A Good About Page
August 16, 2004 | 
23 Comments
Summary: Many Web sites, especially content driven sites, should have some kind of about page. In this post I explain why you might need one and give some quick tips on what makes a good about page.
A while back we discussed about pages and since then I’ve thought quite a bit about these pages, why you probably need one and how best to go about them.
I’m in the process of re-working my own (a bit) and I wanted to share with you a few tips, tricks and best practices and some of the reasons why I feel a good about page is important for just about anyone with a Web site.
Why do you need an about page?
First off, as with any guideline for the Web there are always exceptions. However, in general, I think an about page is something most sites should have, for a few reasons:
- It helps your readers/users/visitors get to know you.
- Provides some context to much of your content.
- It provides a starting point for feedback. I often want to know who I’m talking to before I send an e-mail, for example.
- It can add a “personal” touch to a Web site.
- It helps to establish credibility.
There are many more good reasons, but I want to tell a little story that might help to illustrate why I feel an about page is important.
Who Is The Scobleizer?
You could very well know who Robert Scoble is. For myself, while I’ve been to his site a few times, read some of his posts and even offered a comment or two I still don’t really know who he is!
Some of you might be saying to yourself, “is he kidding? Scoble is the Microsoft Geek Blogger! It says so right on his site?” Well, yeah, it does, but what does that mean exactly? I don’t know. He also has a small blurb on his page:
Robert Scoble works at Microsoft as an evangelist on the Windows team. Everything here, though, is his personal opinion and is not read or approved before it is posted.
But that doesn’t tell me much about him either. He seems to know what he is talking about, he speaks with quite a bit of authority, covers a wide range of related topics in detail and claims to be very well read (which I’m sure he is.) But not being familiar with him, I’ve got no clue how much weight to give his words and I need more info to give him the credibility he probably deserves.
He gives a small tidbit about his job, but not much detail. For someone working for MS on the Windows team I want to know a bit more. What is his title, his background? How long has he worked there, and been in this position? How long has he been blogging? Is he a lead, or one of a hundred such evangelists? See what I mean? Quite a few questions come to mind. A simple about page would help clear this up and give readers like me, who don’t know him, a frame of reference to help better understand where he is coming from and what he is saying.
For a site like Scoble’s I think a fairly detailed about page is a must. Without it new readers and casual visitors are left wondering.
What makes a good about page?
I think what makes a good about page can differ greatly from site to site. It really depends on the content, and the purpose, of the site. For a business or organization you will want to have basic information, such as location (if any), leadership bios, history and the like. For a personal or individual professional you might want to include some background information, a bio, a resume and a photo.
How much detail you go into is up to you. I’m not a firm believer in that you need to reveal everything about yourself and you can really go to far with the personal information.
You can also over-do the vanity shots.
In general I think a short, but detailed, background paragraph could be enough for many sites. If you take a look at mine, it’s really short but I think gives enough info to establish in a readers mind who I am and where I’m coming from. I’ve also included some links to things that can help shed more light on who I am if the reader wants to dig.
I don’t think you need to put everything out there on the table, just enough to help give your visitors that frame of reference and context to help know who they are dealing with.
A few more tips…
- Keep it short. If you want to share your life story or resume, do that on a separate page.
- Provide easy to find contact information.
- Call your about page “About” or something similar. Don’t get overly clever with the label, you want people to be able to find it easily if they are wondering who the heck you are!
- A photo can be useful if you ever plan on doing any public appearances or meeting others in “real” life. I still don’t have one (will have one soon) but I’ve come to realize the value there.
- If you are going to have a photo, take a look at Dave Shea’s tips.
- Many people like to get info about the site itself. This can be interesting to share, but again, try and keep it brief.
- A FAQs page or section can be a nice way to supplement an about page.
- Have fun with it, show your personality and/or that of your organization. Use it to build an affinity with your visitors.
Filed under: Gorilla Web Tips
Comments
1. Matt said:
Interesting post. I became very frustrated with my about page a week or so ago and ripped it out and left a bare structure. I tried to make it as short as possible. Since most people are going to know me through WordPress I emphasized that and other projects people may be familiar with so someone would recognize my name from Adam. Next step is to bring some of the old information back in sub-pages and also add links to my “aliases” in different forums.
Posted on August 16, 2004 12:03 PM | #
2. Mike D. said:
Interesting that you mentioned Scoble because he is the one guy I can think of who, if he could, would not have a site at all… just a feed. While he spends a lot of time aggregating stuff for his feed, he spends zero effort on his site.
It’s one of the few sites I can think of where the raw feed is better looking than the produced site. That said, he’s an interesting character and I’ll add him back into my blogroll as soon as his gets his entry count under about 40 a day.
Posted on August 16, 2004 12:18 PM | #
3. Jeff Croft said:
Quite frankly, even one picture of Jakob constitutes “going overboard.” :)
Posted on August 16, 2004 12:24 PM | #
4. Keith said:
Matt – I think your about page is great. It’s a nice example of what makes a good personal about page. It’s short, to the point, kind of funny and sets the stage for what you have to say.
Mike – Yeah, you bring up an interesting question. With feeds becoming more and more popular, how do we establish credibility, etc. if the “site” (and therefore the about page) goes away? I have a hard time reading people if I can’t even get the basics…there are just too many people out here saying too many things.
I feel I need to have some kind of background to even begin to give someone their due. Does that make sense? It’s just hard to tell who is credible and who is not at times…
About pages can really help with that.
Posted on August 16, 2004 12:25 PM | #
5. Arthur! said:
I’m starting to feel a little guilty now. The “about” page is the only page missing on my website and I have had many complaints about that. Heck, I might even have lost a contest due to the fact that this page was missing (it was in the jury-report).
Although I have tried writing a nice bio many times now, it never met my standards. So here’s another tip; don’t overdo self-criticism. :)
Posted on August 16, 2004 12:29 PM | #
6. Mike D. said:
The relative importance of the feed vs. the site depends almost entirely on the ephemerality of the posts.
Scoble’s posts are extremely ephemeral because he a) has so many of them, and b) only comments briefly on each item. Their place in history is rather fleeting, in other words.
In the case of a more traditional blog, you have far fewer posts with more in-depth writeups. In this case, the site is of utmost importance and the feed is merely a notification technology.
Posted on August 16, 2004 12:47 PM | #
7. jimmyd said:
Holy crap on those Jakob pics…that made me feel like I drank a bunch of warm milk on a hot summer day.
Ick.
And thanks for the About tips…!
Posted on August 16, 2004 01:23 PM | #
8. Shade said:
Well said!! I may have to look into re-doing my about page now.
-Shade
Posted on August 16, 2004 01:40 PM | #
9. Richard said:
This is a fantastic topic and follows well on the other recent topics you’ve posted.
Even with the best about page and great content, I would think that time and relative consistency or stability or continued usefulness is part of the making of a picture of someone.
And then, it depends on what one is trying to do with a site and who the site is aimed at. If it’s for family and friends, not much need for an about page or much detail on it as they all know more about you than you could ever put up there.
Many of you are professional web designers it seems and if you’re looking for clients or work or professional connections, well, then that ought to be the focusing force.
Sorry, I’m very distracted having just taken Aurthur’s quiz and my mind’s all messed up not knowing whether to think about this in way A or way B.
Thanks a lot Arthur!
Posted on August 16, 2004 02:09 PM | #
10. Leith said:
Nice article mate, I have to say I’m always a bit lax when it comes to my old about page (at the moment Im lacking one - thats how lax I am :-) ). But to be honest I’m not yet convinced at the necessity of it….add to the fact that I’d never quite no what to say - It may be a good idea to get a close friend/family member to write your about page - that way you may get a more honest view of the person - just a thought
Posted on August 16, 2004 02:11 PM | #
11. Robert Scoble said:
Mike D: I haven’t posted 40 times a day in a long time.
Think my site is ugly? Change your browser’s default font to Verdana. Or something you like better. Or, even better, feel free to give me a new CSS file. I’ll be happy to use it if it works with my CSS styles (I tried to make them all easy to understand).
As to the point about me needing an “about” page.
I think I’ll just link here. :-)
Let’s see, in the 1980s I worked at a variety of camera stores in Silicon Valley. Then I went to college. First, West Valley Community College, where I started down a computer science road. Got through second year of calculus. But, always was interested in photography and journalism (I took a bunch of journalism related courses and worked on the college’s school newspaper).
As part of that, I met and interviewed Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and built up a frienship with him. Then talked him into donating a bunch of equipment for the school’s journalism department. That was 1989. Then the Loma Prieta earthquake hit and I realized I liked journalism a lot more than computer science. Since I got Woz to donate the computers, the instructor made me set them up and learn how to administer them.
When I got to San Jose State University, they had purchased about 100 new Macs and they didn’t know a thing about them. So, I spent the summer setting them up, learning QuarkXPress, etc. I started writing for the school paper there, too. I did a column called “the Spartan Geek.”
This was 1992. I started beta testing and building more contacts in the tech industry. Was named Adobe’s top beta tester for Acrobat (I had betas of Macintosh, NT, and Windows 95 which gave me an unfair advantage over the other beta participants).
Anyway, out of school I got hired by a small company (Fawcette Technical Publications) that produced a small computer magazine (BasicPro). Who knew that Visual Basic would go on to become one of the most successful development tools ever released?
I worked there on and off for almost a decade in a whole bunch of roles. Publishing, associate editor, conference planner, etc. Got to know the industry very well.
While there I was helping Dan Shafer plan the CNET Builder.com conference and we were asking the speakers back in 1999/2000 “what should we cover at the next conference?”
Dori Smith http://www.backupbrain.com and Dave Winer http://www.scripting.com kept telling me that blogging was hot. I answered “what the **** is blogging?”
Yeah, you know the rest of the story. Soon I was doing a blog of my own.
Eventually I joined UserLand Software (one of the first companies to build blog tools) as director of marketing. Eventually had to lay myself off (I was doing the books and we simply didn’t have enough money to pay my salary). Worked for free for a month.
Then, went to NEC (got a job from a listing on Craig’s List) as sales support manager. What the heck is that? Basically I answered all the phones and all the emails for the mobile computing group.
I started blogging about NEC’s products and started hanging out in all the newsgroups and Web forums for NEC.
That’s where Vic Gundotra found me. He bought the first NEC Tablet PC imported into the United States. (He’s an exec here on the platform evangelism team).
He started reading my blog, found it interesting, and eventually asked “you ever think of coming to Microsoft?”
The rest is history. If you want more details, just look back at my archives, or my earlier blog at http://scobleizer.manilasites.com/default
Posted on August 16, 2004 03:39 PM | #
12. Mike D. said:
Scoble,
Okay, time to add you back in then. By the way, it’s not like I’m saying you have less interesting stuff to say than anyone else in my blogroll. Only that, in my opinion, *anyone* who posts that many items a day is bound to be increasing the raw number of posts which are not interesting to me in my aggregator. That becomes harder and harder to deal with as one adds more feeds to one’s aggregator without one’s free time increasing as well. In other words, the fewer feeds I have, the more utility I would receive from a human aggregator such as yourself. Does that make sense? That said, you’re back in.
Secondly, with regards to the look of your site. It’s not really a question of the font. There’s a lot more that goes into design than that. I have my font hard-coded to Lucida Grande so I’m okay on that front. It’s more just the lack of attention paid to the overall experience. I realize you aren’t a designer and that is why, of course, you should take no offense to any design criticism on my part, but surely you’ll admit that you aren’t offering users any real benefit to going to your site as opposed to just reading everything from an aggregator. That was my only observation. You’re fine with everyone reading your articles via a newsreader and that’s your prerogative. It is nice, however, that you’d consider at least applying a well-done CSS layout, were it made available to you. Perhaps you should offer up a free MS Optical Mouse or something to whoever can provide the best CSS file for you?
Posted on August 16, 2004 03:57 PM | #
13. Keith said:
Robert – See, that stuff is very helpful to someone who is new to you and your work! It helps quite a bit and I think it’s something you should make easily available to those of use who don’t know you from Adam! ;)
Don’t think I was trying to “pick on you”, it’s just that I’ve always read your “site” as I don’t use my newsreader all that much and I’ve always kind of wondered what your story was. You seemed a natural for an about page is all and you didn’t have one…
Posted on August 16, 2004 04:10 PM | #
14. Jim Amos said:
I’m quite proud of the vanity shot on my about page lol
I think the About page should be fun, it should be about being accessible as a real person. It hails back to an earlier time when everybody and his mom had a ‘home page’.
Posted on August 16, 2004 07:17 PM | #
15. Shade said:
I agree with you Jim. On my about page (./shade/about/) I list information about the site, then about me… Stuff like:
Dislikes
Everyone else. Pink things, and Pepsi. In that order. The Platypus.
Jigglypuff. Gods dammit I hate that thing.
I mean, really… It’s the internet… you gotta have some fun with it. Else we’d have some right angsty web developers around here *gasp*
-Shade
Posted on August 16, 2004 08:35 PM | #
16. Ryan Saghir said:
I have a problem with About pages - I hate writing about myself. Everytime I sit down to actually do my About page, I end up throwing it out in disgust.
Here’s my problem: talking about myself and what I’ve done professionally (so as to validate myself to my audience) usually ends up seeming cocky and one big name-throwing fest. Or at least that’s how I view it. And so in an attempt to not seem as if I’m in love with myself, I’ll do the exact opposite and write up an About page that’s bland, generalized and pretty much inaccurate of who I am.
I think that I’m really just my own worst client and writing about myself seems cheesy at some level. I understand the benefits you’re pointing out, but finding that sweet spot between an informative About page, and a self-love revelry (such as Jakob’s lovely page) isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Posted on August 16, 2004 08:37 PM | #
17. Keith said:
Ryan – I understand how you feel. It’s one of the reasons why it took me so long to really think about my own about page. It is very hard to talk about yourself. I had the same problems you had. I still don’t really like what I’ve got, but I figure it’s better than nothing.
Anyway, keep at it! You’ll find the sweet spot I’m sure.
Posted on August 16, 2004 08:49 PM | #
18. Small Paul said:
Definitely depends on the purpose of the site.
For consistent bloggers like yourselves, I can see that ‘about’ should describe yourselves to some degree, given the personal nature of blogs.
However, I tend to look first for a description, or statement of purpose, for the site itself. The absence of this on most blogs tends to annoy me a bit. It’s very nice knowing who someone is, and provides nice context, but if I had a little description of the topics covered by the blog, I’d find it easier to decide whether to read or not.
Oops, someone said that already.
Posted on August 17, 2004 01:43 AM | #
19. Isam said:
Thank you very much for the great piece. I used to have 3 lines that appear on the top of the main page.. now I added an about page, a dedicated page :) .. thanks Matt for linking to this article.
Posted on August 17, 2004 03:05 AM | #
20. Janne Kalliola said:
Slightly off-topic; but do check the ALT texts in the Nielsen page to find gems like ‘Jakob Nielsen with pearls-and-mussels patterned Hermes tie’
Posted on August 18, 2004 12:46 AM | #
21. Adam Bramwell said:
Janne, that’s not off-topic at all, it’s hilarious!
Posted on August 24, 2004 05:40 AM | #
22. Scott Johnson said:
You make a good point about overdoing the vanity shots, and the example you chose was perfect. Jakob certainly has too many photos of himself on his site, and many them aren’t all that flattering. I think that sticking to one photo is a good guideline.
Posted on August 25, 2004 02:58 PM | #
23. Kris said:
I’m still laughing! This is my first visit to ANY graphics magazines (did a search on Google) and I was reading, with interest, your fine article on ‘About’ pages. Not being familiar with this mag or author, I thought the Jakob Nielsen site was created by the author as a joke, to overstate the point.
Now I learn it was *real* - LOL! I cracked up! The way the photos span the page horizontally in the beginning and then trickle down to one at a time near the end…I thought that was just a brilliant touch by the creator to make it (even) more annoying. How funny! :)
Anyway, I’m not going to criticize poor Jacob - he apparently has enough to worry about - but this is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen online. Right up there with ‘hamster-dance’ back when it was a cutting-edge novelty. I can imagine s a Jakob Nielsen cult following…a ‘pick-your-favorite pix’ contest….a collection JN of Photo’s strategically enhanced in Photoshop….
(the possibilities are endless!) :)
(PS. Thanks for a very helpful article and a great site to boot. I’ll be back!)
Posted on August 25, 2004 11:27 PM | #
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