The 5 Pillar Marketing Guide

If you've already established credibility with your audience, you may not need an About Me page as part of your SBI! strategy. In that case, you can move to the About SBI! PREselling strategy.

It's important not to talk about Site Build It! until you establish a solid level of trust with your visitors. They came to your site looking for specific information about your business. They are not ready to hear about SBI! just yet (unless your site is about Internet marketing).

This is what classic PREselling is all about. Folks visiting your About Me page are not looking for SBI!. They want to know more about you. Keep your tone light and friendly, as though you were sharing a personal story with someone sitting across from you.

It's not the time to sound pushy or over-excited about SBI!. Doing that will jeopardize your credibility and make your other monetization options that much more suspect.

When the time is right (and only then), you can begin to share how SBI! solved your personal problem or specific need. Your back-up MWR is to create interest for SBI!. Once that is established, you can then safely send your visitors to your About SBI! page and introduce more details about it. You've moved them down the PREselling Cycle and they're ready for more.

Creating Credibility For Yourself With Your About Me Page

Even before someone arrives on your About Me page, you are creating credibility for yourself. Your site's content is the important first step.

As the C T P M model points out, content is the backbone of your business. If your site offers relevant, interesting, and useful content, your visitors will begin to like and respect you. They may even see you as a trusted authority in your niche. The key word here is "trusted."

Getting People To Your About Me Page

If you write great content that your visitors find valuable, they will begin to trust you. Once trust has been established, they may even want to know more about you. That may be enough to get folks to click on an "About Me" page link. Depending on the nature of your Web site, you may want to try naming your link...

"How I earn money with my Web site"
"How I changed my life"
"My "work-from-home" story"
"My Personal Journey"

Just be sure to avoid making your link sound salesy.

Your credibility will directly affect your Conversion Rate. Of course, some folks may have already established enough credibility with their visitors. If you are still at the stage where you need to build your own credibility, you must understand your relationship with your audience. Doing this will define how far you can go with your recommendations.

Keys To Creating Credibility For Yourself

Begin by telling your own story... an emotional, thought-provoking, heartfelt story about how you got here. Quality and sincerity are critical factors. Your story has to be "from the heart" and NOT sound like a sales pitch. We recommend that you don't mention SBI! until at least midway on the page.

Here are some specific techniques for building your About Me page...

Put a photo of yourself on your site. Most people would rather buy from a real person than from a computer. Adding a photo is key to becoming a real person in their eyes. If you are able to, consider adding a video of yourself. Just a short 3 minute video introducing yourself is all you need. Showing a photo or video is a very important strategy and one that every top affiliate uses.
Make your story as "personal" as possible. Include personal details that you might share with someone who is a friend. Your failures are just as important as your successes. Make yourself seem human and someone who is open and honest and willing to be himself or herself.
Share the impact that SBI! has had on you. How did it change your life? What problems did it solve? Be careful not to sound salesy here. Just write honestly, sincerely and natural. This forum post includes a very helpful discussion on how to make sure you sound natural on your About Me pages.

Click here for a real world example of an excellent About Me Page...

Birgit Bradke's site has nothing to do with starting an online business so her visitors are far from "qualified" as being interested in building an online business. But... her story moves people. How?

First, she shows a photo of herself looking relaxed in a scenic Australian setting which is what her site is all about.

Next, she establishes her own "need." She always wanted to travel but lacked the lifestyle and the time to do it. She then says she found a "solution" to her "problem." Already she has her readers hooked on her story. They can identify with her need (a carefree lifestyle). Brigit has created a "knowledge gap" that draws people in to hear the rest of her story. They're dying to know how the story ends and to find out more about what her solution was.

To increase her credibility, she even tells how she was dumped by her boyfriend, thousands of miles from home. Wow! If that doesn't create empathy and trust with her visitors, nothing will!

She goes on to tell the rest of her story with great emotion and humor, only briefly mentioning SBI!. She is building a deep relationship with her visitors by sharing about herself and slowly building their trust. This technique is very important. There's no selling going on, only PREselling.

Birgit completely wins over her audience and creates maximum credibility for herself before she begins to create credibility for SiteSell. She has also connected with people's underlying longing for a better life and living their dreams. On a site that has nothing to do with online marketing, this is critical for starting her interested visitor down the PREselling Cycle.

Birgit's Attitude towards here visitors is key. As she points out... "We need to be ourselves and say what we have to say, and when writing think of how to best help our readers, and not how to best make the page sell SBIs. I think it is very hard to write from that place where you honestly just don't care about commissions at all. Most people write ONLY because they want a page that earns commissions. And that is what readers will sense between the lines."

When Birgit does decide to send her visitors to SiteSell, she chooses links that engage and create credibility for SBI!. The Video Tour is her first choice and is always an excellent way to introduce folks to SBI!. It's entertaining, compelling and moves folks along the PREselling Cycle.

Birgit's visitors, however, care about the Outback and perhaps traveling, so what has "hooked" them is their longing for that lifestyle. They certainly aren't ready to learn about "features" yet. Her visitors are still in the "create interest" stage of the PREselling Cycle. And that's just what she has done with her About Me page - create interest.

Just as Birgit does, we recommend that you don't add too many links to SiteSell on your About Me page (see 10 Common PREselling Mistakes). Use this page primarily for creating trust and credibility and then move your visitors to your About SBI! page to introduce your Site Build It! solution. This "gentle" approach can be very effective.

Take-Home Lesson

The main goal for your About Me page is creating credibilty for you. Your second goal is to create a real interest in Site Build It!.

Once you've accomplished those two goals, you can send your readers to your About SBI! page where you can introduce them to the full Site Build It! solution and begin to create credibility for SiteSell.

Click here to learn how to create your About SBI! page.

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Top 10 PREselling Mistakes