About Page Overhaul

After focusing successfully last year on building my freelance indexing business to full-time, my focus for 2015 is blogging and writing. 

One of my favorite podcasts about writing and living a creative life is The Portfolio Life with Jeff Goins. When I first read his blog post last year about overhauling the “about page,” I bookmarked it immediately, waiting for the day when I was ready to give my own blog some much needed TLC.

Today was the day (what else does a Wisconsinite do on a Packer-less Sunday afternoon?).

Before

Here is what my about page looked like this morning:

I was generally happy with the content, but the page definitely lacked both personality and purpose.

Here’s What I Changed

• Following Goins’s advice, I rewrote the about page in first person.
• I concentrated on telling my own story with authenticity and more detail. It might not yet be an epic tale, but it is mine!
• I cropped the photo to make it less obvious that it was originally part of a group shot.
• I rearranged paragraphs and used headings to provide what Goins calls the three keys to awesome about pages: a Welcome, a Promise, and an Invitation.
• I featured my blog’s name—See Also—as way to call attention to the blog and to suggest its integrated themes.
• The about page is now the landing page, the page that comes up when someone visits lisarivero.com.

While the changes may seem small, I think they make a big difference. Take a look and let me know what you think or share a link in the comments to your own blog’s about page.