Your About page may not seem like a top priority to you, but it should be. Your landing page is important, sure. Your product and service listings? Also a big deal. But if you’re not optimizing your About page, you’re missing out on an opportunity to enhance your online presence, attract more followers and earn you more sales—if you incorporate all the right elements. Here are 5 things every great About page needs:
1. Compelling content
Yes, you know the About us page is where you tell your audience about your business, but how you tell your story is key. A cold, corporate overview is boring; your audience will bounce by the second sentence. Your company is a big deal to you. You need to infuse that enthusiasm into your content. Show passion and personality, yet maintain your company’s style and voice. Hire a copywriter to make the content smooth and professional, but remember, tell a personal story and do it with passion.
2. Value
An About us page isn’t just there to fill your audience in on your back story, it also provides a great opportunity to explain your vision, your function, and most importantly, your value. What do you do? How do you do it? And why is that important to your visitors? Tell your audience who you are, what you provide, and why they need to take action now.
3. Visual elements that connect
A slightly out-of-focus thumbnail of your corporate headquarters won’t engage your audience. Posting photos of your enthusiastic company employees, on the other hand, establishes a personal connection with your visitors. Also, incorporate unique design elements from other pages on your site. These elements qualify you. If your audience likes what they see, they’ll explore your site further and take action.
4. Call to action
Chances are, you’ve incorporated a call to action on every page of your website—except your About us page. Now that you’ve connected with your audience and passionately detailed your company’s function and value, it’s time to capitalize on a perfect opportunity to add a subtle call to action.
5. Focus and direction
An About page, like all pages on your website, must be carefully planned and executed. If not, you not only risk losing your visitors’ interest, you may be jeopardizing brand loyalty and future sales. Consider all the necessary elements for a great About page, determine the best way to incorporate them all and then publish professional-level content that tells your story, shows your value and forges a strong connection with your audience.
Don’t settle for a mediocre About page. Your company needs a great one. Incorporate these five simple elements and find out what a well-optimized About page can do for your business.
Good article. I read a similar one about footers basically suggesting to put more thought into them and not to take them for granted. It’s the same with About pages, we can easily get complacent with this type of page (I think Contact page as well). Always good to read this kind of thing to make us stop and think – thanks!
Evergreen content also be great. Timeless content which is will be relevant for a long time.
I personally love when there are employee profiles on a company’s About Us page. It allows me to connect on a deeper level, and I also think it show that the company values their employees enough to provide them with some web air time. It’s a nice gesture that goes a long way in my book.
Cassandra
Isadora Design – Handcrafted Web Design Company
Refreshing read. I agree that the about us page is all to often an afterthought. Even worse, it commonly seems to be a designated area of the founder/co-founders to shamelessly stroke their egos and spend so much time speaking about how great they are and why, instead of the individual contributors that make the organization successful. I love when I run across a site that shows many of the players and not just the coaches. Creates a personal connection to those that will be fulfilling the needs of their prospects, turned clients.
Something I’ve definitely not been practicing is placing an subtle, yet effective, CTA on the about page…good thought since any “dead-end” page is a wasted page.