7 ms·

Always remember the about page

36 points by jp 16y ago

gruseom 16y ago
Yay, for once I idly click on some obscure thing and it turns out to be an above-average post! That doesn't happen nearly often enough. Anyway, this one makes at least two distinct and interesting points: 1. Users click on a site's "About" link way more than you'd expect. (That certainly matches what I do as a user; it's the first thing I look for if I'm at all interested in a company or a blog.) 2. What Facebook and Twitter really are are "human spam filters for near real-time information". (This is a more controversial point, but an insightful one.) Edit: you should fix the typo ("though nobody") and perhaps also come up with a better title so people other than a few straggling procrastinators take notice.
jkincaid 16y ago
And don't forget a contact Email if you want press. Phone numbers are great too (perhaps consider one of those Google Voice widgets if you are hesitant to put your number on the web). Oh, and if you don't want your logo butchered it's always good to have a ri-res version available somewhere.
michaelfairley 16y ago
When I show up on a landing page, and there's no info about what the website/company actually (sin number one), I immediately look for an about page, and if I can't find one, I'm gone.
techiferous 16y ago
Here are traffic stats from my blog: http://i.imgur.com/IVr7e.png http://i.imgur.com/IVr7e.png As you can see, my about page got a fair amount of traffic.
thefool 16y ago
The irony is that I wasn't able to find your about me page...
- wesley 16y ago
  It's hidden pretty well (not on the blog, have to click to their homepage first). http://app.teppefall.com/about/teppefall http://app.teppefall.com/about/teppefall (And it doesn't have much info either (when did the company start, etc))
JacobAldridge 16y ago
Made me check the logs for the site I administer (www.shirlaws.com.au) - the About Page is #14 of 118. This is higher than I would have expected - other content (business articles etc) is being populated over time, so the site is almost entirely About Us and what we do at this stage. And people still click that button to find out more.
aw3c2 16y ago
Don't forget to make text lines not stretch to fill the window. People with bigger screens will be presented with hard-to-read text.
- ars 16y ago
  Don't forget to do exactly the opposite of this. If you don't want the text to fill the window, reduce the width of your browser.
  - aw3c2 16y ago
    What? Long lines are hard to read. That is a fact. If you want some life examples just go to a random news site. My browser is fullscreen as almost all my applications are if I use them. It would be silly to small-window it just to make a website more readable.
th 16y ago
This rings very true with me as a user. I know I've spent minutes hunting through a particular website's navigation system looking for the non-existent about page before abandoning the website entirely.

36 points by jp 16y ago

Yay, for once I idly click on some obscure thing and it turns out to be an above-average post! That doesn't happen nearly often enough. Anyway, this one makes at least two distinct and interesting points: 1. Users click on a site's "About" link way more than you'd expect. (That certainly matches what I do as a user; it's the first thing I look for if I'm at all interested in a company or a blog.) 2. What Facebook and Twitter really are are "human spam filters for near real-time information". (This is a more controversial point, but an insightful one.) Edit: you should fix the typo ("though nobody") and perhaps also come up with a better title so people other than a few straggling procrastinators take notice.

jkincaid 16y ago

And don't forget a contact Email if you want press. Phone numbers are great too (perhaps consider one of those Google Voice widgets if you are hesitant to put your number on the web). Oh, and if you don't want your logo butchered it's always good to have a ri-res version available somewhere.

michaelfairley 16y ago

When I show up on a landing page, and there's no info about what the website/company actually (sin number one), I immediately look for an about page, and if I can't find one, I'm gone.

techiferous 16y ago

Here are traffic stats from my blog: http://i.imgur.com/IVr7e.png http://i.imgur.com/IVr7e.png As you can see, my about page got a fair amount of traffic.

thefool 16y ago

The irony is that I wasn't able to find your about me page...

wesley 16y ago
It's hidden pretty well (not on the blog, have to click to their homepage first). http://app.teppefall.com/about/teppefall http://app.teppefall.com/about/teppefall (And it doesn't have much info either (when did the company start, etc))

JacobAldridge 16y ago

Made me check the logs for the site I administer (www.shirlaws.com.au) - the About Page is #14 of 118. This is higher than I would have expected - other content (business articles etc) is being populated over time, so the site is almost entirely About Us and what we do at this stage. And people still click that button to find out more.

aw3c2 16y ago

Don't forget to make text lines not stretch to fill the window. People with bigger screens will be presented with hard-to-read text.

ars 16y ago
Don't forget to do exactly the opposite of this. If you don't want the text to fill the window, reduce the width of your browser.
- aw3c2 16y ago
  What? Long lines are hard to read. That is a fact. If you want some life examples just go to a random news site. My browser is fullscreen as almost all my applications are if I use them. It would be silly to small-window it just to make a website more readable.

th 16y ago

This rings very true with me as a user. I know I've spent minutes hunting through a particular website's navigation system looking for the non-existent about page before abandoning the website entirely.