As an SEO agency, our main priority is not on optimising the About Us page.
Maybe it should be.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started in early 2020, there has been a huge shift in the way people interact with businesses online.
For a start, lots more people are shopping for products and services online. According to a report by Digital Commerce 360, they estimate that the pandemic contributed an extra $218.53 billion to e-commerce’s bottom line in the US over the past two years.
In 2020, the coronavirus added $102.08 billion in U.S. eCommerce, and it added $116.45 billion in 2021, according to Digital Commerce 360 estimates.
Not only are more people shopping online, but they are also spending more time researching online. According to the Salesforce annual report, State of the Connected Customer, 86% of people included in the study said the societal role of companies is changing since the pandemic, and 62% have stopped buying from companies whose values do not align with their own.
That’s right. What you say about your business and how it aligns with your customers just became really important.
Time to refresh that About Us page.
From an SEO perspective, the About Us page is never going to be a massive driver of traffic so when you are looking at the analytics and reviewing the performance of the page, be sure to look beyond landing page metrics.
The About Us page is one that people click to after landing on your site. They might like the look of your products or services, but they also might not know a lot about you, your business and your values and the place they go to find out more is the About Us page.
If yours is an afterthought or worse still, you don’t even have one, it’s time to change that.
How to write a good About Us page
One of the key mistakes many businesses make when they write their About Us page is forgetting who they are writing it for.
Whilst that might sound like a silly mistake to make, it’s amazing how often an About Us page reads like a diatribe of how good a business is, what are their accolades, how they were formed etc.
This is indeed “About Us” information, but in the majority of cases, it’s not something your customer cares about.
What they really care about is what you can do for them. How do your award-winning products or services meet their needs? How does your history and the reason you formed as a business impact on your customer and influence why they might want to purchase from you?
It’s important to write your About Us page by keeping your audience front and centre. This is not for your staff or for the shareholders. It’s for the people who are going to place their trust in your business and commit to a purchase, sometimes, without being able to speak to someone in the business or interact with you directly.
Your About Us page is that after dinner conversation when someone asks who you work for and you’re proud to tell them, along with all the reasons you’re proud to work for them.
So, how do you write a good About Us page?
Dos and Don’ts for your About Us page
The goal of your About Us page is not to list all your accolades, or even to tell people the selling points about your business.
It’s about telling a story that will resonate with your audience and showcase that your goals are aligned with theirs.
It should be engaging, insightful, and most of all, it should be personal. However your business was formed, whether you’re a small, local bakery or a multi-national eCommerce retailer, there will always be a personal story behind the business and it’s important to tell that story and let people know why they can trust you.
Here are some of the dos and don’ts for your About Us page:
1. Understand your audience
We’ve already touched upon this, however, it is important to know exactly who it is that you are writing your About Us page for.
This is the only way you can write an About Us page that truly meets the needs of your audiences, addresses their potential pain points, and discovers what their goals are.
The easiest way to carry out audience research is to conduct primary research. Add an exit-intent form to your website and try and capture some of the key questions you want to answer on your About Us page including:
- What is your audience hoping to find on your site?
- What problems do they hope to solve with your product/service?
- What solutions have they already tried?
- What are they looking for in a solution like yours?
- What is their number one goal?
Discovering the answers to these questions will help you to tailor your About Us page content to answer these questions, aligning your customers’ goals with your own.
2. Keep it short and sweet
Your About Us page should be there as a supporting page. It is not there to do everything.
It is not there to tell people about the features of your products and services. Your product and services pages are for that.
It is not there to tell them about your long history and backstory. The truth is, most people don’t care.
Instead, your About Us page is there to tell people about the results your brand generates, your company values, how you work with clients, etc This is the stuff they really care about.
Be ruthless with your editing and only include the information on the page that is going to add value to your customers and prospective customers.
3. Focus on the benefits, not the features
Even when you talk about the results your brand generates or your values, it’s important to keep the focus on how these benefit the customer, not just what they mean to you as a business.
A simple way to frame this is to think about “you” instead of “we”.
Don’t spend your whole time talking about “We do this” or “We did that”. Instead, change the rhetoric and make it about the customer.
The easiest way to do that is to think about your About Us page as an after dinner conversation (yep, that again!). You wouldn’t spend your whole time preaching at someone about how good you are. Instead, you would want to turn that around and tell them how your product or service would make their life so much easier.
Instead of this – We are a leading SEO agency in New Zealand helping businesses to drive more organic traffic.
Try this instead – Want to drive more traffic for your business? Our team of SEO experts can help you to drive more traffic and sell more online.
You can see how we have flipped it around and despite both sentences saying the same thing, one is customer focussed and the other is business focussed. The use of “your” and “you” helps to keep the customer front and centre, focussing on benefits, not features.
4. Share your company values
The culture within your company is invaluable to any organisation’s success. Internally, it is about the way you treat your staff, but externally, it’s about how you serve your customers.
Customers are becoming more tune in to how brands show their commitment to ethical practices and it is becoming an important consideration as part of the buyer decision-making process. Diversity, inclusion, and your commitment to equal opportunities is something you should be telling more people about.
Your About Us page should cover what your company represents, what it believes, how it serves its customers and more.
An About Us page is a great place to include your:
- Company mission statement
- Diversity and inclusion statement
- Customer support policy
- Sustainability statement
- Partnering organisations
- Volunteer experience
Customers want to see what your brand stands for and how it’s working to make the world a better place.
Your About Us page is the best place to tell people about these things in one place. Don’t make them hunt around your website for individual pages that cover each of these areas. Most customers want a snapshot – a little taste of what they can expect from your business and what your business stands for and your About Us page is a great place to pull all of this together.
Conclusion
Your About Us page is becoming an important part of the path to conversion for customers. As customers become more informed, they are taking their time to find out more about the businesses they are buying from online and your About Us page is becoming an essential cog in the wheel.
Spend the time to identify your audience – who are they and what are they looking for – and then tailor the content on your About Us page to align with their own goals and needs.
Keep it short and keep it focussed on them, not you.
Finally, make sure you share your company values with your audience and if you don’t have these documented, take the time to do that as well. It’s a great way to show your customers that you align with them and allows you to bring focus across every aspect of your business.