7 Tips for Creating the Best ‘About Us’ Content
Entrepreneurs who are successful at fundraising understand one overarching principle: Investors put their money in people, not in business plans.
At the end of the day, the top venture capitalists invest in the people they believe in. Folks with fantastic ideas and business plans can walk through the door, but if the investors don’t believe in the individuals behind those plans, they don’t invest.
This same general principle carries over into virtually every aspect of business: We do business with people, not with companies. Let me offer some hard evidence to back this up: About Us pages are, on average, the second most-visited web pages on a website.
And sadly, About Us content is often little more than an afterthought when most small businesses design, write and launch their websites. I challenge you to take a quick tour of some small business About Us website pages and rate them. As you do this, I believe you’ll develop a sensitive scanner that will be able to quickly spot the best About Us pages and find the faults of the ones that don’t measure up.
But let me give you a jumpstart and briefly outline seven attributes that work together to form the foundation of fantastic About Us content.
Engaging. The first thing you always need to do is grab visitors’ attention. Pull them into your world. Something like, “Tom Smith and Mary Jones formed Miller Pest Control in 2007…” doesn’t cut it. If you’re going to write about yourself, make it concise and interesting.
Further, the best About Us pages are also well designed. I don’t know how many I’ve seen that are two bland columns or a staid checkerboard of head shots. Give your About Us page more thought than that.
Personality. By now you should be convinced that your company culture is extremely important. The personality, or “look and feel” of your company is part of that culture and this should be reflected in your small business About Us page.
A small business that rents inflatable jump houses for private parties wouldn’t want to express the same kind of personality as a locally owned funeral parlor on its About Us page. But if the jump house business owner doesn’t’ put effort into creating his About Us page, that’s just how it could end up sounding.
Distinctive. What makes your small business different? The central reason you decided you could be a success in your small business is probably the same reason people should decide to choose you over your competitors.
Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” What makes your road less traveled by?
If you can communicate that to your prospects, it will make all the difference!
Pictures. Excellent visuals can help give you the best About Us page in your business sector. They need to be appropriate and in harmony with the rest of the page and your website. If you believe that photos of your key team members will serve you best, get great photos taken; don’t settle for a mish-mash of photos people volunteer.
Photos of your facilities and employees being productive are also great. Be creative, but also be sensitive to the nature of your business and your company culture. If you’re a law office that exclusively handles divorce cases, pictures of your wild company holiday party wouldn’t be good.
Story. There are two points I want to make about “story.” The first is simply that your small business About Us page should succinctly tell your story. The second is that you should use storytelling in your narrative.
People today are most easily persuaded through the use of storytelling. If you have an interesting story that relates to the founding of your business or perhaps landing your first customer, tell it! This communication technique, by the way, will help you engage people and relate your personality.
Authority. Although you may not need to invest a lot of space on your About Us page for this, it’s still important to make a case for your authority. How did you come by your expert status? Why should people trust you or your products?
Informative. When you put all of this together, it should add up to all the critical information – intellectual, cognitive and emotional – that prospects need to push them to the next step of buying your product or engaging your services.
Take a few minutes and try to discover some of the best About Us pages on the Internet that relate to your business activities. With that done, then spend a little time rating your own…if you have one. Finally, invest whatever it takes in your time to make your About Us page truly shine.