The words on every page of your website need to be intentional. They need to make your clients feel something. And one of the most important things you want them to feel is SEEN. Your about page is one of the best places to help your client know that you understand their problems and that you are the person to offer them solutions.
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Did you know that your About page is typically the second most visited page on your website? Now, I say typically because you may have one really, really huge blog post that does exceptionally well on Pinterest or something. But most of the time, if you look at someone’s analytics, their Homepage is the most visited and their About page is the second most visited.
Neither of these pages, however, are usually not visited first. They’re usually clicked on or people move over to them because they’ve already decided that they’re interested in you, that they like you for some reason. Whether a friend referred them or they found out about you on social media and they’ve been following you. Whatever the reason, they’ve decided, “I like her and want to learn a little more about her.” They’ll usually go to your homepage or your about page.
No matter where someone finds you from, no matter which page they land on, the second page they go to is going to be your homepage or your about page.
Your about page is important, but here’s the problem, your about page shouldn’t actually be about you. Weird. Right? I know that that feels so strange. But, if your about page is all about you, it can be a turnoff.
Let me give you an example. So my daughters – I have two daughters that are 18 months apart – and the older one really struggles with getting ready on time. With getting going in the morning, with staying on task. Her younger sister is the exact opposite and really, really cares about following rules and being on time and all of that sort of stuff.
So every morning they get up, they get ready for school. The younger one is always ready first, ready to walk out the door, be early to school. And the older one is always lagging behind. Still doesn’t have her hair done. Can’t find her shoes, hasn’t even eaten breakfast.
My younger daughter decided that she wanted to help her older sister. And so she now helps her – she sets out clothes for her, she makes her breakfast every morning, she wakes her up.
And actually, if the older daughter doesn’t turn her alarm on or if she turns her alarm off, then my younger daughter will go in and encourage her to get out of bed and get going. She’s kind of taken over my role. And I have worries about this for both of them for many reasons, but that’s not the point of today’s post.
Last night, at dinner, we were talking about finding ways to serve and support each other as a family, to be each other’s biggest cheerleaders, to use our strengths, to help others in their weaknesses. And so I brought this example up. I said, “You know, (I’m trying not to use their names on social media so we’ll just call her Anne) Anne does a really good job of helping Mary get ready in the mornings. She knows that Mary kind of struggles to get up and get going. And so she’s used her strength to support her sister.
The older sister Mary says, “uh, she’s not really doing that for me. She’s doing it for herself.”
Do you see how my daughter is perceiving this act of service changes what it means? My older daughter doesn’t actually see it as service and maybe it’s not, maybe it really is about the younger daughter’s needs and not about her trying to help her sister.
It’s probably a little bit of both, but if someone goes to your about page and they get the feeling that it’s all about you – you want to make money and you’re amazing and you’ve done so many great things and you’re a know it all, and you’re the expert – it can be a turnoff because they’re going to leave that page feeling like “she doesn’t really care about me. She just wants me to buy stuff from her so that she can make money. She doesn’t really get me. She doesn’t really care about me.”
It really is. I struggled with writing my about page for a long time, because you’re also told by all the experts out there that you’re supposed to let your people get to know you. That they want to get to know you. They want to know who you are and all of that.
Does does my older daughter still want my younger daughter to make her breakfast every morning? Yeah, absolutely. So your people, they still want to get to know you, but it’s an art how to do that.
Learning to balance both of those is hard. I have struggled with it for years. I have regularly improved, gotten better and better and better at my about pages. But recently, I was praying about this because I wanted to really be able to communicate to you that I understand, because I was once where you are. I figured it out. So you don’t have to.
These are much more powerful statements. It gives you the opportunity to talk about yourself and help people get to know you, but in a way that is focused on them and how you want to help them. Your about page should not just talk about how you have a dog and four kids and you love to go sailing. Unless those things are related to how you can help your target audience.
So I could say something like, “I understand because I was once where you are” and under that I have a picture of me with my four kids. I talk about the fact that I had four kids in three years, and it was really, really hard to build a business.
I tell them about that because I’m trying to relate to them and show them that I understand where they are so I can help them. This one simple trick – I believe, I know, I understand, I have – I’m convinced these statements followed by a “you” statement are going to make your about page far more powerful. It’s going to make your about page about you without actually being about you.
I cannot sign off yet until I tell you about The Homepage Makeover masterclass. I want you to know that I know what it feels like to spend hours and hours on your website and not have it be effective. It doesn’t make you money. It doesn’t do what you were hoping it would. I want to solve that problem for you.
If you come to The Homepage Makeover masterclass, you are going to learn the questions your homepage must answer if you want to make money. You’re going to learn what not to put on your homepage. And you’re going to learn why your homepage is not currently making you money.
I’m going to do this by letting you watch me transform an existing client’s website from what she created on her own, making the mistakes that all of you make, into something else, something that is built using the MAP method: Money and Progress.
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This post originally aired as an episode of The Goodness Squad podcast. New episodes are no longer being recorded, but you can listen to past episodes on your favorite podcast app.
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