Your business website is ready to roll. Eye-catching graphics: Check. Pages showcasing your products or services: Naturally. And that About Us page? Dust off some employee bios, describe the product, and call it a day, right?
Hold on. If your website’s About Us page is an afterthought, you’re ignoring a crucial tool.
Your website needs to do more than attract eyeballs. You need to gain visitors’ trust. Your About Us page is where trust in your brand, product or service begins. Research by Shopify found that customers use About Us pages to gauge if a business seems legitimate, to find reassurance it won’t fold, and to investigate whether the business’s values align with their own. If About Us doesn’t help people trust you, they might say goodbye.
Potential customers actively seek About Us pages. A KoMarketing study found that 52% of respondents said they want to see an About Us or company information page when they visit vendor websites.
Here are six tips for writing an effective About Us page to build trust on the other side of the screen.
1. Find examples you like.
Before you write a word, check out other sites’ pages. These might be called About Us, Our Story, or other titles. You might find the About Us content on values, teams, and company history spread across several pages, not on just a single page. Which websites’ About Us pages engage you the most and why? Which ones make you feel as if you know the people behind the business? Pick the features you find most useful and see how you can adapt them to tell your unique story.
2. Write an attention-grabbing headline.
Whether you come up with a pithy headline as you begin, or write it after you’ve finished your About Us copy, you need a statement to pique interest.
Keep it brief. Anchor it at the top of your page so the reader sees it without having to scroll down. Make the reader want to find out more.
Harry’s, purveyor of men’s grooming products, opens with, “We created Harry’s to be different from other shaving companies.” That begs the question, different how? You’ll keep reading. Natural toothpaste company Bite plays with its name, leading with “Every Little Bit Counts.” A second line, “Ending plastic waste, one healthy smile at a time,” tells you the company’s core value (benefiting the environment) and how it benefits the customer (a healthy smile). All in just nine words.
3. Explain your mission and values.
What do you do? Why do you do it? For whom are you doing it? Answer these questions simply and clearly, and you’ve just summarized your mission and values.
Distill your mission and values to a few points. Sweet Loren’s makes edible cookie dough. The firm’s Our Story page focuses on three “core beliefs”: “Always delicious. Everyone has a seat at our table. Never compromise.” Each belief gets no more than two short sentences. Combined with mouth-watering images, these statements pack a punch.
4. Establish credibility.
Gain customers’ trust by showing that someone besides you thinks you’re good at what you do. Talk about the customers you’ve served. Include select testimonials or endorsements, says copywriter Ashlyn Carter of AshlynWrites.
You don’t need many words to show credentials. Recipe app Yummly tops its About Us page with three numbers–the app’s ratings, number of recipes, and number of users. That’s all. Yummly displays the recognizable logos of a few media outlets, with short quotes from positive coverage. Those quotes are links to the coverage, so readers can jump straight to the original sources.
5. Get personal.
Show readers the people behind the product or service. Don’t rehash resumes. Let readers see how employees reflect the values you’re already outlining.
In just two first-person paragraphs, Bite founder Lindsay McCormick explains how her concern about “questionable ingredients” plus her desire to reduce plastic waste led her to create Bite. A photo shows her at her dining room table, stamping Bite’s slogan onto boxes. That image and her words make Bite all about hands-on values.
Harry’s writes about its founders as regular Joes who were “tired of overpaying” for razors, “asked around” and found many guys felt the same, and “decided to do something about it.” The message: We’re like you. We see the problem, we know you see it too, and we’ll help.
6. Give readers a call to action.
At the end of the About Us page, provide links so the reader can engage with your site immediately. For instance, links could send the user to start shopping, find out more, make contact, or see a list of your upcoming events, says web designer Wendy Litteral of Creation Depot.
The About Us page is “basically a sales funnel,” Litteral adds. “At the very end of it, you want them to do something.” Get the reader to make that next click, and the reader is closer to becoming your customer.