How to create a “About me” page (with Examples)

Freel­an­cers, solo en­tre­pren­eurs, and creative people often have a hard time writing the ‘About me’ section for their website. But it’s worth investing some time in creating an ‘About me’ page that works - with the right words you can win the sym­path­ies of your readers and even gain customers. But don’t despair! Creating an ‘About me’ page for your website isn’t rocket science. Keep reading to find out how to structure your text and take a look at some ‘About me’ page examples.

Despite its name, your ‘About me’ page is not the place to go into your CV and qual­i­fic­a­tions. In fact, the page isn’t so much about you as it is about your customers.

Who we buy from and do business with - these decisions are never made based on facts alone. Emotions always play a part. That’s why ‘About me’ texts are so important. They give visitors a chance to get an im­pres­sion of you as a person:

• What is your pro­fes­sion­al back­ground?
• Why did you decide to start your own business?
• What are your values?

Offer a mix of facts and personal per­spect­ive, so that visitors to your website have the chance to find out what you have in common and develop positive feelings towards you and your business. Some users will naturally have chemistry with you, others might be put off. And that’s how it should be! That way you can filter out po­ten­tially difficult customers without having directly invested any time in them.

Show who you are as a person on the ‘About me’ page on your website, but also make sure that you devote enough space to your qual­i­fic­a­tions, dis­tinc­tions, and ref­er­ences. Many solo freel­an­cers shy away from ad­vert­ising their achieve­ments. But this isn’t the place for modesty.

It may be true that people who con­stantly emphasise their successes can come across as arrogant and less likeable to those around them. But an ‘About me’ page gives your customers ori­ent­a­tion: You help them to recognise what sets you apart from the com­pet­i­tion and what kind of quality they can expect from you.

A suc­cess­ful ‘About me’ page lowers the barrier for visitors to contact you. In the best case, your text will be that extra little push that a customer needs to hire you or buy from you. Usually the effect is indirect: A customer won’t make a purchase right away, but will subscribe to your news­let­ter, sign up for a free con­sulta­tion, or follow you on social media.

So how do you construct a text that conveys your com­pet­ence and builds trust? There is no one-size-fits-all formula. If you take a look around at other freel­an­cers’ websites, you’ll see texts of different lengths, tones, and struc­tures. Let your in­di­vidu­al per­son­al­ity shine! And luckily, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Let’s take a look at three suc­cess­ful ‘About me’ examples.

Type your keywords into a search engine to find ‘About me’ page examples from your branch. (For example, if you’re a designer based in New York, type in ‘designer New York’.) You’ll quickly get a feel for where you want to take in­spir­a­tion from your com­pet­it­ors and what you want to do dif­fer­ently.

Imagine this: You’ve set up your website with WordPress, for­mu­lated the page with your services, and dotted your Is and crossed your Ts with a privacy policy. All that’s left is your ‘About me’ page. If you’re having trouble getting started, take a look at our four key questions and ‘About me’ examples. If you answer them one-by-one, your ‘About me’ page will basically write itself.

If someone’s found their way to your website, it’s safe to assume they’re looking for a solution or have a need. Potential customers aren’t in­ter­ested in your life story, unless it shows them how you’re just the right person to solve their problem or satisfy their need.

Start your ‘About me’ page with a sentence that sum­mar­ises who you are and what problem you solve.

I am a (job title) and help (target group for your services) with (your services), so that you (goal of your customer).

Then go on to explain your offer in more detail. How do you bring about the result you describe? For the ‘About me’ example case above, you could briefly describe how your tax services works. Just be sure not to go into too much detail here - it’s better to keep it short and include a link to your ‘Services’ page.

It’s important that you explain what you offer in clear and easily un­der­stand­able language. Flowery phrasings and lengthy anecdotes are coun­ter­pro­duct­ive. You can save these stylistic devices for later, but first give visitors to your site the chance to figure out if they’re in the right place.

Get the user curious about your services in just a few sentences by putting your solution and its ad­vant­ages for the customer at the centre of what you’re saying.

At this point, you’ve clearly for­mu­lated what services you offer but it’s still not clear what dis­tin­guishes you from your com­pet­i­tion.

Use the next paragraph to describe what makes your services unique. What is special about your service? What spe­cial­isa­tions can you offer? You can also discuss your values and your way of working as unique selling points.

At this point, you can also weave in your business vision. Talk about how you want to con­trib­ute to a wider society with your business or project:

In the best case, your reader will now be curious about what you have to offer. They’ve gotten a first glimpse of you as a person and of what’s unique about your service. Now they want to know if they can believe all your promises or if you’re making promises you can’t keep.

In this paragraph of your ‘About me’ page, your com­pet­ence will come into the fore­ground. Talk about your training and ex­per­i­ence and emphasise your authority and cred­ib­il­ity.

Examples of trust builders for your ‘About me’ page:

• Cer­ti­fic­ates from training programs
• Awards
• Seals of mem­ber­ship in pro­fes­sion­al as­so­ci­ations
• Widgets for review platforms
• Press coverage
• Stat­ist­ics about your work
• Quotes from your customers/testi­mo­ni­als
• Project ref­er­ences

That being said, don’t overload your ‘About me’ page with examples of your success - opt instead for a few strong se­lec­tions. Quotes from customers are es­pe­cially effective as social proof. Ask satisfied customers for a short statement about how they have benefited from working with you and what they liked the most. Testi­mo­ni­als from customers provide visitors with more psy­cho­lo­gic­al security than a diploma alone would.

Now your customers have an overview of what you offer and have built initial trust that you’ll deliver on your promises. Some customers are already ready to make a purchase or get in contact with you. Others still need more back­ground in­form­a­tion. Fulfil this need by telling a bit from your personal story.

What drives you? Why do you care about your job? How did you end up starting your current business/project? You can go all the way back to your training or education. Just be sure not to relay your entire CV; mention only the steps along the way that are relevant for what you currently do.

Bring out your per­son­al­ity here, even more so than in the other para­graphs. Write in your style, in your words, and use storytelling to draw visitors into your story.

Even the best storytelling is in vain if your reader is moved but doesn’t initiate contact with you. That’s why you should finish up your ‘About me’ page with a call to action. Tell the user to contact you and make it easy for them to do so.

Limit yourself to one single call to action. If you offer too many options, you risk that the user won’t pursue any of them.

Important: Don’t just include this call to action at the end of the page; place it between each of the sections of your ‘About me’ page. Not every visitor will read the entire page and some will want to book an ap­point­ment after reading just a paragraph or two. It’s thus a good idea to include an opt-in formula or ‘Contact’ button in the text.

Make sure that you separate your text into different para­graphs, even within a section. More and more users read websites on their smart­phones. More than four or five sentences at once will turn into a sea of text on a smart­phone, and you’ll lose users to the tides.

Mark important parts of the text in bold, so that anyone just skimming your site can still get the most important in­form­a­tion.

Integrate at least one current, pro­fes­sion­al photo of yourself. Depending on the length of your ‘About me’ text, you can add ad­di­tion­al photos to the page. Consider whether you want to embed a video on the page, in which you summarise its contents. That way you can make an even more personal im­pres­sion using voice and gestures.

The ‘About me’ page should be linked to in the main menu. Choose a clear title for the page, such as ‘About me’, ‘About’ or your name. Under no cir­cum­stances should you hide the page in the fine print or in the footer.

Every freel­an­cer and solo en­tre­pren­eur has what it takes to create an ‘About me’ page that motivates readers to get in contact. All you have to do is make a con­nec­tion between your story and services and the interests of your customers.

If it’s proving difficult to start with a blank page, you can take a look at ‘About me’ page examples from other busi­nesses. Al­tern­at­ively, the four questions listed in this article provide step-by-step guidance:

1. Who am I and what can I do for my customers?
2. What makes my services special?
3. Why can customers trust that I can help them?
4. Why do I do what I do? What is my story?

If you write the ‘About me’ text for your website with these questions in mind, you’ll convey all the most important in­form­a­tion and show enough of your per­son­al­ity. That way, visitors can easily make a decision about whether they want to work with you. If all goes well, that means more inquiries and more sales.

And if you don’t see an increase in contact from customers, you can always adapt your text.