About Us pages are important, as they are the link between the consumer and the business. Your products may be what you are trying to sell, but until you sell yourselves many customers will be wary of handing over their cash. The trouble is, so many of this about sections are boring or pretentious or over written or under written, or don’t tell the consumer anything convincing or enlightening. Instead they read like an obligation. As though the website template came with a preinstalled About Us page and someone had to put something there. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. Writing an About Us page that is engaging, interesting and convincing is simpler than you think.
1. Write about the audience
Your opening sentence should present the challenge that your audience faces and the ideal resolution. It might be the “difficulty in finding an SEO company that has the creative skills to write engaging content that has effective SEO attributes”, which you immediately solve by positioning your company as “experts in providing a creative solution that will enchant both the reader and the robot, resulting in exceptional conversion and page one results.”
2. Testimonials matter
People often don’t like talking about themselves, so let your happy customers do it instead. Include customer photos and real names, and anything you think will help add credibility to the quotations. This is also the ideal spot to add any awards your business or employees have won.
3. Go visual
An About Us page doesn’t have to simply be a couple of paragraphs of text you assume no one will read. Include images of you and your team at work, a video, infographics, and just about anything that will capture the imagination of the visitor and give them a glimpse of your company’s personality.
4. Speak plainly
You are attempting to connect with your audience, not wow them with your knowledge of jargon. Business-speak, talk of “leveraging results” and mystifying acronyms may seem impressive, but it’s the surest way to send the reader away. Instead use straightforward conversational English. Be precise about what you do without dressing it up too much. If you sell men’s shoes online, say that. Being a “purveyor of quality men’s footwear” might sound more impressive, but it doesn’t have any emotional weight behind it. However, saying that you “sell well-made, honest shoes to men who need footwear they can rely on” may sound less fancy, but it speaks to a certain person and presents the brand as genuine.
5. Make sure it is about your company
Tone is a vital component of any piece of writing and your About Us must fit with the products you sell and how your company relates to people in other mediums. Aim to match your writing style to your other advertising. Your About Us page is unlikely to be the first contact they have had with your business, so ensure it doesn’t seem like a different business altogether. If you have a downplayed, blokey tone in your tweets and Facebook page, then maintain this. Confusion is the biggest killer of conversion and a customer that thinks they have arrived at the wrong site won’t buy from you.
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