook to the reader wanting to learn more about you.
“I like to tell people that I’ve lived four different lives and from each of these lives, I’ve learned something that’s helped me become who I am today.”
Ed Latimore, ‘About’ page
I like this introduction from Ed Latimore’s About page as it opens with an interesting statement that gets the reader intrigued – what are these four different lives he’s lived? What has Ed learnt?
When writing the About Me page for Perfect Manifesto, I wanted to use a story that started with adversity and explain what motivated me to register with WordPress and how it would change my life – an origin story to the blog so to speak.
The story builds into my vision why I write the blog, and even more important why the person looking at their screen should keep reading…
One of my biggest dislikes in life is seeing a person pissing away their potential, which was the driver to change my own life and inspiration to start writing Perfect Manifesto, a site for every person who ever thought:
“I know I can be so much more…”
Perfect Manifesto – About Me Page
State what you write about
Next you need to cover off what your blogs niche is. Your niche in real non-jargon terms as described by Entreprenuer.com is:
“a topic you enjoy talking about…”
Your story has touched on your blogs purpose, by including this section you are stating what specific topics you write about.
I am explicit to explain to the reader what Perfect Manifesto is about:
“When you read Perfect Manifesto you’ll get my writings on personal growth, confidence and health, along with stories from my life – past and present, about how I’ve faced challenges, overcome problems and share insights about things I’ve learnt along the way.
And as a passionate blog writer you’ll also find my thoughts on the process of writing and the mindset behind running a blog.”
Perfect Manifesto – About Me Page
You can see I’ve prioritised this focusing on the three main topics I cover, but also shared some other things I write on perfectmanifesto.com.
The purpose of this section is what I call the trigger point – whether the reader decides what I talk about is for them, or if they are in the wrong place to allow them to stop wasting anymore time.
Who is behind the blog?
When I started Perfect Manifesto I used a fake name. I figured by using an alias it gave me the freedom to write without worry of censoring myself.
As I began to find my writers voice and began to take myself more seriously as a creator, I realised I wanted everything I write on here to be my authentic self.
Therefore, when crafting the section explaining who I was, I treated this like any bio that you would see if my work was published on any mainstream publication.
Whether you choose to be open or anonymous, make sure when telling your audience about yourself to keep this on point so your audience understands a bit more about who you are.
My name is James M. Lane. When I’m not sharing my words on here, I’m a loving husband, father to two girls, strength trainer and Digital Project Manager.
Perfect Manifesto – About Me Page
Although it may seem trivial, putting a bit about you is important to establishing your identity – from this you can see I’m a family man, into fitness and have a day job. This helps gives the reader an understanding of the perspective I write from.
To finish this personal connection, include a link to your Contact Me page. I view this as a virtual business card, allowing the reader to get in touch direct if they desire.
Post highlights
Keeping in mind you are selling your blog to the person reading your About Me page, therefore it’s a good idea to have a portfolio showing off your best work.
The purpose of these links is to guide your new reader where to start – don’t get carried away with your links, put your absolute best posts – too many will just make you look desperate for clicks. Keep it focused.
Finish with an action
If you’ve done this right, you will have sold why your blog is great, and the reader will want to keep in touch.
Therefore, finish with an action – include links so they can subscribe and follow you on social media.
Thoughts on making a great About Me page
On not getting a bite…
Something I’ve noticed is how personal people take it when they don’t get subscribers/followers, or they find the audience unsubscribes/unfollows.
“What have I done wrong? Was it something I said?”
They ponder, wasting too much time overthinking it, and become paralysed to keep writing because they think with each new blog article, the post may end up losing someone.
This is the wrong mindset. I view this as refining my audience.
Someone reads my About Me page and thinks I’m boring, or a hack, or it just simply isn’t for them. That’s fine – if it prevents someone subscribing who has no interest in your words and never engages then your About Me page has done it’s job.
REMEMBER: Quality not quantity everytime!
Give me 10 loyal readers who are engaged any day!
How often should I update my About Me page?
Some people write their About Me page and that’s it – they never go back.
The longer you blog the better writer you become – you don’t want to put people off reading your high-quality posts from eight years writing experience, because they read a lame About Me page you wrote in your first month of blogging!
Some blogs I read and it’s obvious it was written five years ago. I’m going to ask a question and be honest:
Are you exactly the same person you were five years ago?
That’s what I thought. Your kids have grown, you changed jobs, you no longer use your blog for angry political rants and most of all – you’ve grown as a person.
Make sure to update your About Me page at least once a year.
It doesn’t always need to be a major overhaul, read it and see if it’s still an accurate picture of what your blog is about.
Is it worthwhile to allow comments on the About Me page?
Upon my many refreshes over the year I decided to take the comments off my About Me page for the simple reason – the comments reflected words that were no longer there and didn’t make sense to a new reader.
Every blog post I write is pretty much in the same state it’s in as when it was first published (no matter how bad), therefore this is the place where comments are welcomed because they’ll always be future proofed.
Do feel free to leave the comments on your About Me page if you think it’s appropriate – I just decided it wasn’t right for Perfect Manifesto.
How people browse content
When designing my About Me Page I carried out a little bit of research to understand how people read and process information today.
It’s worth considering the experience of mobile users as they account for the majority of Internet traffic – this 2020 study states 68.1% of people across the world access this way.
Attention span is also something to appreciate. I’ve utilised various features in WordPress like headings, columns, short paragraphs and spaced out with pictures to help the design.
Despite the efforts, I appreciate even your About Me page may only be short (mine is 418 words), this will still be too much for some people, as this study shows, on average only 28% of your words will be read!
Taking these considerations into mind, make sure to make your page easy to skim and speed read.
Conclusion
A good About Me page is the perfect opportunity to entice blog visitors to become regulars, you just need to take some good care to show why they need to keep reading.
Make sure to:
- Have a logical structure starting with a story to hook them in.
- Share the blogs vision.
- Be clear what topics you write about.
- Tell them a bit about yourself.
- Share 3 highlights in your blogging portfolio and finish with an action to get them to subscribe.
Finally, some general tips:
- Aim for getting quality engagement not quantity ‘followers’ with no interest in your work.
- Keep the About Me page updated every year.
- Consider whether the About Me page is the best place for comments?
- Think how people browse web content – have you made it readable for mobile device users, and simplified it so people can skim to the section(s) of interest?
What do you think?
These are my thoughts on writing that ‘Perfect’ About Me page.
What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my approach, or do you have any further suggestions to enhance this important page?
Wishing you the best in your success
James @Perfect Manifesto
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Perfect Manifesto 
I will admit I don’t have an About Me page (I have a bio at the bottom of my Home page instead). I’ve been blogging for a long time and gone through having one/not having on, etc and never really settled on anything (until using my bio) that I felt did what I wanted it to do. Reading your post reminds me that having a dedicated page to learning about me has many positives — I may try having one again.
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It’s a good idea. I know some sites I’ve scrolled through and seen a dozen posts all on a diverse range of topics so I want to understand what I’m signing up for. The about page (if done right) Makes it easy for the reader to get What your about.
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It’s so funny I stumbled upon this post because this morning I was thinking about About Me pages. I almost feel like you should write for a few months first before you sit down to your write your About Me page. I understand and 100% agree with you that every blog needs one, but I also think you need to find your voice and style first. Then, once you’ve done some writing, know what you like and are good at, is the time to write an About Me. I love the idea of adding links as that’s something I’ve not done. I have to update some old posts this weekend, so I think I’ll go back and update that too!
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Thanks Paul for your comment. That’s a good point about when you start as it will evolve a bit after you’ve been writing a few months. I do view the About Me Page as something you can keep coming to as many times as needed, so I recommend even if it’s a quick 5 minute job it’s better to use that than the generic template.
As you get more established you can Tighten it up, and the links serve to make a few pieces of work you really love stand out.
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So true. I think something brief starting out. I remember feeling stressed trying to think of what to write because I just didn’t know. I had a vision but it wasn’t quite tangible yet. But yeah, you definitely need something at least.
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Thanks James. My “About Me” page (I titled it “Why, you Might Ask”) was the starting place when I decided to write a blog. I should revisit it and make refinements as needed.
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Hi Danny thanks for the comment. Yes the About Me Page is a real good foundation to help you decide what your blogs focus is and keep you focused going forward!
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This is great! I have been blogging for almost nine years and have updated my About Me page only once. I was just thinking that it may be time again so this was a very timely article. I’m looking forward to reading future articles from you.
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Thanks Janis, I’m glad you’ve found it useful to update your About Me Page.
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This is some great advice. My About Me page hasn’t been updated in a while, even then, it’s not changed much since the day I launched my blog. I could do with giving it a revamp and I’ll be using your suggestions when I do. I just need to find my motivation first
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Good look with it. About Me Page is well worth the investment- it doesn’t get me loads of views but you can see it being referred to when you get a visitor who checks out a few pages – hopefully it will keep them coming!
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James, thanks for the link and mention of the post I wrote and published about a blog’s ‘about me’ page.
Given that the ‘about me’ page is probably one of the most viewed pages of any blog, it’s so crucial that bloggers get it right. You’ve covered lots more than I did in my post, so this is all very helpful, and I’m sure it will help many people in the blogging world.
I tend to update my blog every December when the world of blogging is at its quietest. However, I will also update any information that will have changed during the rest of the year.
Thanks again.
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You’re welcome Hugh.
I know when I first started I didn’t have a clue what to write so wanted to share my approach to structuring and writing the page.
Thanks for your comment!
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I’m going to have a look at mine. Thanks for the tips. 😀
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No problem. Enjoy!
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What about a minimalist “About” page? I boiled mine down to only two sentences, and an action, but I still think most of your points are in it.
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I’m all for minimalist approach – touching on my point about the average person’s attention span if you can get across who you are and what your blog is about in fewer words then go for it!
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as always, another informative post. I did not spend much time putting mine together; sounds like I am due for six updates to mine…
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Thanks Jim glad it was useful. Also great to see you back hope your blogging break helped!
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it was nice to take it easy and let the healing process happen!
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