Subscribe to RSS FeedShould You Or Do You Link To Your About Page?
Ok, this is a question that has been brewing in my mind ever since I redesigned my blog. We all know that commenting is a great way to drive traffic but not every blog out there has CommentLuv installed. With CommentLuv we can promote certain blog posts but without it we can only use our name.
The more well known bloggers such as John Chow, Shoemoney and Darren Rowse don’t have CommentLuv installed so we have to rely on the comment itself to attract enough attention that somebody may potentially click through. You did know that you should be providing thought provoking comments to get people to click through, right? Ok, good at least you do know that. With that said, when somebody does see your comment and decides to click your name I am going to assume that they are interested in knowing more about you.
Now, I will admit that all of the comments that I have left on blogs have redirected to my main blog page except for about maybe 2 or 3 in which I had linked to my about page. But this has really been burning in the back of my mind. The more I think about it the more reasons I can think of to link to my about page rather than my homepage. The person clicking your name on your comment on another blog isn’t necessarily wanting to hit your homepage, they want to know more about you I believe. Unless your home page is dedicated to telling visitors about you, which most home pages don’t, you are directing them to the wrong area of your blog.
Garry Conn provides a welcome page on his blog and he has talked about this before about using a welcome page when using social media instead of your blog’s homepage. He suggested using this method as a great way to build your mailing list or RSS subscription numbers or whatever else you are trying to get your readers and visitors to do.
This is another reason why you should have an about page or a page detailing a little bit about who you are and what you do. Blogging is a social machine and thrives off of the aspects of communication and interaction. Sure people might be interested in your posts but they are also equally interested in who you are. Even myself, somebody who isn’t as social as a normal person, I am interested in knowing who is behind the words and a little about them. When coming across a new blog I always check out the About page just to get some background information. We as humans have an inclination to know more about something that we don’t know much about, I believe it is something that we are born with, not something we develop.
So, with all that said, I’d be interested to hear what some of you have to say. I think I may start working on my about page and start using that as a link when leaving comments instead of to my home page.
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September 29th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
You should ALWAYS link to an inner page…whether it’s the about page or not, thats up to the individual.
This goes right along with your link building efforts. On top of that, if you have a post on your blog, that compliments the post you happen to be reading, you should link to that. :)
Dennis Edells last blog post..Important Tip: FREE Will Cost You In The Long Run - Do You Agree?
September 29th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
That’s a really good point. I know that I’ve occasionally refrained from commenting somewhere just because I knew that my current new post was not one that I wanted new visitors to see when first clicking through. I’d never thought about linking to a different page, or even a different post.
Strangely, I almost never get click throughs if I say something useful, but I almost always get clicks when I’m just being silly.
WordVixens last blog post..Who’s Audience Are You Marketing To?
September 30th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Interesting food for thought. Which reminds me that I need to do my about page asap.
Dennis also raised a very good pointer, in linking to posts of relevance to the one you are commenting on.
Great post Jarret!
Neals last blog post..PR Update - September 2008
September 30th, 2008 at 2:50 am
I think it’s important to have an about page so visitors can find out about you but linking to it when you comment instead of your homepage I’m not so sure about. I expect to visit a homepage or blog page when I click someone’s link, seeing if they have an about page is as easy as looking for “about me” somewhere on the page.
I think most intelligent surfers are capable of finding out about you if sufficiently motivated or impressed by your comment or blog content. It might not work the other way around, a visitor who comes straight to your about page might not be impressed enough by YOU to read YOUR content for whatever reason (no pictures on your about page, long text that isn’t relevant to the subject that got them here, it’s about someone else other than themselves and so on)
btw.. johnchow hasn’t got it but johncow has! (commentluv that is) :-)
Andy Baileys last blog post..New plugin to add snazziness to commentluv links
September 30th, 2008 at 3:23 am
Keep in mind everyone that this is referring to the URL field, NOT a link within the comment :)
Dennis Edells last blog post..Important Tip: FREE Will Cost You In The Long Run - Do You Agree?
September 30th, 2008 at 3:26 am
Wordvixen - thats the total coolness with the new commentluv upgrade…you can pick from a list which one of your posts you show :)
Dennis Edells last blog post..Important Tip: FREE Will Cost You In The Long Run - Do You Agree?
September 30th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Haivng an “About” page is only common sense. you have to introduce yourself to your readers!
web talks last blog post..How to run Java in Google Chrome
September 30th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I think an About page is great and I think most internet surfers are able to find the page on their own.
September 30th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Wow, quite a few comments!!
Everybody made some really good points and gave some good advice. Thanks for stopping by Andy, Web Talk and Susan!
Your first comment was great Dennis. I had never even thought to link to a post even if CommentLuv didn’t exist, will have to start doing that from now on ;)
That could very well be WordVixen. Saying something a little bit out of the norm is a good way to attract some attention. Also disagreeing with the post can possibly increase clicks.
Hey Neal, yes Dennis made a very good point to link to other posts no matter what.
Hey Andy :) You make a very good point as well, you are right in that most people expect to be taken to a blog’s homepage nowadays when they click on a commenter’s name. Especially if you direct them to your About page and like you said it isn’t very revealing and kind of dull. You got me thinking now and I may have to test this out by dispersing comments with a link to the home page and then a few links to the about page. Thanks for your input.
Web Talk - Yes I agree that you must have an About page, I am always interested in knowing a little bit about the blogger because if I am reading his blog most likely I will be subscribing to it as well.
Susan - True, you and Andy make some valid points. I would still like to do some testing though. I need to make a kick ass About page though before I go ahead and start testing.
Thank you everybody for your input :)
September 30th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Jarret,
You already know what I’m about to say man - PERSONAL BRANDING BITCHES!
About page all the way.. I link to ours internally all the time in content etc… whenever I mention “Veronica and I” or something similar it’s linked to our about page - which then contains our sexy ass picture and some cool info as well as giving people the ability to comment.
Elijahs last blog post..9 Things You Need To Be Successful At Bum Marketing
September 30th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
@Elijah
I’m in 4th on your top commentators!?!?!? 4th!?!?!?!?!!?
Where is the love man? Guess I need to get my ass back over there and take over the lead ;)
October 1st, 2008 at 5:55 pm
Great point man and I really loved how Garry handled his welcome page, I remember reading that and I was loving it. I think you should mix it up, and agree with Dennis that you should be deep linking, not that I do it all the time, and comment luv helps alot, especially being able to pick from your last few posts.
I like what Andy said as well, about letting your visitors find the about page, I know I usually check it, but if it’s not organized all nice and tidy…linking to it could have an adverse effect. It’s all about the first impression.
Normal Joes last blog post..Blog Flipping Blueprint Is Here And I Have A Bonus For You
October 5th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
This is a great idea, and something I’d not thought about doing before. It makes a lot of sense, since my about page has my success story in it, and that’s probably the best way to inspire people and get them to read the other posts on my blog.
I’ll start now by linking my about page in *your* comment box.
Thanks for the idea! :)
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October 5th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Hi Lindsay, thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment :)
Just checked out your about page and yes it is pretty inspiring as well as your recent blog post with your AdSense earnings. That was very impressive ;)
It looks like you have some other great content on your blog as well, I’m subscribing to your feed so that I can always stay up to date :)