Kat Solukova June 16, 2020 Along with other essential components of your website, such as Contact Pages and FAQs, the “About Us” page is one of the vital things you’ll create for your site.
In a world where customers are keen to develop personal relationships with the brands that they buy from, an About Us page sets the stage for a powerful relationship. This all-important part of your website highlights your story or mission, giving your customers a chance to build an affinity with your brand.
Unfortunately, a lot of business leaders struggle to craft an effective “About Us” page, confusing it either with a contact sheet, or a place to quickly explain what they sell in one introductory paragraph.
Today, we’re going to introduce you to the elements you need to build an About Us page that delivers real results.
What is an “About Us” Page for?
To write a great About Us page, you need to know why you’re creating one.
Whether you call it your “Story” or “Mission” page, or you just use the title “The Team”, the About Us page is there to highlight the biggest and most attractive selling points of your brand or story.
You use this space to:
- Describe the cause your business serves
- Communicate the story behind your business
- Explain how your products or services are delivered
- Put a face to your company, with real human team members
- Persuade your customers that you’re worth their time.
Just as a Products page is there to tell your customers why they should buy your items, an About Us page explains why they should buy from you.
Here are the elements that your page will need.
1. A Story
Even if your brand doesn’t have an emotional underdog story to tell, you can still explain why you started your business, and where you came from. This is a chance to explain what makes your company different. For instance, the Lush.com brand uses it’s “Policies” page to explain it’s commitment to ethical buying and fighting animal testing:
It’s this kind of content that highlights your purpose, and why people should care about you. Don’t be afraid to explain where you came from, and what makes you different. Your customers want to see that there’s a whole set of human emotions behind your brand.
Also, remember you don’t have to tell your audience everything. Stick to the juicy parts of your story – the things that will make an emotional impact.
2. Social Proof
Any company can say it’s the best there’s ever been.
It takes something special for your customers to say that for you.
When you’re thinking of using a new product or trying a new service, you don’t base your decisions on what the brand says about itself. You turn to other customers and clients that have already connected with the business.
Take this into account when you’re creating your “About Us” page.
Focus on things like:
- Case studies: Links to success stories of previous customers can go down a treat. Or you can just use brief reviews and quotes from case studies on your About Us page.
- Reviews and star ratings: Star ratings are easy to add to an About Us page without taking up a lot of space. You can also add press mentions from other leading companies.
- Awards and recognition: If you won anything for your service, make sure that your customers can see that on your “About” page.
3. Photos of Your Team
One crucial thing to remember about your About Us page, is that it should always be visual. Your customers want to see that there are real human people behind your brand. Showing off high-quality photos of your team is a great way to do that.
Great images make you instantly more approachable and ensure that you look as professional as possible to potential clients. Think about the difference between a selfie that one of your team members took on their smartphone, and a professional image like the ones on the Endura Private Wealth website:
Remember to add some relevant information alongside the photos that you share. This will help to give more depth to the people in your team, so people can see that they’re real people.
Even if you only introduce your founders and the top people in your C-Suite, your About Us page can be an excellent way to demonstrate what kind of people make your business tick.
4. An Informative Video
It’s often difficult to find the right balance between providing too much information, and not enough on your About Us page. You want your customers to understand your company and what it stands for, but you don’t want to overwhelm them with your complete history.
If you find that, after adding some information to your About page, it’s starting to look too cluttered or comprehensive, then it might be worth replacing some text with a video. A video or gallery of photos can mix up the media on your page and capture more audience attention.
At the same time, with a video, you can cover more detail about your story and your business, without having to force customers through paragraphs of text. Jason Snaddon uses a fantastic informative video on his About Us page to really drive his message home:
Your video could even include an introduction to your flagship product or service too!
5. A CTA (Call to Action)
Once your customers are done reading your About page, you need to ensure that they know what to do next. That means including at least one CTA on your About page.
For some people, a single CTA saying something like “Request a Quote” will be enough. For others, it might be worth using multiple CTAs, like Brian Dean does on his About page here:
Do some A/B testing to figure out how many CTAs you should have, and where about you need to put them on your page. Remember, positioning is crucial to grabbing your audience’s attention at the right stage in their buying journey.
Additionally, using the right language that guides your customer to your product or service without being too pushy will protect your brand reputation.
6. Contact Details
Finally, you can include a separate contact Us page on your website, but many people will expect to see this information on your About page too. If you don’t want to include all of your information here, then you could consider adding a link to the “Contact Us” page as one of your CTAs.
Alternatively, add your number and a few social media buttons, then a link to a contact form where people can enter their details and request a quote for your services.
Whatever you do, make sure that your contact details are up-to-date and accurate across all platforms. This means regularly double-checking the information on your website, your Google My Business page, and more!
Tell Your Story The Right Way
When you’re first starting a new business, it can feel as though your About Us page isn’t that important. You’re new to the marketplace, so you don’t have much to say. However, finding a way to connect with your audience during this critical time is crucial.
As your business evolves, your story will become more impressive too, allowing you to add more detail to your message. Remember, pay attention to how customers respond to your page, and make changes as you grow.
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