12.30.2005
About Pages for Sharing Info
Posted by Technical Support in Tips and Tricks
This post is the fourth in a series that introduces some great TypePad features and offers tips on finding help with TypePad in general.
Kymberlie on About Pages for Sharing Info.
Q: What can you tell us about yourself?
I'm Kymberlie and I've been working for Six Apart in Technical Services for about a year now. I've been using Movable Type to run my main blog, Neurotic Fishbowl since January 2002. There I talk about all kinds of random things from poker to skydiving to nights out on the town with friends. Blogging has been a great way for me to meet other people and it seems like these days, almost all of my friends are bloggers.
Q: What tip will you be talking about today and why did you pick this?
If you've ever been to my site, you've noticed the abundance of information that I display in my sidebars. Since I love knowing stuff about the bloggers I read, I'm going to be covering the Author Profile and About Page so you can share information about yourself, both vital and trivial, with your readers.
Q:What can I do with my About Page?
The About Page has a lot of great options that you can show. With it, your readers can learn all kinds of interesting facts and tidbits about you! To get started, select options from Control Panel > Author Profile > About Page.
The information in your Author Profile is the basis for your About Page; it's where all the information is pulled from. This includes your Name, E-mail Address, Photo, IM information, Amazon Wishlist, and much more. To edit this information, simply go to your Control Panel > Edit My Author Profile (Control Panel Shortcut) and fill in as much or as little as you feel comfortable sharing.
You can also add any TypeLists that you've created on your About Page. This allows you to display virtually anything you want your readers to know about you. Are you a knitter? Did you participate in a spoil-a-blogger swap? Have any nifty little buttons that you show off on your site? If so, you can add these to your About Page by going to Control Panel > Design my About Page and placing a check next to your TypeList under the Lists heading. Also, if you have any information that you want to share but don't want cluttering up your sidebar throughout your entire site, you can choose to display the TypeLists only on your About Page.
Your weblog's design is important to you, so you can also make the About Page look any way you like. After you’ve selected what information you’d like to show on the page, there’s a drop-down box that lists the themes saved on your account. Pick any one of those and Preview it to see how it will look. After you've found one you like, just click the "Save and Publish" button to apply this design to your About Page.
Of course, now that you have an About Page, you're going to want to show it off on your site. To add the About Page link to the sidebar throughout your entire site, you need to go to Weblogs > Edit Design > Change Content Selections. Check the box for "About Page Link" and save the changes using the button at the bottom. Now, everyone will be able to access your new About Page from your weblog!
As you can see, using your About Page and Author Profile is a great way to give your readers more insight into who you are, which is why most of us blog to begin with!
