About Us Page: Where you tell your story

Talking about yourself can sometimes be the trickiest task. While your work speaks volumes about you, it's important to set the ball rolling with a well-done About Us section to drive your story the way you want. Importantly, this is also where you tell the visitor how they fit into your story.

The About Us page is the second-most-visited page on a website, right behind the Homepage. While this is an opportunity to convince users to buy from you or fulfill whatever goal that you are trying to achieve, it shouldn't just end there. Yes, it can be about your history and your story, but your story should interest them and compel them to be associated with you in some way.

What to include on your About Us page

It's important to tell your story crisply and effectively. Good storytelling helps you keep visitors on your site, but you need to be fast—after all, patience is short online. It's important to create a good first impression.

Write brief summaries emphasizing a few impressive facts. Even if visitors skim the top sections in your About Us, getting a coherent story will help keep them on your site. This is also where you build trust with the visitor by keeping your content authentic and transparent.

Your About Us page need not follow the traditional format of an introduction followed by the below, segregated elements, but your identity needs to emerge by the end of it. It should cover the following:

• Who are you? Give a brief about your business. It helps if you can showcase the team behind this work. A face always makes it personal.

• What is this all about? State the work you're doing and what makes you special.

• Why do you want to do this? You could be doing anything else, but you chose this. Clearly, what brought you here makes for an interesting story. Your vision and mission can be a part of this.

• When did you get in to this? If you are a new player, you can align yourself with fresh ideas and be the provider of a new solution. If you are a veteran, you can showcase your long-standing expertise and your journey.

• How do you plan to do this? Explain your business model in a way that the target audience gets it completely.

You can't tell everything about your business in just one page, but it should definitely give the visitor a bird's-eye view about your business and what you stand for. It should speak directly to your target audience.

Who is your target audience?

People often assume there is just one category to target with their business. But depending on the size of your organization and the business solutions that you provide, your target audience for your About Us page can be as varied as below:

• People who want to evaluate potential vendors and are looking for business collaborations  

• Customers or buyers who need answers about your company, products, or services

• People who've developed an interest in new topics seeking information from subject matter experts

• Press, analysts, and influencers who need information about your products or services

• Job seekers who want to learn about your organization before applying

Things that positively affect your About Us page

A well-made About Us page not only provides information about your business—it also helps people emotionally invest in you. Here are some elements to make it better.

Use of photographs — It's important to have aesthetically pleasing photographs, but remember to keep it real, especially when it comes to your products and people. This makes you authentic.

Connect with real people — If you're a small business, it helps to have a real person to connect with in the contact details. You can do this by sharing real social media profiles and access to community pages.

Milestones — Press mentions, awards, statistics, and other wins are common examples of milestones that can be used to highlight your success.

Dream Team — A face helps in connecting with others, and having images of yourself or your team members will help humanize your brand.

Coming across as real and genuine makes a world of difference while telling your story to a first-time visitor. Now that we know how important the About Us page is, we can find interesting storytelling techniques to make the most of it. We will discuss them in our forthcoming blogs.
 

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