Teach42

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I struggled a bit to figure out exactly where to start this challenge off, when I realized that the first step is to define your blog as well as yourself. Which of course leads us to the “About” page. The about page often gets overlooked as people tend to focus most of their time and efforts on the actual blog posts and keeping up the frequency of them. However, when you get right down to it, the About page is absolutely critical to a blog. It provides visitors insight into who the author is, what they can expect to see on the blog, and what sort of lenses the information is being viewed through.

There are two key questions your about page should answer.

• Who is the author of this blog?
• What is this blog all about?

Who are you?
This seems like such a simple question, but it can get a little complicated. For example, how much info are you prepared to disclose? Transparency is a good thing, but some people prefer to keep their private life… well, private! Others are perfectly comfortable sharing every detail with their audience. This is where you draw that line. Your about page should at least share your name, whether it be real or a pseudonym, a brief bio, and at least one way to contact you. This should be the short version of your bio. If you’d like to post a full CV, that’s great. But don’t do it here. Think about making it one focused paragraph. Feel free to show off though! Include where you’ve presented, anywhere else you publish and so on…

Personally, I would suggest including a photo. It personalizes the blog and gives people a visual image to keep in mind when they’re reading. However, if you are uncomfortable posting a photo, then put up some logo or avatar that will serve as your headshot for the blog.

Just to clarify, while I’m pretty open with regards to my personal life, you don’t need to be. However, even if you do want to keep things private, you should still include information that defines who you are in the About page. For example, even if you don’t want to give away that you’re a first grade teacher in Springfield Illinois, you could still say something like “I teach primary students in the midwest”.

There’s nothing wrong with having fun with the page either. But the end result is that by the time they leave it, they should have an idea who you are as a person.

What’s your blog about?
This tends to be a more complicated question than many people think. What are you trying to accomplish with your blog? Who are you writing it for? What kinds of articles do you try to post about and how is your perspective different than everybody else’s? Those are the sorts of things you should include in the second half of your About page. For example, you could say that you write about current trends in education. That’s all well and good, but that’s what EVERYONE does! How is your perspective different? Do you focus on special education? Is your primary interest in integration strategies? Are you lower school, middle school or secondary school based? Do you have any experience? Are you writing about your own personal thoughts, or just sharing things you think other people might be interested in?

Think about some of these questions and write yourself a declaration of what your blog is all about. Don’t stress if you aren’t 100% satsified with it the first time around, thankfully you can go back and edit it later. This may be very challenging to do, but it can definitely help define yourself as a blogger and give you some focus.

That doesn’t mean you need to pigeonhole yourself though. Keep in mind that many people BELIEVE their focus to be something entirely different than what it actually IS. If you’ve been blogging a while, go back through your last 20 posts and see what topics you’ve covered. Maybe create a wordle and see what words come up most frequently. Figure out what defines your blog at its core, and let visitors know what that is. It gives them a reason to tune in and subscribe.

And the rest…
A couple of last pieces of this challenge. Make sure that your About page has a way to contact you. It may be a link to your “Contact me” page, your email address or your IM information, that’s up to you. But make sure that if they visit your About page, they have a way to communicate with you directly BESIDES the comment form.

Also, make sure your About page stands out. It should get a prominent link on your blog. Preferably in a top navigation bar, but if not, definitely towards the top of the sidebar. No matter what, it should always be above the fold.

Finally, bear in mind that the about page should be in a state of flux. Whenever something significant happens, your about page should be updated. It should never be allowed to get stale, as it’s one of the first places that visitors often go. And while your posts will always be scrolling off the front page, it’s the one constant that defines your blog.

Extra Credit
Steve Lawson, someone I met at Nokia’s OpenLabs, had a very creative idea, which was to create custom About pages for specific sites that people generally arrive from. He makes his primary landing page be his general About page, but then he also has a different custom About page for people who are arriving from Twitter. I love that idea, so you can really tailor it to your audience. So if you’re already very happy with your About page, then consider making a couple of others, and tailoring them to the social sites that you frequent. Then, instead of linking to http://mysite.com from Facebook, link people to http://mysite.com/about-facebook. You get the idea.

After you have finished updating your about page, leave a comment here with a link so people can check it out! Oh yeah, and also let your readers know so they can see the changes as well. And don’t forget to include the tag “30D2BBB”

For more information, visit ProBlogger’s tips for creating an About Page.

And now… I’m off to create my own (which has been missing for some time)!

UPDATE: Finished!
UPDATE 2: Had a question about how to create an about page on Blogger.com. While you can’t create static pages in Blogger, I did find a great post that walks you through a workaround for doing so.