Blog Tip Thursdays: Your About Page

Every week, we share one of our favorite ‘how-to’ posts about blogging, social media, and the community we LOVE to love. Our desire is you consider HLB a resource in your efforts to blog BETTER – we want to be stronger bloggers ourselves, and we see the desire for stronger posts and cleaner designs. We understand wanting to know the BEST plug-ins, aps, programs, and resources to keep your site in tip top shape. And nothing makes us nerd-out more than getting super meta about all things blog-world. We’re not experts, we’re simply bloggers ourselves – sharing our own experiences, tips and tricks of the trade each Thursday with a BTT post. We welcome your questions, your suggestions for future topics, and your ‘how-to’ post recommendations at healthylivingblogs@gmail.com!

Hi everyone! I’m Brandi from BranAppetit, and I’m so excited to be blogging here on Healthy Living Blogs today.

When I was asked to do a Blog Tips Thursday post on putting together your “About” page, I was so excited – and a little scared. Even though I’ve been blogging for over 2 years now, I still feel like I’m the new-girl-on-the-block in this awesome community and I know that I still have so much to learn.

But I just recently revamped my “Meet Brandi” (http://www.branappetit.com/about-2/) page and I love it! I hope the things I learned through this process will help you fine tune your own page, too.

Edit, Cut, Repeat
My first “About” page started out well, but over the course of two years, I just kept adding to it and never really gave it a second glance. It turned out to be a short novel! It had WAY too much information and went off on too many tangents.

The first thing I tried to do when re-writing my page was to start brand new with a blank document and write what I wanted people to know about me, right off the bat. Readers don’t need to know your entire life story right away – they need a reason to come back!

Find Your Inspiration
One thing that helped me figure out exactly what I wanted was visiting my favorite blogs and checking out their “About” pages. What did they say? How did they organize it? Was it something that made sense to me or would I do it differently?

Reading through hundreds of different pages showed me all the different ways I could go about putting mine together and it helped me refine my vision for the page and decide what I really wanted to be included and what could be left out.

Picture It
If nothing else, make sure you have a picture of yourself on your “About” page. People are nosy. Don’t try to deny it – embrace it! They want to know what you look like, and it’s a great way to let people get to know the person behind the posts.

Depending on what your blog is about, go ahead and add some other pictures, too. Race pictures, food photos, whatever is important in your life that is a common theme on the blog will help your readers get a sense of your blog right away.

Link It
The best way to show off WHO you are and WHAT you’re doing with your blog is simple: don’t just explain it in 6 text-only-filled paragraphs.

Give a few teasers and throw in some links to some of YOUR favorite posts. It not only gives your readers a chance to catch up on some your best work (or most humiliating stories or kitchen failures), but it gives them the opportunity to read some sections other than your most recent post and your “About” page. Having links included in your page will help point new readers to the things you’re really passionate about because you’re taking the time to share them.

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