What is one of the first pieces of content you look at when you come across a company for the first time? If you are like most people it will be the About Us page.
When your About Us page is written well there is a great potential for it to become a conversion machine. The importance of this content and first impression is largely why many brands struggle with constructing the perfect page. There is a lot of pressure to nail it.
In this post we will cover
- What an About Us page is
- How to write an About Us page and what you should include
- What to avoid when creating your About Us page
- Some great examples of About Us pages
What is an About Us page?
The purpose of an About Us page is to give your consumers an accurate insight into your brand and the team behind it all. This can include things like
- How the brand came to be
- What makes you unique
- Why your customers come to you over competitors
- What your brand’s core values and beliefs are
Your About Us page tells the deeper story of your brand. People like to do business with people and brands they like. So use this page to further build rapport and trust.
How to write an About Us page
This page should be a combination of autobiographical, educational, human and relatable to bring something personal to your customers. You want to set yourself
1. Use the right tone for your brand
Consider your audience here. Who is going to be reading this content? What do they want to hear in terms of tone?
Even if you have a corporate brand it is important to find the best balance of tone. You don’t have to be bland just because you are corporate. Find that sweet spot that takes a dry topic into an engaging piece of copy!
Tone can make all the difference when it comes to resonating with your audience
2. Build trust
The people visiting this page are generally prospective customers. So, you want to maximise your chances of turning browsers into buyers.
Information to cover can include the following points;
- How your brand was created – share your journey
- What size is your company? Is it a large public company or a privately owned family business?
- How long have you been trading? Are there any special milestones you can share?
- What awards and accolades can you share to build trust?
- Who heads the brand?
- What makes your brand unique and why should a consumer buy from you instead of your competitors?
- Where are you based?
- What are your core values?
Take this opportunity to tactfully sing your company’s praises. Build trust and rapport without being too boastful or long winded.
When listing out the benefits of your products or services try to use facts and not hype. For example if you have a product that increases efficiency and productivity by 30% typically, then you should say that and use the data instead of simply stating that your product helps increase productivity.
Tell people the problem you solve and why your product is the right solution.
3. Outline your company values and include your “why”
It’s common for brands to showcase their unique value propositions but they don’t always talk about the why. This is another way to build trust and have readers understand your brand more.
If for example you only make products with locally sourced materials, then explain why that is important to your brand.
4. Incorporate a clear call to action (CTA)
CTA’s can often be overlooked on About Us pages, but this is a huge mistake. Again, we are crafting content that builds trust and rapport for the purpose of pushing the reader further down your sales funnel. So a clear call to action gets people to take that next step.
Depending on your offering that could be a link back to your shop section, a contact form or a newsletter sign up. At the end of your About Us page, the reader is actively engaged with your brand so use this opportunity to your advantage.
5. Leverage social proof and testimonials
What better way to build trust than to showcase your customer feedback?!
What to avoid in your About Us page
1. Outdated information
Keep your page updated periodically. If fresh and engaging content can build trust with your ideal audience, then what do you think stale, old content will do? Of course, it will have the opposite effect. You don’t need to do this every month, once every 6 months would be sufficient. Just see where you can make positive adjustments and maybe test new elements such as video or different CTAs.
2. The hard sales pitch
While your About Us page can and should generate sales, as we have outlined the way to do this is through trust and rapport building. Though the reader may be interested in your products or services at this stage they are just learning more about you. So don’t put them off with over the top sales techniques.
3. Imbalance between text and visuals
Like with most things in life, balance is key. Don’t just go heavy on the text! It can be overwhelming to the reader and don’t forget that the human brain can process visual content 60,000 times faster than text, use this to your advantage. Having said that, just using visuals is not ideal either. Consider using easy to read paragraphs and formatting options. This is especially helpful to users on mobile devices.
4. No contact information
You should always include a way for users to further connect with you on your About Us page. This includes linking to your social media handles, contact forms, emails for customer support and the like depending on your particular brand.
Examples of great About Us Pages
The content on this page is perfectly crafted to truly speak to their target audience. Including history about the brand and founding partners is a great touch.
Sleek and oozing luxury, this page appeals to the target consumer well. A key point is where they outline the sustainability of buying consignment goods! An important point to a segment of their target audience.
This product helps teams stay organised and collaborate both internally and with clients. As a platform that can be adapted to your needs as your business grows it is important to showcase the diversity of the product and the brands using the platform.
Keeping in line with the brand image this About Us page showcases highly styled imagery and the history of the brand. By showcasing the rich history of the brand they highlight important factors to their target consumer.
Adidas does a great job of appealing to both shareholders and customers. This balance is difficult to achieve but key when you have really diverse target audiences for a page.
