Do you get the heebie jeebies when you think about your About page?
Maybe you (gasp) haven’t written it yet. Or maybe you have, but you kind of hate it.
You don’t like promoting yourself. You think your life’s boring.
You think your About page is too salesy. Or WAY too personal (and therefore unprofessional).
Either way, you aren’t doing yourself any favors by avoiding it.
Your About page is [likely] one of the most clicked-on pages of your website because people want to buy from people.
They do not want to give their money to faceless internet robots. Nor from strangers hiding behind a computer screen in Who Knows Where.
When someone looks for a solution to her burning problem and stumbles across an intriguing business, she gets curious. Who’s steering this ship? Is it someone she would hang out with? Someone she likes? What about trust? Will he/she deliver on what their promises?
Your About page copy is an opportunity to reassure website visitors that you are not only human, you’re qualified to solve their specific problems.
Have you EVER bought a high-end service (in my case, that means a price point higher than $50) from someone who didn’t know what they were doing?
Probably not! And if it did happen, I bet you felt duped. You might even have felt “I will never buy from them again and will leave an outraged review on Yelp just as soon as I remember my password” angry.
So take this opportunity to stand out from the crowd and showcase just how qualified you are.
So how do you use your About page to PROVE that you’re qualified to solve your site visitors’ problems?
This is where a lot of people either a) list a bunch of academic degrees or job titles; or b) worry about their lack of academic degrees and job titles.
BOTH are important—but they’re not enough.
Traditional qualifications are important because they lend a lot of credibility to your rep. Non-traditional qualifications (the personal and professional experience you’ve lived through) allow you to demonstrate your points of difference.
But if you want to transform your About page into a sales tool as well as bio, you need to shift into a copywriting mindset.
Make your About page about your customers. Not about you.
You do that by speaking directly to your peeps from the first sentence.
Do not begin your About page with the phrase, “Hi, my name is XX.” (Not at first, anyway. You’ll get there.)
(Remember, business is like a courtship. You want to warm up your partner a little bit. Acknowledge their needs first. Show them you care.)
The easiest way to get it done? Write a headline that acknowledges a key detail about your customers’ lives.
This allows you to do 3 thingsL
- REASSURE them that yes, they are in the right place.
- PROVE to them that you understand their problem SO well, you can describe them in detail…because you are an EXPERT.
- HOOK their attention so they’ll keep reading your page.
Here are some starter phrases for your to write your About page intro:
- Are you a… [insert description of ideal client + their struggle or dream]
- Do you ever… [insert description of ideal client + their struggle or dream]
- You know that feeling… [insert their struggle or dream]
- You’re the type of person who [insert description of ideal client]
You want to inspire “Heck YES this person gets me!” in the mind of your readers. (Ideally, they’ll nod their head when they read it.)
So your headline should make it very clear that: a) you know who you are speaking to; and b) you understand one of their main problems or desires.
Bottom line: Start your About page with a nod to your clients. Put your people first.
So what do you think? Can you add this one-line wonder to your About page this week? Or do you already pass the test with flying colors?
