Writing a Great ‘About Me’ Page
Your About Me page is the first impression your readers will get of you. And let’s face it, everyone loves making a good first impression! But how do you write your bio while still keeping it interesting and to the point?
I have seen a lot of ‘How to write your About Me page” tutorials. Everyone has different ideas on what makes a great bio and not every suggestion works for everyone, but there are common ideas on what to do and what not to do. While doing research of my own, I found a few tips and tricks that I thought were interesting.
Here are a few problems I found:
:: Too wordy. A lot of them were so long that I became uninterested about halfway down the page.
:: Unrelated information. If you don’t write about it on your blog, you probably shouldn’t be writing about it on your About Me page. (there is one exception though that I’ll get into later)
:: Too many pictures! Some people had twenty plus pictures on their About page, which is about ten too many for me.
:: People seem to think that “funny” pictures make you more relatable. Your pictures don’t have to be crazy, just make sure they’re “you”. Staged pictures do not give an accurate image of who you are and what you like to do in your spare (non-blogging) time.
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So, what do you do?
When writing your About Me page, you have to think of what you want to say to your readers. It’s the first glimpse they’ll get of you and you want to make a great first impression. Think of exactly what you want to say and what you want your readers to know about you. Make sure to take some time and really think of what you want to say. This does not have to be a project you complete in an hour, or in a day. Take your time until you get things exactly the way you want them!
Here’s what I did…
I figured out what my top 5 requirements for my About page were:
- The story of how Crafty Wife came about.
- A section dedicated to my husband.
- A brief backstory of my family because I do like to talk about them every-so-often.
- A brief history of my not-so-crafty young adult self.
- Pictures that went along with what I was writing but wouldn’t overpower the text.
Then I sat in front of my computer and wrote and tweaked until I was completely happy with the result. I also played around in Photoshop with my pictures to make a display that I was really happy with. Then I put it all together!
I love that my pictures are off to the side and you can either look at them or not when reading my bio. I also love that they tell a story along with the text so you can see who I am talking about.
Another fun bit I saw on a few blogs was a Random Facts section! I think they’re so fun and you can learn things that you otherwise would not know about the blogger (this is the exception to the Unrelated Information bit above). You can put anything in this section that you want and get away with it. What fun facts would you want other people to know?
Another thing that I really liked about some bloggers pages were that they had links to their personal favorites (or more popular) blog posts in the About Me section, which I ended up adapting. I also really loved the idea of having a small section that will link you directly to the story of how Chris and I met, fell in love, and got married.
I guess, at this point, you’re probably wondering how you would even get started. It’s actually quite easy, even if it is a bit time consuming.
Some suggestions for you:
- Free write! One of the best things you can do to get your creative juices flowing is to free write and have fun with it!
- Go to some of your favorite blogs and see how they styled their bio pages. It’s the best way to find out what you do or don’t like.
- Make a list of the top three or five things you’d like to include in your bio and start working from there.
- Going along with number 3, decide how much personal information you want to put out in the blogosphere. Some people don’t mind being really open and others are more reserved. Which one are you?
- Find a few of your favorite pictures and find fun ways to include them on your About Me page.
- Be creative! Find fun ways to make your page stand out and still be a reflection of YOU.
Seriously, have fun with this! This page, after all, is all about YOU.