Are you sure your “About us” page is good and interesting enough for customers? Experts remind that the “About us” page is the most visited of all website’s pages. Customers view it to make certain they can trust your company and find exactly what they are looking for on your website. Doesn’t it mean the “About us” page gives you yet another chance to interact with your customers, get to know them better, and offer them what you have to offer?
What can an “About us” page bring to your business? First, it will determine who you are and what you do, and then it will help you build your brand and improve customers’ trust. So better stop thinking that an “About us” page is not necessary and old-fashioned – it can definitely help grow your business.
How can you make the most of your “About us” page? This article will guide you through the dos and don’ts of the topic.
Keep it clear
Give your “About us” page a simple and clear name. Do not make your customers guess what this page is supposed to be about. That will just push them away.
Make it easy for users to find. Try to place links to your “About us” page on multiple locations, lead your users to what you want to show.
Start with a hook
Do not start your “About us” page with an ordinary and boring story of when it all began. Forget these types of sentences: ‘our company came to the market in…’, ‘it all started when…’, ‘we have been around since…’. These will just bore away your customers.
Instead, try to grab user attention by bright and colorful starters:
- Begin with a question that can make your user stop and think. If this happens, trust that the visitor will read the content through.
- Shock, surprise, interest the audience. This can be done with facts, provocative comparisons, and unusual analogy.
- Tell an anecdote, a joke, play with words. This is a great way to interest the audience.
Humanize
“About us” page should also be just a bit personal. Note that it does not mean you should go around and talk about your life worries and thoughts. But what does it mean?
You can humanize your “About us” page by adding some social links, this will immediately provide high interaction level and bring customers closer to you.
Try to include your names, post pictures of your stuff. You don’t have to include photos of all of your employees, but take pains to present your head department. This step can make you more real to customers, show them that you are not some soulless chatbot.
This is the right place to tell ‘your story’, but remember to be brief and informative.
Client above all
If you think that “About us” page is cut out for you just to show off, you are terribly wrong. How come?
Companies that fill their “About us” pages with stories of success, dwelling on what a big deal they are, often fail to realize how little newcomers care for that dynamic professional team, especially at their first visit to the site. Customers are much more interested in their own business benefits and objectives.
Remember to make your “About us” page talk not only about your company. The visitor needs to find here information concerning their interests and needs. They want to find out how you are going to solve their problems and whether you are capable of doing so. In fact, what you create may well be named “About You” – that is your favorite, desired, loyal, generous, thrifty customers. Your “About us” page is not a monologue. This is your dialogue with potential consumers, having as hectic a lifestyle as yourself. So try to include ‘just enough’ useful information and avoid the overload.
Powerful quotes
Who can convince your customers that you are trustworthy is most definitely your customers. You’d think it makes no sense, but you’re wrong here. Testimonials are the best reassurance.
When people are looking for pretty much anything to invest money in, whether it is cloth or real estate, the first thing what they do is go through advice and recommendations from the same customers. Because it is the easiest way to find the truth about product quality.
If it’s possible, try to feature your testimonial by their full name, add some relevant details. A photo is always welcome in this case. This builds trust.
Use powerful quotes on your “About us” page to help your business.
Rich media content
If you want customers to stay on your site longer, you need to provide them with rich media content. This doesn’t mean too much text content, though, which is boring and plain. You need to bring some diversity. That will not only attract user attention but also keep them interested long enough to go through your content. Use pictures, videos, infographics etc. Despite all the rich content, take care of UX, make sure your page remains as lightweight as possible.
Strong facts
Companies like to tell customers that their business inspires them. They explain that their service is the best of its kind. But such phrases only make potential customers think, “Yeah, I’ve heard that a thousand times.”
These words are just deceptions, beyond which there are no specifics. They do not look trustworthy. Instead of praising your company with colorful, but stereotyped epithets, give people facts. Be more specific and people will believe in you.
Calls to action
Have you already heard about calls to action? About the magic button “Buy” or other? But have you ever thought of placing it on the “About us” page?
Do not make a mistake of ignoring calls to action. The visitors to your site proved so interested they even clicked on the “About us” section. You inspired them with your story. So, what’s next? Choose an action that best suits your condition. For example:
- Suggest signing up for a newsletter.
- Show what you have already done.
- Motivate to call or write.
- Introduce yourself with your reports or studies.
When visitors come to a page with information about your company, they are ready for the first date. Do not leave them to think about what they want: without your appeal, they may just leave the site. Instead, smile and do your best to convert them to happy customers.
Meaningful mission statement
What some IT sites display as a company’s mission is no more than shiny nonsense. It sounds like this: ‘Our goal is to provide customers with quality IT services and an ideal service.’ Do you really want to hire this company?
Mission statements are often filled with superfluous words, for which the meaning is completely lost. Instead, you can try to make your goal more understandable. Why do customers need your product? What benefit does it bring to people? What motivates you?
Brevity rules
When we create text for the main page, we polish it until its message becomes completely obvious. We ruthlessly cut off all unnecessary words so that new visitors can immediately understand what we are doing. But what about the “About us” page? Companies indulge in the neverending word flow that shows every tiny detail of their business. They do not leave out a single date of their history, nor a single paragraph of their executive summary. Does this really count? An incredible number of “About us” pages look too long and cause only a yawn. Do you really think someone will read them?
Extract only the most relevant facts from your company’s history. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes: what would reassure him that your company is trustworthy? Write a test text, and then reduce its volume at least twice. To sound interesting, throw all the boring paragraphs out of the text. Stop pushing away your readers. Include brief descriptions of these components:
- Explain who you are, be quick and informative.
- Contact information. Even if you also have a ‘contact us’ page you should arrange an easy access to it. Do not forget to update this information, there is nothing worse than a dead telephone number.
- Update forms. Include forms for users to sign up and get updates.
- Other content links. Place links to your interesting articles for users to read.
Tell your story
Storytelling should be quick, interesting, engaging, relative and human. There is no need to tell customers everything. Stay focused on the main events and components. Filter information, try to include the necessary components of human interest, but also keep telling your own story.
Make sure your story stands out. Do not use clichés and basic templates. Spend more time to figure out your own story originality and it will become your advantage.
Text formatting
A great wall of text scares your customers away. Here are some simple tips to improve text formatting:
- Break the page up into different sections.
- Highlight interesting or relevant information.
- Use headers. They help a lot with keeping customer’s attention. Users instantly see what they need.
- Use lists, do not just write your qualities and services in one row. Separate them from each other.
- Use different design elements like contrast, movement, grid, framing, symmetry, typography and composition.
Experts’ thoughts
Provide users with information confirmed by experts. Their opinions add a great deal of trust to your business. Do not write long passages, just include them in the main text as a quote and reference. Statistics show that products with experts’ reviews drive higher conversion rates than those that do not.
Finish with a powerful closer
Sum up your “About us” page content with some kind of a twist. Here you can place your company’s social media information, links to other articles and direct links to buy/order your product/service. To write a killer closing line use these simple rules:
- Focus on the most important element in the article.
- Make it uplifting and hopeful.
- Leave some space for readers imagination.
- Choose your words wisely.
- Ask a rhetorical question.
- Make it personal, after all it is your company.
Analyze
There is no definite formula how to write an awesome “About us” page. It is a completely new level of science. Write, try – after all, no one forbids you to change it.
Take time to analyze your metrics. Remember to look into your competition’s data because you can learn from their mistakes and ‘steal’ their winning practices. Adopt a ‘build-measure-learn’ cycle and adapt your page with the help of this knowledge, it will help you improve your “About us” page.
Ask opinions
Feedback is very important. After all, you do not write the “About us” page for yourself, but for others. You are going to need help from employees, friend and clients. A variety of opinions can give your own ideas a new perspective.
Conclusion
All in all, precision, integrity, and respect to your audience are all-time values that will bring you new customers and their trust. If you think creating an “About us” page is a no-brainer, you must be an expert brimming with ideas of how to communicate your strengths and value in a unique and compelling way.
What do you do to make your “About us” page stand out? Don’t hesitate to share.