How to Make Your About Page Sing – Using Conversational Writing to Find Your Voice

Marketing is hard.

You only have seconds to grab a customer’s attention.

In those few seconds, it’s essential to establish why you’re the best choice to solve your prospect’s problems as quickly as possible.

Which is why About pages are so powerful!

An employer would never hire someone without reading their resume first. We all want to know who we’re working with and that they’re the right person for the job.

It’s no different when looking for a coach or a photographer or a copywriter.

Your audience wants to know who you are and how you can help them.

Your About Me is the perfect place to explore what you can do for your clients. It’s where you get to show them your mission and your values.

When you think about the importance we put into learning about the people we do business with, it’s shocking how little time we spend creating a compelling About page!

That’s because when it comes to sitting down and actually writing our own About Me, most of us can get a little stuck.

We’ve been conditioned not to brag about our accomplishments. Feeling uncomfortable writing about ourselves can lead to major blockage.

While we might hate writing out our achievements, we sure do love talking about ourselves!

Talking is the easiest way to connect with someone… it’s why conversational writing always sounds so much more inviting than formal prose.

So how does this help you create an About Me page that makes your customers sit up and take notice?

The Solution to About Page Block

The standard About page isn’t going to do much for your business.

How many times has an About page turned you off from working with someone?

Maybe it’s just a blob of words with no personality, or it’s so dense and chock full of information that your eyes start to hurt from squinting at that tightly packed text.

Whatever the problem, you’re probably not sticking around to see if things get any better.

If you’ve encountered an About Me like this in the wild, there’s always the fear of creating something similar when it’s your turn to write one.

Before you sit down to write, think about what you like to read.

I’m betting it’s not academic papers or lengthy autobiographies. Facts are important, but when presented in a dry and inaccessible manner, people tend to tune out.

Writing performs best when it’s full of life and personality. And the easiest way to accomplish this is to tell your story out loud.

How to infuse conversational energy into your About page.

1. Imagine that you’re catching up with an old friend and you’re telling them all about yourself and your business. Brainstorm what you’d want them to know, like why you got started in your industry or how you came up with your business name.
2. Think about how you help your clients and what makes you different from the people who offer the same things. What events in your background support the work you’re doing now?
3. Consider the audience you’re talking to. What do you think they’d find interesting? How would you make them lean in closer or laugh out loud?
4. Once you have a list of points written out, I want you to start talking (and recording).
5. Don’t worry if it feels uncomfortable at first, just keep going. Those “um’s” and “ahs” don’t matter. This is not going to be published or shown to the world. 
6. If you’re having trouble doing this exercise by yourself, grab a friend or family member and have this conversation with them for real. It doesn’t really matter who you’re talking to, as long as you’re telling your story.
7. Now that you have some talking points, try building out your content with the words and phrases you used when talking out loud. What you come up with here can help to flesh out the basic structure of your About Me story.

Conversational Writing for the Win

In the end, make sure you’re listening to how you talk vs. how you write. All of those stuffy grammar rules you learned in Mrs. Applebaum’s 7th grade English class are nowhere to be seen.

You know why? When it comes to writing engaging content for the web, those rules suck!

You’d never talk like that, so why write like that?

By all means, use correct punctuation and spelling. But you can get pretty loosey-goosey with the rest (see, I started a sentence with “but” and I’m not going to writing jail).

This exercise ensures your writing will sound more like the real you, not the stilted, anxious, writer version of you.

Your goal is to show your audience who you are and how you can help solve their problems, in a way that feels like you’re talking directly to them.

We want your prospects to like you (and trust you) enough to start a relationship. And the best way to do that is by starting a conversation.

If you’re interested in furthering our conversation, join my email list for more tips on how to turn your About page from boring and uninspired into a crucial part of your marketing arsenal.

PS –Click here if you’d like to listen to an excerpt from my first try at this technique https://instaud.io/3tpZ . I was able to take some of the words and phrases from the full recording and improve on the original version of my about page!