The 'about' is where visitors go when they're deciding whether to trust you, and most creators fill it with a list of credentials nobody asked for. It reads as a CV and connects with no one.
Make it about them, then you
Open with who you help and how their life is different afterwards. Then, briefly, why you're the person to do it. The reader cares about their own problem first; your story matters only as evidence you can solve it.
Sound like a human
Write it the way you'd introduce yourself to someone at an event — warm, specific, a little personal. A stiff corporate paragraph builds less trust than three honest sentences.
Lead With Who You Help, Not Where You Studied
Most bios open with the writer — years of experience, qualifications, the town they trained in — and lose the reader in the first line, because a stranger hasn't yet been given a reason to care. Open instead with who you help and what changes for them: 'I help first-time authors turn a messy draft into a finished book.' The credentials still matter, but they land far better once the reader knows the bio is about them.
A simple reorder fixes most bios. Take your current opening sentence about yourself, move it to the second or third position, and promote the line about the customer's outcome to the top. A photographer's 'Fifteen years behind the lens' becomes the supporting fact under 'I make family portraits your kids will want on the wall in thirty years.'
Proof belongs in the bio, but as evidence for the promise, not as the promise itself. Experience answers 'can they do it?' — but only once the reader is already asking the question.
One Human Detail That Makes You Real
Trust isn't built by competence alone; a bio that is all achievement reads like a CV and keeps the reader at arm's length. One specific, human detail does more than a paragraph of polish — where you work, why you started, the odd fact that makes you a person rather than a brand. 'I write these newsletters from a narrowboat in Bristol' is remembered; 'passionate about content' is not.
The detail has to be true and specific to you, or it does the opposite. 'Coffee lover' and 'dog dad' are so common they've stopped meaning anything. Reach for the thing only you would write — the career you left, the mistake that started the business, the customer who changed how you work — and it doubles as a reason your offer exists.
A Simple Shape You Can Fill In
If a bio feels hard, it's usually because there's no structure to lean on. A dependable shape is four short moves: who you help, what changes for them, one line of proof, one human detail — then a clear next step. Fill each in with a single plain sentence and you have a working bio before you've had time to overthink it.
Worked example, in order: 'I help small food brands look as good as they taste. Give me your product and I'll hand back a set of photos that sell it. I've shot for over sixty independent kitchens. I started because my mum's chutney deserved better than a phone snap on a tea towel.' Then the step — a link to the work, or a line inviting a message. Read it back aloud; if any sentence sounds like a job application, rewrite it the way you'd actually say it to someone at a market stall.