When I work with clients on website copywriting, I often hear, "I don't want to boast. I don't know what to say."



The truth is: Writing your bio means you want to send a message to your potential customers: "You are dealing with the professional who is best qualified to help you at this time."

So I would encourage clients, "Think Terrific Copy, not True Confessions."

(1) Use your bio only to help prospects say yes. Usually your early childhood memories won't make a difference. But suppose your service involves bringing together teams from different countries. You can say, "I was born in England, grew up in India and went to college in the United States. As a result, I have first-hand experience with different cultures."

(2) Use strong action statements to demonstrate your strengths. Instead of saying, "I am a good listener," give examples of how your close listening led to strong, positive outcomes.

(3) Create a context by demonstrating your range of experience. For instance, you can say, "I've worked with over 100 firms, ranging from two-person consulting firms to Fortune 50 companies." Or you can summarize: "Over 20 years of providing web solutions to over two thousand clients..."

(3) Show how your experience transformed the way you do business. For example: "Max discovered his clients achieved a great deal of financial success - but they kept saying something was missing in their lives. So he created a program..."

(4) Include credentials and credibility-boosters. Have you been interviewed by a recognized media source? Won awards? Earned advanced degrees and certificates from accredited universities and programs? Passed your CPA exam? Worked for clients whose names are household words? Now you've got some great material for your bio.

(5) Help readers visualize where you are now, professionally and geographically. For example: "Now Joanne consults and writes books from his home on the Oregon Coast. Clients come by email from all over the US as well as Europe, Africa and Australia."

(6) Include lifestyle touches that help relate to your target market. You have to decide whether to talk about living with a partner, your hobby of gourmet cooking, and your six Siamese cats. What's friendly to one market will seem flaky to another.

(7) Use copywriting techniques to present yourself as strong, confident and capable. Your bio is a sales tool and you need to come across as strong, confident and capable.