Why Do We Need to Have It?

When I find a blog that interests me I inevitably check the “About Page” of the author before I decide to subscribe. It’s the same for Twitter. I will not follow someone who doesn’t have a Bio of some sort, and preferably a link to their blog. Why is it important? I think it is about trust. I’m letting people into my Personal Learning Network and connecting to their network. I want to be associated with credible, interesting and talented people or at least people with similar interests and careers. The “About Page” is the social chit chat before you get down to business.

What Should Be On It?

Once you have shared a little bit of information about yourself – a balance of professional highlights mixed with smidge of personal interests – so that you start to create a connection with your readers, then it is time to move on to the  purpose of your blog and the sort of things you will be writing about.

Michele Martin from the Bamboo Project Blog has an excellent example of an about me post and a separate post on what to find on her blog.

Another interesting post written by Skellie  How to Write the Perfect ‘About’ Page (by Numbers) is quite helpful if you are at all in doubt about what to write.

And finally the QuickSprout blog lists 4 essential items for an “About Me” including a picture of yourself “no matter how ugly” you are!

It looks like I should take my own advice and update my “About Me”, which up until now has been a short paragraph in a text widget in my side bar. The text widget is a nice way to keep and extract of your bio but it probably should link to the “About Me” page which has all the extra important details mentioned above.

Photo: Flickr – Tony Hall