This is the kick off to our annual January Blog Challenge: 31 Days To Clean Up Your Blog. What better time than January to sit down and review your blog? Over the 31 days we'll be sharing 31 tips, ideas, and strategies for you to deal with all those pesky maintenance tasks, take steps to grow in the new year and make blogging easier. This is Day 3.
Today for Day 3 of the challenge, we'll take yesterday's task of updating Contact Info a step further and address About pages and Bio photos.
Update Your About Page
Your blog should really have an About page. If it doesn't, you need to do that first. To help you, we've got detailed information on how to write a great About Page right here including some case studies.
An important part of blogging is connecting with your readers and they want to know who you are! It doesn't have to be in depth but it should tell them who you are, why you're blogging, perhaps where abouts you're located, and what you blog about.
If you work with brands or hope to, this is even more critical. PR companies will head to your About page first and they want to know:
- who you are
- where you are
- if you are open to opportunities
- what you blog about and what you don't blog about
- how to contact you
Let your personality shine through on your About page and include a few links to past posts you've written that you think showcase your style and best work. If you have a media kit, this is a good place to link to it.
Your About page or bio should be revisited regularly. Our blogs evolve, our lives evolve and if you are looking to work with brands or pursue freelance work it's critical that your bio is current.
Update Your Photo
You should have a photo of yourself unless you choose to be anonymous for various reasons (privacy, you're an anonymous restaurant reviewer etc). People connect with faces and like to see who is behind the words they read. It helps build a community around your blog
And let's be honest, if you're still posting that photo of yourself in your mid-twenties and your mid-twenties was 10 years ago, you need to update. Your photo should look enough like you in real life that if somebody (another blogger, a PR person, an editor) were to meet you at an in person event, they would recognize you immediately.
Take It Further: make sure you have an active gravatar that uses your photo so that whenever you comment on another blog your photo goes with you - you become easily recognizable. If you're the face of your blog, use this same photo as your profile pic on twitter, instagram and anywhere else you appear online.
Spend 30 minutes today getting your About page and photo updated and you'll be ready to meet new fans!
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More Reading
- How To Write a Great About Page For Your Food Blog (with Case Studies)
- Media Kits 101
- Putting Together a Media Kit for Your Blog
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This is SO good. And I need to do this. 😉
G’day! Happy New Year to you and your family! May it be the best one yet!
I was wondering…I have the same photo throughout my social media…do you think it makes a difference if the active gravatar is not in the same color or design of the blog? Just curious and thank you in advance…will be looking forward to the challenges each day too!
Cheers! Joanne
I updated my About page with a completely unflattering photo of myself. Am I doing it wrong? http://cecinestpasunfoodblog.com/about/
Great tip. I wrote my page ages ago and it was so out of date. New photo. New links. AND a direct “Yes, I’m available for hire”. Thanks so much for this.
Happy new year. Updated my pic and my about page. 🙂
Great job!