How to Write an Awesome About Page
Get someone to write your About Page for you.
Just kidding! Sort of.
It’s very difficult for the vast majority of people to write an “About” or “Profile” page. Almost everyone I’ve interviewed for an “About Me” blurb has expressed that they feel uncomfortable talking about themselves. I think that’s an extremely common trait.
Luckily for you and everyone else out there, you have at least one person in your life who would LOVE to brag about you! It’s true. Your friends, parents, professors, employers, coworkers, I just bet you that they would be happy to talk about how great you are. So, why not employ their help to write your “About” page? They don’t have to write it for you, of course. But they can help you break out of your shell and talk about all of your amazing skills.
This is also a technique that marketing teams at businesses can use to break out of a boring “About the Business” page. Recruit some of your true, diehard fans to help you write it.
Anyway, enough generalizing. Here’s a “how to” you can use the next time you need to update an “about” or “profile” page.
How to Write an Awesome About Page
1. Write interview questions.
You will be asking a friend, family member, coworker, or true fan to interview you. So, help them out by writing interview questions. You can ask Chat GPT for help with this. I plugged in two commands:
1st: “Can you give me interview questions that would help me build an interesting about page?”
2nd: “Give me ten questions to ask someone in order to find out about the real person.”
Honestly, some of the answers were truly terrible and horrendously boring. BUT, there are some gems in there, like:
What initially drew you to your current field or profession?
Can you share a moment or experience that ignited your passion for your work?
What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning? (I actually ask this one a lot)
What are some of your proudest achievements or projects?
How have these experiences shaped your professional journey?
What are your core values, and how do they influence your approach to your work and life?
What is something you've recently learned about yourself?
What impact do you hope to make through your work or in your industry?
Outside of work, what are your interests or hobbies?
I’d also ask something like:
Who is your intended audience for your “About” page?
Can you take the next minute to brag about yourself? (Obviously, the bragging can take longer than a minute, but you need that initial time limit to help you get on a roll.)
What little-known industry fact gets you excited about your business? or Tell me a fun fact about your industry.
What sets your company apart from all the others? (I almost always ask for people to expand on this because they are used to giving an elevator pitch, but I want LOTS of information.)
Is there a niche your company serves or a product/service you provide that is unlike any other?
As you can tell, there are an infinite number of questions you can prepare for your interview. I usually prepare ten to fifteen questions and commit to getting through five. If there’s very little information on those first five questions, I’ll continue the interview until I feel like my client has gone on a roll.
2. Ask a trusted friend to interview you.
Now that you have all of these questions, it’s time to ask a trusted friend, colleague, or family member to interview you. You can take the pressure off of them by recording your interview session. There are many tools that both record and transcribe voice notes, one of which is Otter.ai. You can also record the interview using the Zoom record feature or just by recording it on your phone.
What your friend wants to accomplish during this interview is getting you out of your shell and encouraging you to speak to your/the company’s strengths, delve into what is interesting about you/the company, and showcase why someone would want to work with you/your business.
3. Review the interview responses.
Now that you’ve been interviewed, review your responses. Did you provide all of the information you wanted to cover? If not, be sure to fill in the blanks.
4. Write your About Page.
Give yourself a word count limit - say 200 words - and write an “About” page based on the interview responses you provided. You will likely have far more information than you can possibly fit in 200 words, and that’s a good thing! It forces you to distill all of the information you provided into a snappy, interesting piece of writing.
You could also plug your interview results into AI, give it instructions to write a 200-word “About” page for you and see what it comes up with. I have to caution you, though:
a. AI can “hallucinate,” which means it will just make stuff up. So, you must thoroughly review and edit the results. This hallucination effect includes making up quotes, creating rules or goals that you never noted, and anything else you can imagine making up on the fly.
b. Most of the time, when AI creates a piece of writing, it’s not very good or interesting. Again, you will have to edit the end result.
5. Ask your friend to review the result.
Remember that friend you tapped to interview you? Ask them to review the result of all that hard work!
Do they feel you missed something important? Is there something that really lit you up during the interview that you should include? Is there a turn of phrase they felt really encapsulated your personality? Could you sharpen any area or make something more compelling? Your friend can give you some pointers.
6. Finally, test the “About” page on some colleagues or acquaintances.
Once you feel you have a final draft, ask a few others to review it and give honest feedback. This will help you sharpen it further, catch any grammatical errors, and generally feel certain that you did your best to create a killer “About” page.
That’s the step-by-step how-to! I hope you use it on your next “About” or profile page. If you need additional help, don’t hesitate to contact me. About pages are my specialty.