5 Tips To Make Your About Us Page Better
The About Us page of a website is often the most awkward page to write which is why we decided to provide these 5 tips to help make your About Us page better.
What is it that makes the About Us page so difficult? After all you are just talking about yourself, which most people have no problem doing, right? Still, for some reason the page often comes across as awkward and unruly which is a problem that needs to be fixed because the About Us page is one of the most frequented pages on any website.
By having a great About Us page, you are going to ensure that you are showcasing your brand in the best way possible!
Elevating your About Us Page
The focus here is to make the About Us page shine and showcase your brand:
- Tell your story – The first step in getting people to relate to your brand is to tell your story. You can even do this if your brand doesn’t have an interesting story. The key is to focus on the things that make you and your business human which is what fosters that connection. Make a point to showcase when the business started, connections it had or has in the local community and how you got to where you are today. Think about the great story of Apple starting in a garage. People will associate trust to your brand when they understand how you got to where you are especially if they can identify with the hard work it took. Now on a similar note, you don’t have to tell people everything and bore them to tears. Instead filter information to provide elements of human interest and important highlights but leave out the boring rigmarole.
- Talk about customers – Yes this us About Us but without customers is there an ‘US’? While it is good to toot your own horn and tell your story, it is also smart to include visitors and showcase their importance to you and your brand. There are various methods to do this such as adding a few lines at the beginning of the page that speak to the audience’s objectives and why they are here in the first place. By inserting this at the top you are showing them you see what their needs are. You can also insert facts and testimonials in the middle of the page showcasing awards, products sold, customers satisfied etc.
- Provide Contact Details – Always, always, always provide important contact information such as address, city, state, current phone number(s) and current email address(s). If you use Twitter, Skype or other methods of contact showcase those as well. People still have trust issues on the internet, and rightly so, and one of the quickest ways to alleviate that is to be completely forthcoming about your location and ways to contact you in case of a problem. You need to associate trust with your brand at all times.
- Use plain English – Or, for our international readers, plain <insert primary language here>. Acronyms, jargon, and slang have really started to take over, especially the younger generation, and while that type of familiarity might bond a small segment of visitors for most it is confusing. When I read a page I want to feel included, not excluded and if I don’t get what “BTdubs” or “#YKit” means I will feel excluded. Clever use of jargon and other terms is really only clever to the writer. Instead write in the conversational style simply because this is the friendliest manner to do so. Also, while we are at it, name the About Us page exactly that – skip things like “Becoming Us”, “Our Journey”, or “Getting Inside”. Focused is much better than vague or confusing because then that gets associated with your brand for some people.
- Be consistent – While we are offering tips up to change the About Us page, that page also still needs to reflect you and your company. Some people dive off the deep end in talking about themselves or providing crazy features. Ideally the About Us page should fit within the design of the whole site and match then tenor and tone of your brand. Being consistent provides more brand authority.
Like everything we endorse from creating websites to applications, we are also big believers in proper testing of the final product. Technically this is a sixth tip, but for us it goes without saying that you need to test every aspect and make changes when needed. Use analytics and test the performance constantly and then make small adjustments as needed to make sure your page is the best that it can be. Even if you are utilizing these 5 tips to make About Us about your brand, proper testing is a must to ensure that you resonate with your target audience.