And we get it. Talking about yourself, your achievements, your life story, and how awesome you are is awkward.

But guess what?

There’s another way!

Because (wait for it) your About page isn’t really about you!

And if you’ve tried writing your own About page copy, you’ve probably fallen into one of the traps a lot of other website owners fall into. So here we give you the top copy mistakes that personal brands make on your About page (and share some handy tips on how to fix them). Because we’re nice like that.

Let’s get stuck in.

What are the biggest mistakes personal brands make on their about page? 

1. It’s all about you!

The first mistake a lot of business owners make on their About page is focusing on themselves. It’s making a big song and dance about what an amazing professional you are, when you went to university, what you got your degree in, and… and… and…

Boring!

News flash. No one’s interested.

Obviously, you are awesome – super qualified and great at what you do. We know that.

But do you know what people really care about? Making sure you’re the right person to help them. They want to know they’re in the right place to get the product or service that’s going to solve their problem.

And most of the time, whether you went to university or bagged yourself a gazillion certifications that only really mean something if you work in your field and industry, is irrelevant.

What Should You Do Instead? Tell your readers how you can help them

Turn your About page on its head. When it comes to writing your about page, reframe your mindset from ‘about me’ to ‘How I can help you’.

This isn’t what you’re actually going to name your page by the way. You’ll still call it ‘About’, ‘About Me’, or ‘About Us’, but adding this phrase to the top of the page while you’re writing your copy will help you switch your focus onto your readers – your ideal customers or clients.

So think about:

• What are the problems they are experiencing? (And that you solve?)
• What puts you in the ideal position to solve those problems?
• How do you help them?

Ask yourself these types of questions as you write your copy, and you’ll avoid the mistake of making it all about you. Make it about how you can help them. 

2. You write in the third person

“Bob is one of the most acclaimed speakers in the industry. Since 1995, he has travelled all over the world to deliver his signature talks to large crowds.”

Who is writing this for Bob exactly? His biographer?

Let’s be honest. Writing in the third person may have been the done thing 10-20 years ago. It came across as professional and prestigious. Not many personal brands or small businesses had websites back then, and no one wanted to come across as a one-person band. The trend was definitely to try and make your company look bigger and better – more corporate and sought-after.

But, just like in fashion, things changed. And they’ve moved on.

Website users are shrewd and clever. We can see through stuff. And we can tell the difference between something that comes across as genuine and approachable versus something that seems stuffy and detached.

You may not be aware that you’re doing it, but when you write content in the third person, you’re putting distance between yourself and your reader. You’re almost putting yourself on a pedestal, making yourself look unreachable and unattainable. Which is exactly what not to do as a personal brand.

And people don’t tend to relate too well to that.

What Should You Do Instead? Write in the first person!

If it’s just you in your business, and you’re the one people will work with when they hire you, don’t be afraid to say so. Feel free to use ‘I’  – write content for your About page in the first person. We’re giving you full permission here!

You need to learn to embrace your personal brand, not run away from it. That’s why we recommend your website domain can be your personal brand name! And it’s why we recommend you write in first person.

And if you have a team, you can still write using the first person. Just change ‘I’ to ‘we’, ‘me’ to ‘us’, ‘mine’ to ‘ours’, and job done!

3. You don’t have any calls-to-action to your product or services

Much like your Homepage, which acts as the reception area of your website, your About page should direct people to other pages.

For example, on our About page, we list all the problems our services solve, and under each service, we have a ‘Find Out More’ button that takes people to the relevant service pages. This is where they can read more about each of the individual services we offer and make an informed decision as to whether they’re ready to work with us.

We also invite people to get in touch with us via our ‘Let’s Chat!’ button, which takes our readers to our Contact page.

But if you don’t have any calls-to-action where you let your prospective customers and clients know what you’d like them to do next, your About page may become a dead end.

So what should you do instead?

What Should You Do Instead? Direct people to other areas of your website

Use your About page efficiently by directing your audience to the relevant pages on your website where they can find more information about working with you. Add links to your Product or Service pages, your Contact page, and more of your content, if relevant.

4. You copy your competitors

Another mistake we see people make all the time is to sound exactly the same as their competitors. We see this a lot in the web design world, but it happens in all fields and industries.

Sure, all coaches want to help their clients ‘thrive’ and everyone is ‘result-driven’. But is this really you? Or are you just using terms and phrases that everyone else in your industry uses?

If your website copy reads exactly the same as everyone else’s, how can your ideal clients make a decision as to who they should work with? How do they know you’re different and better for them than any of your competitors?

They don’t!

So what should you do instead?

What Should You Do Instead? Focus on your USP

Instead of trying to fall in line and use overused words and phrases that other professionals in your industry use, be original. Be you! You are a personal brand, after all, and what makes you unique is you.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What’s your USP? What makes you unique and special? Is it your method? Your business set up? Your background and experience? Or maybe your qualifications?
• Why should people do business with you?
• Why should they pick you over someone else?

That is what you want to talk about on your About page, so don’t worry about the latest buzzwords or the overused business jargon that everyone else is using. Being like everyone else won’t do you any favours – we can promise you that!

5. You have zero personality

When people come to check out your website, they want to get an idea of what it’s like to work with you. Are you serious and corporate? Informal and quirky? Straight-talking but hilariously funny?

Whoever you are (and whatever your brand), it’s important that your website copy reflect your personality. The last thing you want is for people to get you on the phone or hire you for their first consultation and find out you’re nowhere near how you come across on your website.

Surprises like that never tend to work out well. After all, people check out your About page to figure out if you’re the right person to work with. And your job is to help them make that decision by the way you come across on the page.

How will you do that?

What Should You Do Instead? Nail your tone of voice

Your copy should help your target audience connect with you. You want to build trust and differentiate yourself from your competitors.

If you want to learn more about how to show your personality on your website, check out our blog post: How to Nail your Tone of Voice.

6. You don’t have any pictures of you!

Another mistake we see a lot of business owners make is to shy away from having any pictures of themselves on their website, and especially on their About page.

Remember – your About page is the place where your ideal customers or clients come to work out if you’re the right person for the job.

How can they choose you if they can’t even see you?

You see, words and images are a match made in heaven! The trick is to make the copy about your reader but the imagery about you. This is so people can see and sense who you are and who they’re thinking about hiring. 

Using stock photos or no images at all is tempting, but it means missing out on the opportunity to build that know, like, and trust factor that’s so important when people are thinking of buying from you.

What Should You Do Instead? Have amazing personal brand pictures of you on your About page

If it’s just you in your business, by all means, show us your face! You can have photos of yourself ‘in action’ while working with a client, speaking from a stage, teaching from a classroom, signing your book – whatever applies. Just make sure people can see you!

And if you have a team, share their lovely faces too! We feel so strongly about this that we even wrote a piece called, Show Us Your Face! And if you’re thinking of hiring a photographer to take some professional pics of you, then check out our blog post, Lessons We Learned From Our Business Photoshoot.

7. You don’t capture any leads

Something a lot of personal brands seem to forget is that your website is the ideal place to capture people’s email addresses, so you can build and nurture relationships with your audience by offering them value, and, ultimately close more sales.

Website traffic is great, but a lot of people won’t be ready to buy after visiting your website just once or twice. They’ll want to read more, find out more about you, and get to know you a little better before they make the decision to go ahead and make a purchase.

You can certainly give them more information through your copy and the awesome content you publish on your blog. But your email list is the place where you can show off your knowledge and expertise and offer your prospective customers or clients loads of value. 

Except… you won’t be able to get your visitors from your website and onto your email list if you don’t give them an incentive to pop in their email address.

What Should You Do Instead? Add a sign-up form to your About page

Your About page is the ideal place for you to add a sign-up form, so make sure you create a lead magnet and ask your readers for an email address. What can you offer your audience that will encourage them to join your email list? What value can you give them? Is there a quick problem you can solve for them? 

Once you’re clear on what you’re going to offer, add a sign-up form where they can easily pop in their email address, and then you can deepen and nurture that relationship via your email list. If you’re interested in using your website to build your email list, check out our blog post on how to create a lead generating website. 

8. You call your About page ‘Your journey’ (or something equally rubbish)

We see this all the time, and it’s probably a side-effect of wanting to be original and show your personality (which we get).

But calling your About page something else – like ‘Our journey’, ‘Our story’, ‘Experience’, or ‘Thoughts’ (or anything else) is never a good idea.

Why? Because people are used to the About page being called ‘About’. It’s an easy, recognisable term. It’s what the page is called.

Your readers head over to your About page when they’re trying to make a decision about working with you. The last thing you want is for them to skip over the page or miss it completely just because you called it something else! 

If they can’t find your About page, they might click the back button and be gone. And that’s not what you want!

So what can you do instead?

What Should You Do Instead? Call your About page by its name

This is a simple one. Call your About page ‘About’, ‘About Me’, or ‘About Us’. You don’t need to be any more creative than this – not with your page title. It’s what your readers expect to see on your website and where they head to in order to find out more about you. Make this easy and straightforward for your audience. 

Want to Learn More About How to Create a High-Converting About Page?

And if you want more tips on how to write an awesome About page for your website, head over to our blog post, How To Write Your Website About Page.

Or download our checklist on how to create an about page for your personal brand…

Martin & Lyndsay

The post The Biggest Copy Mistakes Personal Brands Make on Their About Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

If you want to access our 30-minute Content Marketing Planner, you can download it here.

Have you downloaded it yet?

Are you ready to get planning?

Then let’s go.

Step 1 – list all your services

First things first, start by listing all the services you offer. Don’t miss this step because it will give you a structured way to come up with lots of content ideas. Once you’ve got this list, you can then think of content ideas for each of your services.

Step 2 – put yourself in your ideal customers’ shoes

Let me ask you a question. What’s the one thing you did before you made your last big purchase?

I bet you searched for whatever it was on Google.

As savvy consumers, we always do our own research before we buy anything. A study from Google found that 70% of buying decisions are made before the customer even contacts the business for the first time! And that’s because people research before buying – we all want to make informed decisions and avoid wasting our time and money.

So if you put your business owner’s cap back on, how can you help your ideal clients to make informed choices?

Step 3 – use content marketing to educate your clients about your business

Our advice? Stop sharing ‘fluff’ content about your latest awards or office move, and, instead, create a good combination of these two types of content.

• Traffic content. This is content that drives traffic to your website. It’s what people directly search for on Google. It’s content that answers a particular problem, question or need that your ideal customers or clients might be having. And in providing the best answer to their question, you’re attracting visitors to your website. They may not be ready to buy just yet, but they could be in the future.
• Conversion content. This is not necessarily content that people would search for on Google. But it’s something that your ideal customers or clients would pay attention to it if they were already on your website or interested in working with you. Think about people who follow you on social media and regularly visit your blog, previous clients, or subscribers on your email list, for example.

With these definitions in mind, you should then plan your content ideas around 6 key topics:

1. Price.
2. Problems.
3. Comparisons.
4. ‘The best’ content.
5. Reviews.
6. ‘How to’ content.

These topics come from the book They Ask You Answer, by Marcus Sheridan. You may have heard us talk about this book before (especially if you’re in our membership or listen to our podcast), and that’s because his teachings have literally transformed our business and the way we use content marketing to generate leads and sales. To read more about that, head over to our post: How to 10x Your Website Traffic.

So let’s get into the 6 topics.

1. Price

Price is the one thing we all want to know about when we do our research. We want to find out how much something costs before we commit to buying it – no matter how big or small the purchase is!

So how can you relate this back to your business?

• Write about the price of your products and services.
• Talk about the costs related to your industry and where you sit within it.
• Discuss what can make the price of your service go up and down.

Here are a few examples of the price-related content we’ve created over time:

• How much does it cost to build your WordPress website?
• Why the cost of your website might increase during the build?
• Why We’re Increasing Our Web Design Prices.
• Why are we so expensive?

2. Problems

No product or service, company, or industry is perfect. So instead of burying your head in the sand and denying that there are any problems in your area of work, tackle your customers’ problems (or ‘perceived problems’) head-on. Being honest and upfront about this helps you build trust and authority with your audience. And ultimately, that’s what helps you convert your audience into buyers!

How do you do this?

• Talk about a problem in your industry and specify how you’re different.
• Create content around something that’s personal to you and your business. For example, we’re a small web design agency, and some big companies might be worried about working with us. So we pre-emptied our prospective clients’ concerns by writing the piece: Why Are We So Cheap? Working with us vs a Larger Agency.

Acknowledge your clients’ objections, show them that you understand them, and advise them on the best course of action. What’s there not to love?

3. Comparisons

This type of content helps your prospective clients decide whether they should buy a certain product or service or another one. Or whether they should buy from this company or that company. It’s all about comparing two products or services (or two companies) directly against one another.

Here’s an example of how we did this in our business: Janet Murray’s 2020 Social Media Diary & Planner vs Jammy Digital’s 90 Day Challenge Workbook.

The reason why you need to create this type of content is that your clients always have a choice! And while doing their research, they’ll come across your competitors too. So why not be the person who acknowledges this choice and helps them make an informed decision? They’ll certainly appreciate you for it!

Of course, directly comparing your products or services against someone else’s can be one of the scariest and most difficult things you’ll ever have to do in your content marketing. But the key is to approach the topic in an unbiased way. Take yourself out of your business and think about what will benefit your customer or client. Put yourself in their shoes, look at the products or services as objectively as you can, and use your knowledge and experience to guide your audience towards making the best possible decision.

So here’s what you could compare:

• Similar products or services.
• Different industry methodologies or tools.
• Companies or businesses (including yours).

Don’t miss the opportunity to be the creator of this type of content – it’s a genuinely helpful thing to do for your audience!

4. ‘The best’ content

When we invest in anything, we want the best for our needs, don’t we? That’s the reason why we do all this research in the first place!

The trouble is that this type of content is often published by independent websites, which means your products or services (or your company) may not be mentioned (and simply because the creators of the content don’t know you!). So why don’t you produce this type of content yourself?

This might mean that you have to mention the competition, but it’ll work in your favour because people will find you on Google!

Want to know how we know? Because we did this! We wrote the article Top 10 Best Web Design Companies in Manchester in 2017. And years later, we still rank on the first page of Google and have received a lot of business directly from this post over time!

So how can you do this?

• Evaluate other people’s work – their products and services. Talk about what they do, but also about what you do and how you are different.
• Go into detail about why you’ve picked the companies you’ve chosen and what criteria you used to rate them.

This type of content is also incredibly helpful if you ever need to recommend another company to someone who isn’t the right fit for you, or in case you’re fully booked and can’t take on any extra clients at the moment. (Great position to be in, right?).

5. Reviews

Just like product or service comparisons, reviews are often done by independent websites. But you can be the business who reviews products and services in your industry and help your customers and clients make informed buying decisions.

You can review:

• Other companies in your industry.
• Specific products.
• Industry-specific tools.

The key here is to be honest and helpful to your reader. Not every single product or service you sell is suitable for everyone. So focus on the fact that you only need to attract your ideal audience. As for everyone else, they’re not your target audience – and that’s fine!

When you think about it, all you’re doing here is offering great customer service. If you were to walk into a shop, you probably wouldn’t want the help of the salesy or pushy member of staff. You just want the salesperson who comes across as helpful, unbiased, shows a deep understanding of the products or services they sell, and has your best interests at heart. And that’s what content marketing should do for you – it should act as the best customer service person for your business!

6. ‘How To’ content

Although Marcus Sheridan (who came up with these topics) talks about the Big Five, he also says that the sixth type of content that business owners should consider creating is ‘How To’ content, which is ideal for generating traffic to your website.

Think about it from a user perspective. We type ‘how to’ into Google all the time! Creating this type of content is good for showcasing your knowledge and expertise and providing your reader with something useful at the same time – teach people how to do what you do or how to find the right products or services in your industry.

But at the same time, don’t shy away from letting them know that if they need any help, you can be the person who makes their to-do list a little lighter.

Join our community and take part in the 90-day Content Marketing Challenge

So there you have it – the exact steps you need to follow to plan lots of ideas for content in 30 minutes! And if you’d like some accountability or help when it comes to creating that content, we are running a 90-day content marketing challenge in our community – Make Your Mark Online.

Our members produce one piece of content each week, and we provide tailored feedback. We run the challenge 3 times a year, so if this sounds like something you’d want to find out more about, head over to Make Your Mark Online and sign up!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to Plan 50 Pieces of Content in 30 Minutes appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

But how do you get more people to visit your website? In this post, we share how we increased our website traffic by 10 times in 12 months in 2017 and give you some tips to help you do the same.

Using your website to sell

Before 2017, we used to get approximately 250-300 visitors to our website per month. At the time, our business was going well – we were getting plenty of referrals from our existing and previous clients, and we had enough projects to pay the bills. But while we were busy working on our clients’ websites, we were neglecting our own.

We might be professional web designers, but we were suffering from what we call ‘website shame’. Just like a lot of our clients do before they start working with us, we were using our website like an online business card – a glorified billboard for our business that we’d send people to when they wanted to get in touch with us.

But that’s now how you should use your website! Your website should act as an ‘unpaid salesperson’ for your business – it should help you generate leads and sales. Sell your products or services.

Also, because we weren’t creating any blog content for our website, we didn’t have anything to share on social media or with our email list. And as a result, we weren’t building our brand, and our business was growing excruciatingly slowly.

But in 2017, we started producing regular content for our website, and everything changed.

Publishing regular content on your website

Fast-forward to 2018, and we were regularly getting 2,500-3,000 visits to our website per month. Considering there’s a lot of competition in our market, those stats aren’t bad for a web design agency. But what’s key is that we increased our website traffic by 10 times compared to where we were a year earlier. And that’s something!

So what did we do differently?

At the start of 2017, we joined a 90-day content marketing challenge with a group of like-minded business owners through the former Content Marketing Academy (CMA) led by Chris Marr. By signing up for the challenge, we made a decision and a commitment to create a new piece of blog content every week and to practise what we preached.

We started using our website to:

• Build a personal brand.
• Get more traffic.
• Drive more enquiries.
• Make more sales.

But how did we do it? And how can you commit to creating regular content on your website?

1. Measure your benchmark

Do you know how much traffic you’re currently getting on your website every month? In our experience, most website owners don’t. So if you haven’t already, use your Google Analytics to find out.

2. Use your time efficiently

Prior to 2017, we had probably published 2 or 3 blog posts in a year. We used the excuse that we were too busy with client work to find the time to write. If you don’t make time to market your business, your business will stay still. And maybe that’s okay for now, but what about in 6 months or a year?

As a result of publishing regular content, we got more work. But more importantly, we attracted clients that were better suited to our business and who paid more. We did this and still found time to write weekly. This just goes to show that if you put your mind to it and prioritise working on your own business and website, you can make it happen. All we needed to do was to plan ahead and be more efficient with our time.

So what can you do to make better use of your time? Could you set aside a couple of hours a week to create content? Could you maybe take yourself out for half a day every fortnight to work on your website? What worked for us was planning out our content in advance, that way, we knew exactly what to write. We did this using a content planner, that we’re now giving away free to you. Just click to download below!

3. Create accountability

What worked really well for us was taking part in a content creation challenge with other business owners. This gave us the motivation and accountability we needed to keep going when the going got tough and always meet our deadlines. It wasn’t always easy, and it involved a lot of last-minute work on a Sunday night. But we had a group of people supporting us and cheering us on. And that made all the difference in helping us meet our deadlines.

Plus, we got feedback too, and this helped us get better and faster at producing content.

4. Answer your clients’ questions

During the 90-day challenge, we followed the principles from the book They Ask You Answer, by Marcus Sheridan. We learnt that when people are thinking about buying from you, they’ll do their own research first. And typically, they’ll look for information around price, read reviews and comparisons, etc.

Just ask yourself, what did you do the last time you made a purchase? Before you bought the product/service? Research, right? We can’t even buy a toaster without researching!

Using Marcus Sheridan’s method, we came up with a huge number of ideas. We wrote blog posts around our prices, we created industry-related comparisons and reviews, and we generally tried to answer any question our existing or prospective clients would ask us. Essentially, our content was a customer service tool.

Some of the blog posts we wrote back in 2017 still attract the largest number of visitors to our website. To give you an idea, here are some examples of content we wrote in answer to our clients’ questions:

• 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Work With Us
• How to take payments online for services. PayPal vs Stripe vs SamCart vs GoCardless
• Top 10 Best Web Design Agencies in Manchester 

The last blog post, for example, is one of the many posts that has attracted paying clients into our business. So creating content that answers people’s questions isn’t only great for increasing traffic, it should be used to deliver leads and sales too.

If you want to start publishing regular content, record all the questions that your clients ask you. Whether it’s over the phone, on email, during a face-to-face conversation, a coaching call or a consultation, make a note of them. If one client (existing or prospective) asks you something, chances are that others will do too. And if you’re just starting out and don’t have many clients yet, Facebook groups and conversations on social media can be a great place to start to find ideas.

To help you plan all this content, you can download the content matrix, which is the exact framework we use to plan our content for the entire year.

5. Optimise your content for search

Once we gathered ideas for content from our clients, we then used keyword research tools to articulate those questions in a way that would help our ideal clients find our content on Google. ‘Optimising your content for search’ effectively means using words and phrases that people will use when searching for your business or for related information online.

So use keyword research tools to make intelligent decisions about the titles and the sub-headings you use in your blog posts. And once you’ve identified the relevant keywords, make sure you include them in:

• Title tags.
• Meta descriptions.
• Image names.
• And the Alt text on your images.

If you want to find out more about how to do this, head over to our blog post: 11 Reasons You’re NOT Ranking in Google & How To Fix It. (We wrote it at the back of a real question, and it’s still one of the best-performing blog posts on our website!).

You can also download our checklist of the exact ways to optimise your blog posts.

While we always recommend optimising your content for search, by creating content centered around our clients’ questions, we didn’t always target high-traffic keywords. And yet, some of the blog posts we wrote following this approach still attract the majority of the traffic to our website, like this post: Why are we so expensive?

6. Delve deep into the topic

If you look at some of the blog posts we linked to, you’ll notice that our content is always quite in-depth. Generally speaking, the higher the word count, the more traffic you can expect to receive to your blog post. There’s enough data out there to prove that the more effort you put into your writing, the more opportunities you have to include:

• additional keywords,
• internal links,
• and optimised images.

All of this encourages Google to rank you higher on the search results. So aim to create the best piece of content on a certain topic, and you’ll be rewarded by Google sending more traffic your way.

And if you’re worried about not being able to create long-form content, don’t! As a business owner, you confidently answer the questions your clients ask you day in and day out without thinking twice about it. So look at writing blog posts as an efficient way to share the knowledge that’s in your head. Focus on how you’re making life easier for your readers – you’re educating, informing, and entertaining. You’re being of service.

Be honest and transparent. Don’t be afraid of giving away your knowledge – it pays back, as you can expect an increase in traffic and in enquiries. Just be mindful of the fact that longer content doesn’t mean boring. So keep your end-users (the people consuming your content) in mind, and make your content interesting and relevant.

7. Rinse and repeat

Once you’ve followed these steps once, rinse and repeat. Do this weekly for a year, and you’ll see huge results, much like we did. It’s by creating 25-30 blog posts in 2017 that we managed to increase our website traffic by 10 times. It’s hard work, but as long as you commit to it and find a way to keep yourself accountable to the process, you can make it happen!

Sure, we found it challenging at times. When we first started, we second-guessed ourselves, and we weren’t sure anyone was even reading. But as time went on, people started noticing our content, sharing it, and giving us praise. Our audience started to see us differently because we had this wealth of knowledge that was now available on our website for the world to see.

Publishing regular content changed our positioning in the market. And it changed the type of discussions we’d have during sales calls. We found that people would read our articles before jumping on a call with us. And by the time we spoke to them, they already had trust in us. This made our sales process much quicker and easier.

In 2017, our website started doing some of the selling for us.

And if you commit to publishing regular content on your website, you can get these results for your business too. You can start this whole process by downloading the content matrix which will help you create your entire content for the year. But it’s not just any content, this content will actually help deliver you sales and leads.

Would you like to join our 90-day challenge? 

In 2020, we are running three 90-day content marketing challenges inside our membership, Make Your Mark Online. Our challenges will start on the 13th of January, the 11th of May, and the 7th of September 2020, and we’ll ask all our members taking part to produce one piece of content every week. We’ll support them with weekly calls, training videos, and a private Slack group, giving them the support, motivation, and accountability to use content to increase website traffic and make a difference to the bottom line of their business. If you’d like to find out more and join us for the next 90-day challenge, head over to Make Your Mark Online, or give us a shout if you have any questions!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How to 10x Your Website Traffic appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

So how do you take advantage of your About page? How do you get people to connect with you and, ultimately, buy from you?

What NOT to do on your About page

Simple: make it all about you

We see this (or something along these lines) quite often:

“Hi, my name is Bob and I graduated from university in 1987 with a 2:1 in Engineering.” 

Yawn. Your reader’s gone.

Now, we do understand why a lot of people do this on their About page. After all, it says About ME! What else are you supposed to be talking about?! It’s only natural that you’ll want to talk about yourself, your experience, and what you do.

And of course, writing your About page in this is also very easy. Because you know yourself and your story very well. But (and we’re sorry to break this to you), your life story may not be a great way to connect with your readers.

So what do you do instead?

Flip this on its head and talk about how you can help your readers.

When you come to write your About page, instead of ‘About Me’ at the top of the page, write ‘About how I can help you’.  You should still call it ‘About Me’ (or ‘About’ or ‘About Us’), but when you’re writing copy for the page, thinking about how you can help your reader will reframe your mind and encourage you to write content from your audience’s perspective (rather than your own perspective).

What do you write at the start of your About page?

The start of a new piece of content is always the trickiest part, and if you write regularly, you may have your own ways to help you get into it.

But here’s what we do and advise our clients to do.

At the start of your About page, reaffirm to your readers that they’re in the right place.

So you could use questions like,

“Are you looking for X? Then you’re in the right place.”
Or:
“If you need X then you’re in the right place.”

Think about ways to make your audience feel secure in the knowledge that this website (and the content they’re reading) is for them.

The best way to do this is to empathise with your reader and with their potential problems or what they’re searching for. Give them the information straight away, rather than making them sift through the boring corporate story of how you started and how long you’ve been in business.

Don’t miss an opportunity to talk about what makes you unique.

For example, here’s what we say on our website:
“If you’re looking for a web designer who gets your business, who isn’t afraid to say what works and what doesn’t, then you’re in the right place.”

This statement doesn’t just tell someone who can relate to those words that we’re right for them. It also tells our readers that, depending on what they’re after, we may not be right for them. And while that may seem like a bad thing, it’s not. Because this actually stops people who don’t feel we’re the right fit for them from getting in touch with us. And this saves our time as well as theirs.

If you want to dig deeper into this topic, have a listen to this podcast episode: How To Attract Your Ideal Clients Through Your Website.

Remember, people click on your About page to decide whether they actually want to work with you. So use the opportunity to find your ideal clients and filter out anyone else.

What else should you include in the About page?

When landing on your About page, your prospective customers or clients want to know how you can help them.

There’s no better place to show your readers that you know and understand what problems they’re facing and that you can help them solve them.

So how do you know what problems your customers and clients are experiencing?

Just listen to them. Hear what they say. Pay attention.

Because often, talking about their struggles will be the very first thing they say to you in their email or when they call you up to make an enquiry.

So think about…

What are your prospective clients having a nightmare with?
What is it that they desperately want to change?

And make sure you talk about this on your about page.

How to structure your About page

You’ve got so much information to include. How do you make sure it all fits together without overwhelming your reader?
You could simply list the problems that your ideal clients are having in an FAQ-style section on your About page. Using bullet points helps you reduce the amount of text on the page, gives your reader some breathing space and helps people find digestible information to consume quickly and easily.

So, for example, on our About page, we explicitly acknowledge the problems our ideal clients are having, sympathise with them, and then tell them how we can help. And don’t forget to add a call to action directing people to your relevant products or services.

How to use your About page to build trust with your audience

We talked a lot about connecting with your audience. So what other elements can you include on your About page to build trust with your prospective customer and clients?

Testimonials

Testimonials, links to your previous work, and awards help you build trust and credibility with your audience.

Add testimonials from previous clients that show the kind of results that your clients got from working with you.

Portfolio

Add links to your portfolio to showcase your previous work. Don’t be tempted to put everything on there, but have something that gets people to explore other pages of your website.

Awards

Have you won any prestigious awards? We’re not huge fans of going on about the awards you won, but your about page is an opportunity to show them off! This is your chance to show them off. Don’t be like us – Jammy Digital won The Best Blogging Awards at Content Marketing Academy in 2018, and we didn’t add it to our website!

How to include some personality on your About page

So what about you then?

Yes, it’s important to focus on your audience first, but you still have to tell people about you. And when you do, you don’t want to lack personality!

Your About page is a great place to tell your readers who you are. So don’t be afraid to show some personality.

1. Include photos of you (and your team, if you have one).
   People buy from people and need to see your face. If you don’t have your face on your website, get your face on your website.
2. Talk about yourself.
   Your readers want to know who they’re dealing with – just make sure the information you share is quite succinct and doesn’t take over the whole page. Having too much information about yourself too soon may mean you lose an opportunity to connect with your readers, so cover all the rest first and then talk about yourself.

This is where nailing your tone of voice becomes really important, so head over to this post or this podcast episode to learn more about how you can add personality to your About page.

Would you like our help?

If you’re looking for some personalised, tailored feedback on your About page or your website, we’re still doing free website critiques over on our Facebook group. So make sure you join and put your name down for a critique.

We also help personal brand entrepreneurs build and grow successful business websites inside our signature membership community, Make Your Mark online. The doors are currently open, and you can join for as little as $39 a month or $390 a year if you join as an annual member. So come and check it out!

Martin & Lyndsay

The post How To Write Your Website About Page appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

You see this all the time, small businesses using stock images of smiley, shiny people in board rooms. You see fluffy jargon and taglines on their website like, “We’ll help you prosper”. They use words like “solutions” and “consultancy” all the time, when they might just be “Steve” who works from his home office and helps people save money on their mortgage.

This kind of tactic might have worked well ten years ago but not anymore. Your customers can spot bullshit a mile off, and it’s time to start doing things differently.

Now’s the time to step out from behind your logo and cheesy stock photos and show everyone who you are.

People buy from people

It’s much more than just showing people what you look like, it’s about creating a culture of honesty and choosing to be approachable rather than sophisticated.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a one man band or a big organisation, I want to get to know a little bit about you before I get in touch. This all starts with your website.

Get over yourself

I know the feeling. You’re about to hit publish and add your image to your website, but it’s not quite right. It’s not your “good” side, and that plant in the background needs watering. Sigh.

I’ve been there, I know the feeling and guess what? I got over it. And you will too. People don’t care what you look like, they only care that you can help them.

The quicker you get past this, the faster people will trust you and will want to work with you.

People love small businesses

If you are concerned that people won’t do business with you if they know the truth, then don’t be. There are so many benefits to working with a smaller team or a freelancer as oppose to a bigger business. For instance:

• Bespoke service
• A personal approach
• Lower fees
• Less red tape

The worst thing you can do is to misguide people and claim that you are big business with lots of capacity.

It’s much better to be honest and attract people who are right for your business rather than wasting someone’s time.

Your website

So what can you do with your website to become more approachable?

Include an image of yourself on your homepage

If possible, include images of you and/or your team on the homepage. Your homepage is the most visited page on your site, so you may as well build up some trust immediately. I do this myself and it’s always nice when someone calls and asks to speak to “Martin”. They know who I am and what I look like before we even speak.

Staff profiles on the about page

Have an image and bio for each staff member on your about page. If you take a look at your Google Analytics stats, you may be surprised by how popular this page is with your visitors. It just goes to show that people actually care about who they do business with. Who’d have thought, eh?

You can have fun with it too. Talk about hobbies, interests or your favourite Disney films, I don’t really care! But try to be as human as possible and stay away from the “Linkedin bio” approach.

You might think that your business is “different” and this kind of approach is not appropriate. I’m currently working with one client who is a funeral director. His customers have commented how nice it is to see a smiley face on his website, as they’re accustomed to seeing glum, grey pictures everywhere else. Don’t be afraid to show the real you, no matter what industry you’re in.

Check out the team page for video hosting company Wistia to see how they’re using their individual personalities. Not a grey suit in sight.

Include a group shot

If there are a lot of people who work at the organisation, then you might want to consider a group photo. Make it fun. Something that shows a diverse group of individuals with their own personality. This will go a long way in breaking down the corporate image that so many websites try to portray.

Show people behind the curtain

It’s always nice to see you and the team in action. Showing the team working away gives your customers an insight into how your company is run. You could include images of the office, people working, people chatting on bean bag chairs, whatever you like! It’s nice to see real people in a natural office setting.

Include a video

There’s no doubt that people love video, which makes it a very useful tool in building trust online. Why not include a video of yourself or your team on your website? It could be a simple welcome video or you could use videos on your blog to answer questions that people might have. Either way, video can be very powerful.

Social Media Tip

I use my personal Twitter account for Jammy Digital. I tweet about design, SEO, walks on the beach, cats and Star Wars. (Follow me here you should) The point is, I don’t hide behind my logo or the twitter egg. If you have an egg as your twitter picture, please remove…right now. People want to see and hear from the real you. So show it to them.

Summary

The internet can feel like the wild west sometimes. Your customers know this and it makes them very cautious. This is why it’s so important that you make it easy for them to trust you. Transparency is the only way you can set yourself aside from your competitors and make people feel at ease.

Over the you

Do you find it frustrating when companies do this kind of thing? Or maybe you ARE one of these companies and you’re kicking yourself. I’d love to hear you thoughts on this so please leave a comment below.

Martin Huntbach

Web designer & marketer for small businesses. Martin is an experienced search engine and web design specialist, with over a decade of experience working with large corporations to small businesses.

jammydigital.com

The post Show Us Your Face appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

‘Clickbait’ gets a lot of bad rap, and sometimes, it’s for good reason. If you click on something and find yourself on a slow-loading page, rammed with ads and content completely unrelated to what you expected, then you’re going to be pretty annoyed.

However, clickbait has been prevalent for centuries, just in different forms. From the summary at the back of a book, to the Oliver Twist look-a-like kid shouting ‘extra, extra read all about it!’ – these are all ways to get you to engage with the author’s content.

There’s no problem at all with readers being lured into clicking on your article but only if they’re rewarded for their curiosity with good quality, engaging content.

But how do you get them to click? Below, I’ve listed the most common ‘clickbait’ techniques, with the ones I think you should be using and ones you should definitely steer clear of!

1. Lists posts

Yep, we know, we’re guilty! But lists are a great way of gaining visitors to your content.

The user knows the article or video is going to be in easily digestible, bite-sized pieces and that’s always more appealing than big chunks of text. It’s also more likely to be actionable content, with facts instead of opinion pieces.

2. Boobs

I can’t believe I have to say this. But please don’t use women in bikinis unless your article/content is directly related to bikinis! The amount of times I see articles that have nothing to do with the female anatomy, using a picture of a woman dressed in barely anything is scary. And it’s not just prevalent in content marketing but advertising in general.

Don’t get me wrong, for some companies it may work where that kind of thing is part of your brand – just look at ads for gambling and gaming, but for most it just makes you look desperate and kind of confused about what you’re selling. Plus, you’re potentially putting off 50% of your market.

3. Being mean/horrible/bitchy

I know it sounds cheesy but I treat people how I like to be treated, so causing unnecessary hurt or anger would be something I’d certainly steer clear of.

I’ve seen articles with headlines such as ‘Celebrities with ugly partners’ and ‘Stars who have piled on the baby weight.’ Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure these ‘articles’ – if you can call them that – gain a lot of traffic, but it’s not something I’m into. We’re all human, including celebrities, and I would hate to think I’d hurt someone purposefully over something I’d written.

4. Sarcastic headline

16 reasons you shouldn’t wear sunscreen, 12 reasons not to visit New York, four reasons you should put a fork in the plug socket.

This particular one is a real Buzzfeed favourite and although a little annoying at first, it does have that punch to the stomach value.

For example, what’s a more powerful message…

Neglecting to wear suncream over long periods of time could cause skin cancer

or

Don’t bother wearing suncream, who cares about skin cancer anyways!

The second one certainly has the shock factor.

I’m not a big fan of this method but I do see its benefits. I’d advise to use with caution.

5. We like number 5 the best!

Which one do you like the best

Yep, we’ve gone and done it again in the article headline! By stating which one out of your list is your preference/the most shocking/made you laugh etc. your intriguing web users. They want to know what number five is and they want to see if they agree.

Overall, it’s not the most advanced strategy but it does work!

6. Humour

Sometimes, you don’t want to learn anything or digest a load of information. You just want to laugh and be entertained – hence the sheer popularity of cat videos.

So inject some humour into your headlines (if applicable to your brand, if you’re a funeral director maybe not – although it would make me laugh!)

7. Controversial headline

This can be tricky.

Firstly, I see a lot of people use a controversial headline to lure people in, and then backtrack the headline in their article.

Someone did this recently using the headline ‘SEO is dead.’ I clicked on it and the guy went through all the benefits of SEO. What he actually meant was some methods of SEO have been phased out – but of course, that’s not as exciting as ‘SEO is dead.’

I think controversy is good, if you truly believe in your opinion and you have stats and facts to back yourself up. Healthy debate is what keeps us up-to-date. However, using controversy to gain links should be avoided, because essentially, you’re just going to annoy people. See example above!

8. Stupidity

Again, like the boobs, I’m not really sure why I have to say this but some people think that being purposefully stupid will attract web hits. And it will, but from people who want to tell you that you’re an idiot.

Please don’t resort to stupidity to gain links, instead be an expert on your chosen topic and earn respect for your knowledge.

9. What happens next will make you cry…

Tearful content

This is actually one of my pet peeves! But I understand why they work so well.

You can usually spot these on Facebook; it’ll link to a video featuring puppies and sad music and annoyingly, you may start to get a tear to your eye!

I hate them because I don’t like feeling manipulated but some people do enjoy them and overall, they seem to receive positive comments. I suppose this one is down to preference!

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post 9 most ‘clickbait’ headline techniques – we like number 5 the best! (Oh, the irony!) appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.

1. “I don’t have time.”

Ahhh that old chestnut.

This is the one I use most. How can I possibly find the time to do all this content marketing stuff!

There’s one very simple answer…

Make time.

I know, I’m sorry. I wish I could give you a magical machine that would stop time, but if I had one I’d probably be swanning it in the Cayman Islands drinking cocktails or something.

Content marketing should be an integral part of your marketing strategy. It builds your brand, helps SEO, and creates authority and trust with your audience. The benefits far outweigh the time.

But I would say this. Be smart about your Content Marketing. Don’t join eight different social media sites if you can’t keep up with them. Just have two or three you do really well. And aim to create a video/infographic/blog post etc. in realistic times frames. So if that means once a week/fortnight/month, then so be it. But make sure you do it.

2. “I don’t know what to write about”

Sure you do.

YOU are an expert in your field. Whether that be; gardening, roofing, hair and beauty, money management, budgies, cosmetic surgery, divorce settlements, underwear or spider monkeys, you are unique because you know more about your industry than the average man or woman out there.

So what does this mean?

It means you get to talk about the thing you love!

I love writing and content marketing. But often, when I start yabbering on to my friends/family about it, they roll their eyes and their head hits the desk.

But online, it’s different. Your audience are after the very thing you’re passionate about. And you get to talk about it without someone snoozing! How amazing is that?

3. “My writing isn’t good enough.”

Content isn’t just about writing. There are plenty of other things you can do. You can tweet about it, use Facebook, do videos, interpretive dance, create infographs, and take photographs.

If all that seems a tad scary and you do just want to stick to writing, remember, the majority of people are just after great content – answers to their questions, entertainment, something to make them laugh or cry or both.

They’re not going to be going through you’re work with a red pen giving it a big fat ‘F’.

And so what if you make a mistake? And some smartarse in the comments section tells you you’ve spelt necessary wrong (*cough* true story *cough*). Then just say, ‘silly me!’ and move on.

You will notice that as you keep writing it will improve over time. I recommend everyone use Microsoft Word for the handy spell check. Just remember to select the right word. For example: definitely and defiantly are often confused via spell checker!

You can also use software such as grammarly, that will check your spelling and grammar for you.

4. “What if people just do it themselves?”

So many clients say this to me and I always go back to the same example.

I had this discussion some years ago with a lady who now owns a successful bakery. I advised her to do YouTube videos on how to make and decorate cakes. She looked at me like I was an idiot.

“Won’t they just go away and do it themselves if I tell them how to do it?” she asked.

And she was right. There’s always a risk that some of your potential customers will go away and do it themselves. But the risk is very small.

Do you think that anybody will be able to copy what you’ve spent years and years learning and crafting? No.

Do people have the time to spend learning what you’ve learnt? Generally, no.

So she did it. And it allowed her to become an authority as a cake making extraordinaire and her business grew from strength to strength. She’s even introduced bakery classes!

5. “I’m afraid of putting myself out there.”

Now, this one I can sympathise with. Putting yourself out there is scary and there’s always that niggling feeling that people will judge you.

But trust me when I say this, I have only ever seen a hugely positive response to people putting themselves out there, if they do it in a helpful and engaging way.

People are generally good people. Yeah, the Internet is full of a few weirdoes but they’re easy to spot and ignore. But what if someone disagrees with you view? Then great! That means what you’re doing is working; you’re creating conversation and debate.

The hardest thing to do is that first blog post or video. You want it to be perfect and wonderful and for everyone to just love it. Well, that would be lovely but the chances are it won’t get all the attention you want it to. Content Marketing is a slow game and you will improve immensely over time. But the trick is to keep going, make sure your work is the best it can be but don’t overthink it. Just shut your eyes hit the post or upload button and I swear only good things will come of it.

No one ever got anywhere by being too afraid.

Lyndsay Cambridge

Owner at Jammy Digital, Digital Marketing Specialist and Writer of Young-Adult Fiction.

jammydigital.com

The post Top 5 excuses to get out of content marketing – and why you should ignore them. appeared first on Content Marketing & SEO Agency | Get More Sales From Your Website.