AP 0179: Should My About Page Be Written in the First or Third Person?

AskPat 179 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, everybody. Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 179 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have a great question today from George, but before I get to that no sponsor but I do have a show related to this particular episode. George's question is about our About page. The very first episode of AskPat was also about our About page. This sort of would be the second one you should listen to if you're building your About page. The first one you should listen to, either after or before this one, should be that episode. If you go to AskPat.com and sort and look at episode number 1, you'll find the most downloaded episode of AskPat ever, which is how to craft your About page. One thing I didn't talk about was related to George's question here.

So, let's get to George's with right now.

George: Pat, I'm working on the About page for GeorgeNiebling.info, and I'm curious about the about page. Should it be written in first person or third person? Thanks for your answer, and taking the time to help all of us as we move forward.

Pat Flynn: George, thank you so much for the question. It's really interesting, because when I heard your question, I was like, immediately, because I heard you say the domain name: GeorgeNiebling.info I was like, immediately, it's got to be first person. It's got to be first person. Then I went to PatFlynn.com, a site that I had, I actually fought for that domain name for a couple years and I finally got it, but I have that up and it shows a lot of the different projects that I've been working on. You can get my book Let Go there as well. I went there, and it was in third person. So it says Pat Flynn is a blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, huh. That actually makes me want to change PatFlynn.com to be more of a first-person-type site. I think whatever the case may be, first person or third person, there's no right answer, but you have to be consistent.

You kind of have to think about it from your audience's point of view as well. I mean, I think if you were a brand, for example, if you had a branded type of website that had perhaps other people working in it, it would sort of make sense. For example, company X, and Ryan Mitchell is the CEO. Ryan Mitchell, he loves fishing. Ryan Mitchell started working here five years ago, or came up with this great idea for this kind of product. That makes sense to me. But if you are a person, you are building your own personal brand to make it as personal or personable or personal as possible, I would write in the first person. I think I'm going to switch PatFlynn.com over to first person in a little bit. If you go to my About page on SmartPassiveIncome.com, you'll notice really quickly that it's in the first person. I'm the luckiest person in the world. I think there's just something to be said for that voice where, if you're building a personal brand, you want people to understand that it's your voice behind every single word on that page. Right? And every single word on your blog or website. When people are reading in the third person, it might be confusing. Okay, well, who's actually speaking to me here? If it's a personal brand, I do feel it should be in the first person. It's not going to kill your site if your About page is in the third person, but I think to get the most out of it in terms of a personal brand—and, George, it sounds like you're building that personal brand since the domain name does match your name—I would go with the first person.

I'm also curious to hear what everybody else listening thinks about this. We've done this a few times in the past, and I love sort of continuing these discussions here about these things on Twitter. So if you're on Twitter, use the hashtag #AskPat179 for this episode. Episode 179. George, you can follow along. I'll be following along and seeing what people think. First person or third person on About page? When is it right or wrong to use one or the other? Love to hear your thoughts.

George, I hope that answers your question. Thank you so much, and an Ask Pat t-shirt is definitely going to be headed your way. To those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on the show, just head on over to AskPat.com. As a reminder, don't forget since this is about the About page, check out the first episode of AskPat. It's been downloaded over 200,000 times, and a lot of people have used it to craft their perfect About page, and hopefully you will, too, if you haven't yet.

Now, it's time to end with our quote of the day. That quote is from Jeff Bezos. He says, “One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don't choose your passions. Your passions choose you.” Cheers. Take care, and I'll see you the next episode of AskPat.