Writing your About Page
The about page defines your mission. You need to explain who you are, who you are helping, how you are helping them, and most importantly – why you are helping them.
I see a lot of about pages that are clearly strewn together hurriedly, or just a quick little bio about who they are and where they went to college. This is a huge mistake. The about page is your first great chance to make an emotional connection with your reader. You need to hit the nail dead-on and tell them:
- Who you are?
- Who you aim to help?
- How you will help them?
- And why you are helping them?
Who are you?
This should be brief and accomplish two things. It should show something impressive you’ve done without coming off like an asshole, and it should show your audience that you are just a normal person like them. Humility is crucial here.
Who are you helping?
Here is where you identify with your customer. You re-state their biggest problems that you yourself have experienced. You talk about the problems with the current solutions.
How will you help them?
This is your USP. How is what you’re doing different and better than what others are doing?
Why are you helping them?
This is incredibly important. You need to start with Why to get people truly onboard.
Collect their Email Address
Once you’ve written a strong about page, and rallied people behind your vision, you need to capitalize on the momentum and collect their email address! So shove in a leadbox on the page with something emotional yet useful. Then send them the autoresponder you setup in the last path.
Exercise:
Using the example, craft your own about page. Make sure it hits on all 4 points and has a clear call to action so you can collect an email address.
Examples:
1.Derek Halpern from SocialTriggers.com
http://socialtriggers.com/social-triggers/
Derek dives right into his readers problems and lets you know your in the right place. Better yet, he draws you deeper into about page and offers to help you out RIGHT AWAY by joining his mailing list. Notice how he hardly even talks about himself.
2. Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com
http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/about/
Compared to Derek, Pat isn’t much of a copy writer. However he is a GREAT story teller. He draws you into his story by quickly telling you who he is, why he does what he does, and how you can get to where is he is today.
3.Ramit Sethi from IwillTeachYoutoBeRich.com
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/about/about-ramit/
Ramit quickly tells you how he does things. Within the first few sentences (more like bullet points) he lets you know he is a smart dude who does smart things. Why he does what he does, and why you should listen to him.
4. Michael Hyatt from MichaelHyatt.com
http://michaelhyatt.com/about
Unlike the other examples, Michael uses a video on his about page. You very quickly get the sense he is someone who has been where you have been and can help you “get out.” Since he has a lot of existing content, he also uses it as a portal to help you dig deeper into his blog and get to know his marketing message better.