What Makes a Great About Page?

Apart from the Home page, which do you think is the most visited page on your website?

Don’t know? Here’s a hint: It’s also the page that most businesses make the biggest mistakes on.

Still not sure?

The answer: It’s your About page. And mistake # 1 most businesses make is assuming their about page is about them.

Newsflash! It’s not all about you! Well, that isn’t that much of a newsflash, is it?

If you’ve read Firepole for any length of time, you already know that your marketing messages are more about your customers than you.

However most business owners start writing an About page and immediately go into storytelling mode about their life to date?

It’s time to make that wrong, right, among others.

Today we’ll talk about the most common mistakes made on About pages and how to fix them as well as exactly what your About page needs to say in order to optimize it for your business goals.

Most Common Mistakes and Action Points to Fix Them

As I already mentioned, the first one is talking about themselves instead of their customer. Let me say again:

[tweet_box design=”default”]Mistake # 1 most businesses make is assuming their About page is about them.[/tweet_box]

Action point #1

Review the statements about you currently on your About page. Rewrite them so they focus on your customer instead.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Mistake #2: Not explaining the purpose of the business on your About page.[/tweet_box]

Yes, your audience wants to get to know you but your visitors? They want to know how your business will help solve the problem they’re having.

Notice the subtle difference there?

Your audience = people who already know you because they’ve heard from you before (on email, on social media sites, etc.).

But visitors? Your visitors are those that have stumbled onto your site and have visited your About page for more information. These people will eventually become your audience, if you convince them first.

Action point #2

Read your About page and notice all the statements that start with I or We. Rewrite these so the focus is on your visitors and what’s in it for them.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Mistake #3: Making your About page long-winded and difficult to read.[/tweet_box]

Most visitors take 4 seconds to decide if your website is worth reading. If your About page has blocks of paragraphs that read more like a novel than a website, you’ll lose them instantly no matter how interesting the content.

Action point #3

Review your About page and break it up by using bullet points, subheads, and shorter sentences.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Mistake #4: Not having a Call to Action (CTA) for your About page.[/tweet_box]

I see this a lot on About pages. Yes, the page needs to inform the visitor about your business and its benefits, but without giving them an idea of what to do next? You’re encouraging them to click aimlessly around your site.

Action point #4

What do you want a visitor to do once they’ve read your About page? Sign-up to your email list? Get in touch to hire you? Connect on social media? Direct them to this by adding a link to whatever action you want them to take.

[tweet_box design=”default”]Mistake #5: The fifth and final element isn’t a mistake per se but a missed opportunity.[/tweet_box]

About pages are the perfect opportunity to use images or video to give your brand more personality. People connect with people, so use videos and images to introduce yourself.

Action point #5

On your About page, reread the section that talks about you. Consider how this could be brought to life through images, videos, or other media.

Questions the About Page Must Answer

Now that we’ve covered what your page shouldn’t be doing, let’s look at what it needs to do.

Every visitor to your site will have specific questions they want your site to answer. The perfect opportunity to answer these questions is on your About page.

The key to ensuring these questions are answered is to structure the page in a specific order.

Here’s my recommendation on which questions to answer and in what order:

#1 What’s this website about?

This is the section that outlines at the business does. For example:

Content marketing for small businesses. The section doesn’t have to be very lengthy – just using enough words concisely to describe what you do.

#2 What’s the benefit for me to be here?

Any visitor to your site will stay on your site if your content addresses what’s in it for them to be reading. So let them know they’re in the right place.

Following the example of the content marketing business above, this section would say:

You’re in the right place if: You keep telling yourself you should write content for your website, but never get round to actually doing it.

You’re in the right place if: You know the value content brings to your business but just don’t have the time to write it.

You’re in the right place if: You’d rather serve your clients than spend time writing blog posts.

#3 Who are you?

This is when you can start giving details about yourself. Because you’re keeping your audience in mind, remember to give an example of a result your clients have achieved after working with you.

I’ve helped X number of businesses increase their reach by X amount.

Company X’s subscriber list grew by the thousands after implementing our content marketing plan.

#4 Why should I trust you?

This is when your experience, qualifications and skills become important. Shout about them!

How many clients have you worked with?

Do you have a book published (being a published author increases credibility).

What results have your clients achieved?

The more examples you can give of why you’re trustworthy, the more likely the audience is to want to work with you.

#5 What should I do now?

This is the Call to Action on the page. Give the audience one action to take. Do you want them to sign up to receive updates from you, start working with you, or something else?

Make the CTA clear to the audience by telling them to:

Add their email address.

Click here to work with you.

Adding a link to another page you want to direct them to.

Examples of Great About Pages and Why They Work

Below are some examples of effective About pages and what key lessons each teaches us:

Here’s how the About page of RebootAuthentic.com opens:

Notice how the page opens with About Reboot Authentic, and not about the business owner, Gary Korisko. To give the audience a human being to connect with, he adds his name. But details about him personally are on a totally different page.

He then uses the questions the visitors are asking as sub-heads, such as What’s All This Reboot Authentic Stuff About Anyway?

It’s a clever move – making it obvious that the questions the visitors have are being answered throughout the page.

Now let’s see how the page closes:

It’s clear Gary wants you to sign up for updates from him, and nothing else. This CTA’s clear and to the point.

Now let’s take a look at how Unbounce.com opens their About page:

Their statements are very simple and talk about exactly what they do for their visitors. Talking about a vision and mission also gives you the idea that they’re a large company.

And as a large company, they’ve added personality to their About page by introducing their team:

Here you see images of their team which comforts the visitor knowing that there are real people behind the business. A few videos here would also work well.

And finally, here’s a 3rd example of an About page done well from InternetBusinessMastery:

This opener talks about the community they’ve created and what they’ve achieved. It gives the visitor something to aspire to and tells them they are in the right place.

Their About page also closes with a very specific action:

You can see that they want to give you immediate benefits before you leave the page, and direct your vision towards that.

The About page on your website is often ignored for conversions as most people assume it’s there for information purposes only. This article has shown you how you can take advantage of this prime piece of website real estate to encourage your audience to connect with you and engage in your business.

Over to you: Having seen the theory and some examples, what one thing will you change on your About page?