Introduce yourself to your blog's visitors

Whether your blog is personal, professional, or somewhere in between, providing a brief introduction to yourself can help you turn first-time visitors into regular readers. With so many blogs out there to choose from, visitors want to know who you are and what expertise you have to write about the subjects you cover.

Providing a brief introduction on the sidebar of your blog helps create a personal connection between you and readers and establishes your authority. Whatever page of your blog visitors arrive on, they will see the introduction and be able to learn more about you.

Typepad's Introduction module makes it easy for you to add a brief introduction to your blog's sidebar. First, think about what you want to say. You may want to provide your name and any professional titles or qualifications that you have which are relevant to the topics you post about. Or you might want to describe your interests and tell readers a bit about your story to create a personal touch. Letting visitors know what topics your blog covers is also a great idea.

Once you have decided on the text of your introduction, go to the Design > Content page for your blog. Locate "Introduction" in the list of modules and click on it to select it. When you click the "Add this module" button, a pop-up window will open with a field where you can enter the text of your introduction. If you want to get fancy, you can include HTML code for formatting in the text.

After you have typed in the text for your introduction, click OK. You can then drag and drop the module to the place you want it to appear in the sidebar. We recommend placing it near the top of the sidebar, so that visitors will be sure to see it.

If you want to change the text of the introduction, return to Design > Content and locate the Introduction module in the sidebar area. Click the pencil icon to open the module for editing.

After you have everything the way you want for your Introduction module, click "View Blog" to view your blog and check out how the introduction appears in the sidebar.

Do you use an Introduction module on your blog? What do you think makes a good introduction? Let us know in the comments!