Here are two really embarrassing questions you probably don’t want to answer, but I’m going to ask anyway…

1. Who was your first celebrity crush? If the answer isn’t Dieter Brummer, we can’t be friends.
2. What does your about page say? Any ideas at all? Don’t click on it! That ruins the game.

If you have entirely no idea, you’re not alone. Most entrepreneurs set up there about pages in the very early stages of their business and the conversation with their web developer goes something like this.

Web developer - ‘I need some copy for your about page. Don’t stress about it too much, we can always change it later.

’You - ‘Oh shit! Um… okay here’s something I threw together, I’ll update it next week when I have more time.’

Fast forward ten years and you’ve got an about page that says you’re married (and you’re now divorced), with twin toddlers (who just turned 16), living in Sydney (Nope!) and just starting your new business (that’s just had its tenth birthday).

It happens to the best of us. The problem is that we rarely stumble upon these pages ourselves, so we tend to forget they exist.

Here’s a little reminder of a few pieces of website copy you might need to upgrade…

1. Your contact page

A rather well-known CEO of a PR firm was asked at a business conference what makes her choose the people she works with. What makes her select one web designer over another? Or one influencer instead of a different one? Do you know what she said?

‘I pick the ones with working email addresses in their contact pages.’

For real. Her whole job is to find, hire, connect and promote people and the most significant issue she faced in her career was getting access to working email addresses. How silly and entirely avoidable is that? It’s like accidentally giving the wrong phone number to the cutest guy you’ve ever met and then being bummed when he doesn’t call.

Go to your contact page and make sure your email address is listed correctly or that the link to your email contact form is working. Also, check the email addresses of your employees and make sure their details are up to date too.

2. Your thank you page

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a person who sells things on the internet right? Right. So when your customers buy something from your site, they get directed to a thank you page. Do you have any idea at all what that thank you page says? Yeah, most people don’t. They set up thank you pages super early in their business and then just forget they even exist.

Check your Thank You page for the following things.
- Make sure it’s thanking them for the thing they actually purchased and not something you had on offer six years ago
- Make sure it doesn’t have any dead links in it
- Make sure it contains all the information they need about their purchase - how to claim it, when it arrives and the delivery method
- Revisit your thank you page at least every six months to keep it up to date with your new offerings

3. Your Cart

I’m going to let you in on a secret here - your customers aren’t mind readers. If they click on an item in your store and they go to the checkout, and the item description doesn’t match what they wanted to buy, they’ll freak out OR abandon the cart, and neither of those outcomes is desirable.

Make sure your cart is easy to use, with clear instructions and make sure your pricing and descriptions match your sales page. Customers are fickle little creatures, and if they get bored or scared, they’ll scurry away and never return. Don’t let lousy cart copy scare away good customers.

4. Your onboarding email sequence

When was the last time you updated this sequence? When you launched your business? Four years ago? What does your onboarding sequence even say? Is it relevant to what you’re currently selling? If you answered never, yes, yes, I don’t know, DEAR GOD I DON’T KNOW - then you need to update that sequence ASAP.

Most of the time it will just a need a bit of a revision and a few link updates. Not scary at all. Pour yourself a glass of scotch, light up a fat cigar and get on with it Don Draper style*. Smooth.

5. Your about page

About pages are the biggest dust-gatherers of the online world. Most people forget they even have them until they meet someone at a conference who says ‘Oh I read your about page - how was your wedding?’ and then they freak out because they got married 5 years ago and they’re like ‘What ELSE is on that about page?’.

Set a date, mark it on your calendar and make that your About Page day. On that day every year, visit your about page and update it, making sure all the information is relevant, all the links are working, and there’s a valid email address where people can contact you.

*cheating on your wife optional