We have all been there, torn apart when writing a bio and trying to balance it so that it does not seem too praiseworthy or does not fall flat with modesty.
Writing a professional bio that sparks interest can be daunting. Optimizing the bio for search engines can even be more daunting. However, your bio will determine your first impression online when you are googled by a potential client, employer, or someone trying to learn more about you. This can make or break the step whether one will want to work with you or not.
So How Does One Write a Good Bio?
To write a bio, you need more than just the basic facts of someone’s life. A good biography dives into the impressive, noteworthy achievements of someone’s life, critical turning points, and moments of adversity. It is possible to give a general view of someone’s life in an engaging manner giving the reader an intimate view of their character. Below are a few tips you can employ when writing a good bio.
Identify your Purpose
Before writing, you need to know who your target audience is and what you want them to think about you. People write for different target audiences. One can write a professional bio for freelance work, a comedy bio for friends, or a bio for your next fiction piece.
Introduction
The first few sentences should be a brief introduction about you, followed by essential details that you would want to highlight, such as education, achievements, and certifications.
After this strong introductory sentence, include your general outlook on life, values, and passions. The notable areas are skills, attributes, professional values, and personal values, but you can have other details such as your current job posting and job duties. All the details are significant for prospective employers.
Keep It Short
When writing a bio, always have a word count in mind. Keep it around 300 to 500 words. However, if you are writing a biography for your professional website, keep it between 1500 and 2000. Keep the details short and concise but include as many details as possible. A short bio quickly arrests the reader’s attention and encourages them to delve deeper into your resume.
The items you should include in your bio are:
- Accomplishments: What are the landmarks in your professional journey? Have you been graced with awards in your field? Did you meet the expectations at your workplace?
- History: What does your work history look like? What events modeled your career path?
- Education: Where did you attend school? How did you perform? Did you receive any awards or certifications?
Arrange the information starting from the most recent to the earliest.
Have a Bio for Different Profiles
You should have different versions of your bio depending on your online presence. For Search Engine Optimization, Google prefers long and unique content that provides a lot of information. However, other bios like Twitter bios and LinkedIn bios ought to be like a summary. Don’t feel the pressure to squeeze your entire life story in one bio but instead have multiple bios for different platforms.
Write in Prose, Not a List
When writing your bio, it is easy to fall into the pit of handing yourself accolades and accomplishments. Your bio should go beyond your awards and describe who you are.
This may not be easy at the first attempt, but you can pull it off with some planning. Try to identify the main takeaways you want the reader to have and illustrate them as an engaging story. Writing your bio in prose gives you a perfect opportunity to engage with the reader and differentiate yourself from the other writers.
Avoid Work Clichés
After spending close to a third of your life at the workplace, it might be easy to use your industry’s lingo in your bio, but the rest of the world will not understand you. Write and state your facts in simple and understandable English. Double-check and make sure that your copy doesn’t sound like you wrote it using Corporate Ipsum.
Lauren Bradshaw from an essay writing company Custom Writings once stated,
“People will read your bio but whether they remember it or not depends on your presentation.”
Write in the Third Person
Your bio should always sound as if it were objectively written, even though it is not. If you check at any book cover, the narrative always assumes a third-person narrative even though the author probably wrote it themselves. It may feel strange, but since it is a bio and not an autobiography, it should sound from an outsider’s view.
Some first-person bios can be useful but writing in the third person allows you to speak candidly about yourself and include your name. This tactic also works well for Search Engine Optimization as search engines recognize it as a piece about you. Avoid overusing your name in the third person. It should always appear as a natural inclusion.
Spice It Up with Some Personality
You can spice up your bio by including something unexpected. This can be something humorous or some piece of information you think the reader might be interested in. Of course, this can be a topic of conversation, and it will make your bio more memorable. You can include something like, “He especially delights in writing about himself in the third person.”
Contact Information
Your bio is the first step in networking and connecting with others. A contact section makes you appear approachable. Here you should include:
- Your email address
- If you have a website, link it to your contact page
- Links to your social media platforms
This information should be at the end of your bio and easily visible to anyone.
Proofreading
Your bio is an authoritative source about you. It needs to reflect on you in the best way possible. You should also review it regularly.
With experience and a shift in professional focus, you can ask other people to look at your bio and give a second opinion. However, you can also use powerful tools like CustomWritings.com, which will help prove reading and keep your readers interested.
No one knows you better than you. Showcase yourself so that the audience will understand you and appreciate you for what you do and who you are.
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