5 Things Your “About Me” Page Is Likely Missing & It’s Losing You Potential Clients
The About Me page is one of the most important and frequently visited pages on a website. It is able to educate, build rapport, and potentially supercharge your private practice growth.
If your About Me page isn’t a finely crafted piece that connects, converts and builds your practice, it is time to get to work. Let’s take a look at the top five things your About Me page is likely missing, and what to do about it.
1) It’s About… Them!
Did I just spin your wheels? Good!
One of the cornerstones of great private practice marketing is known as answering the great WIIFM question for your ideal clients – “What’s In It For Me?”
If you can’t sell yourself, you can’t help anyone. If you are unable to persuade the right clients — those who need you — to book an initial consultation in your practice, you are useless to aid their suffering. In fact, the better you become at gentle, ethical persuasion, the greater your private practice growth and the more lives and communities you will positively change.
As we wrote about in How to Write a Kick Ass About Me Page, when people visit your About Me page they are really looking to see if you can help them.
PSST! Not sure who this “ideal client” is that you’re supposed to be targeting? Find out with our Ideal Client Quiz.
Often, therapists cobble together an About Me page from several beige facts, like where you went to school and what your credentials are. This may be interesting to you, but we can hone your version in a way that connects with and persuades potential clients, as well.
Think of all the little details you know about whom your ideal client is, and how you could use these to connect with them on a more personal level:
– Demographics, including age, gender, working status, socio-economic status
– What health challenges do they have?
– What do they want to achieve in life?
– What do they want from your therapy?
– What language do they use? (In life, and in relation to their illness or challenge)
By understanding exactly what your clients want, how their challenges negatively affect their lives, and how they would express this linguistically, you can target your About Me page to them directly.
A great way to get into this is to lead your About Me page with questions. For example, let’s imagine you are a depression counselor. The top of your About Me page could begin, “Feeling lonely, overwhelmed, and like life’s not worth it?” or, “Struggling to sleep and waking exhausted, disconnected, feeling worthless?”
These questions pique interest and can lead into why you are uniquely placed to help those clients.
2) Captivating Copy
It doesn’t matter which page of your website a visitor is on – if they get bored, they’re gone. That’s a good rule for all writing.
Often when therapists write an About Me page they try to tick all the professional boxes and forget they are writing for a layperson who is seeking help. This sort of writing smacks of boredom. And bored people leave.
Let’s look at a bad example.
Picture credit: Uxbooth
While professionally written, this About Us page tells us a whole lot of nothing wrapped up in a box of boredom. The good news is that there are easy fixes for this kind of writing.
Write like you speak. Don’t be afraid of sounding too “casual” – you’ll instantly sound more personable and less like a robot.
Have you tried recording yourself as you explain what you want to do with your About Me page? Try. Then sit down and write out what you’ve said before reading it back. You’ll be surprised how much smoother and more readable the transcript is than what you expected.
Express yourself. It’s ok to be you. In fact, that’s the one thing that can’t be replicated! If a loved one had a difficult journey with a relevant illness, you might choose to share a little about it. If you love to volunteer for a certain charity, this might play a role in the story of your About Me page.
While your credentials are important and should be included, sharing more than mere academic prowess connects and builds rapport. You don’t pick your doctor just based on where they got their degree – you pick your doctor based on how you feel about them as an individual. And a therapist is a far more personal choice than a standard physician!
Have confidence! You’re where you are today because you’ve worked darn hard! You need to be able to share with a potential client why they should pick you, without being afraid to brag.
If you’re feeling a bit self-conscious, here’s a hot tip :
Ask your current clients how they would describe you and your approach. Take note of their language, special words used that relate to their condition (i.e., do they say “black dog” instead of depression?) If this feels too confronting, ask a loved one. Still too in-your-face? Imagine how your best friend would describe you and how you are able to help transform client’s lives.
Looking for even more tips on how to write for your perfect client? Check out this free podcast we did with Nate Wagner.
3) A Professional Picture
It’s important to include a professional picture of yourself so potential clients can see the very person that could help them. It can be very impactful as long as you give the right impression. Make sure the photo is professionally taken (so unfortunately no smartphone or social media photos will do), but that doesn’t mean you necessarily have to wear business-professional attire. Dress in something you would wear every day to work to strike the perfect tone.
Here’s a great example from one of our Brighter Vision customers, Shane Birkel:
Shane’s About Me page from his website, Seacoast Spark.
See how Shane has included a photo that is clearly professional quality, but it isn’t a “stuffy” one, so to speak. He’s in a casual (though not unprofessional) pose and he’s not overly dressed, simply wearing something nice that he might wear for any day on the job. He’s also written his About Me section in a very engaging tone, spending little time on his technical qualifications and instead focusing on the real ways he can improve the lives of his ideal clients.
Let’s look at one more great example, this time from Brighter Vision customer, Alexander Alvarado:
Alexander’s About Me page from his site, Thriving Mind.
Alexander’s photo is certainly less informal than Shane’s, but no less effective. Clear and obviously of professional quality, this studio photo still shows a good amount of Alexander’s personality and who he is as a therapist and counselor.
4) Multi-media
There’s nothing like a picture or video to capture the attention of a viewer, but have you ever thought of harnessing the power of video on your About Me page?
Recent statistics tell us that video watching accounts for one-third of all online activity. Approximately 85% of US internet users watch video, and importantly for you, WordStream reports, “Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic. [A] video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.”
In addition to your professional photograph, consider including an introduction video so your website visitors can really feel like they’re getting to know you. Really want to amp up your results? If your local laws allow you to include testimonials, share a couple of those as well. Genuine, heartfelt, and complimentary video testimonials pack a powerful punch and can connect with a visitor on a personal and emotional level.
Another hot tip! – Make sure your videos are three minutes or shorter, or else you risk losing your viewer’s attention.
5) Call To Action (CTA)
A “call to action” is when you ask a visitor to do something, to take a specific action, and provide them with the path to do so. Nowadays, a call to action (or CTA) tends to show up as a clickable button or link online.
For example, any button you’ve seen online that says, “SHOP NOW,” is one of the most common types of a CTA. Yours doesn’t have to be so blunt, of course, and providing a quick and guided way for your website visitors to get started means that more of them will turn into your loyal clients.
A CTA can be as simple as, “Click here to book your consultation.” However, you could really increase the click rate of that CTA by thinking up something more personal to your ideal client. What are their specific concerns? For example, if your practice’s ideal clients are chronic pain sufferers, maybe you CTA is more like, “Contact me if you would like to learn how to take control of your pain today.”
–> HEY there! Are you looking for more ways to grab way more clients with your website? Sign up for this free 5-day email course on getting more clients: <–
If you desire private practice growth and if you truly want to make a difference, you need to remind yourself that your About Me page is one of the most visited pages on your website, and get to work. It’ll be well worth it.
Do you feel like you need more than an About Me rewrite? Need a website strategically designed to boost your private practice growth and profits, but you’ve been putting off your site because you are too busy and it seems like a lot of work?
It’s not!
This is what we at Brighter Vision do and we’ll have your beautiful, targeted website live without you having to life a finger if you don’t want to. If you want to experience it for yourself at no charge, contact us today to learn about snagging a free two-week trial!
