The About Us page is one of those dusty corners of a corporate website that often gets overlooked. On a surprising number of major brand sites, you’ll find an About Us section that’s unimpressive, out-of-date or just plain non-existent.
But who cares, everyone already knows who they are so why bother – right?
What about medium-sized companies? They tend to focus on the bottom line, so their About Us page is often a list of services with no personality or branding.
Now, how about small businesses and start-ups? Here you’ll often come across the opposite problem. You’ll find an About Us page or site-wide content that tells you a lot about who they are – but very little about what they actually do!
Keep reading to find out why all these businesses need to care about their About Us.
Why your business should have an About Us page
An About Us page is much more than corporate branding fluff. It can make or break a sale.
Let’s imagine someone is in-market and looking for your product or service. They do a quick Google search and either click on your paid ad or on your organic listing. Either way, they end up on a landing page with your product or service offering.
Now let’s imagine that they actually like what they see. Maybe they’ll convert straight away…but more likely they’ll want to know more. They will wonder “Who is this company?” and “How can I trust them to deliver what they say they will?’
Their next step is often to look for your About Us page – if one exists. If not they’ll probably end up on your home page lost and confused. From here there’s a good chance that they’ll simply give up on your brand and purchase elsewhere – because it’s easier.
Let’s think about this. You managed to get a prospective new customer to actually click on your link. Then you managed to get them to like your product offering enough to want to know more. Now you’re losing them – what a waste!
While there are lots of good reasons to have an About Us page this is the most compelling.
How to create an About Us page
Ok, so now you’re convinced. You need an About Us page – but how exactly do you go about creating one?
#1 Figure out who you are 🙂
The first thing you need to do before creating or updating your About Us page is to figure out who you are! This may seem obvious, but it’s actually a surprisingly difficult task. To differentiate yourself from competitors and really connect with customers you need to get to the core of your company’s identity. Try creating a brand essence wheel.
You also need to do some research into your founding story. Go beyond the ‘what’ and find out ‘why’ your company was founded. Get inspiration from the world’s top brands.
Hubspot Academy has some great videos to help define your company’s mission.
#2 Find out what you say about yourself
The next step is to find out what your company currently says about itself online.
First, look for entire pages dedicated to talking about who you are, they might be called company or mission pages. Next, find other places where you’re presenting a corporate identity such as careers pages, press releases or corporate social responsibility sections. Don’t forget the Home page!
This content audit will save you a lot of future work and backtracking – so don’t skip it.
#3 Create a structure
Now that you know who you are and where you stand you can begin to create an outline of where you want to be. Create a map of the pages and content modules where you will present the About Us information on your site. It can be something as simple as:
If you have a user experience designer or information architect available get their help 🙂
#4 Create the content
If you’ve followed all the previous steps then creating the content for your About Us page, section, or modules should be straight-forward.
As with all content creation remember you’re not simply sharing information – you’re crafting a story. Like with all stories your About Us story should have characters, it should have a conflict and a resolution, and it should leave the reader feeling warm and fluffy 😉
The cynics might say that no one cares about me, all they care about is themselves and in a sense they’re right. That’s why your story needs to create an affinity with your audience. Let them see themselves in the characters, the solution to their problem in the resolution.
Here are some great examples of About Us pages to get you started from the content gurus at Hubspot. Remember your goal is to build trust and affinity with your audience.
Conclusion
An About Us page is not just a very important section of your site it’s also a great project!
Fixing this content will teach you an awful lot about your company and give you ideas for future content projects. For new hires or those in junior positions looking for recognition, because About Us content is often overlooked, it’s a great place to showcase your talents.