The page people check before they call you
Your about page is usually the second most visited page on the site. It is also usually three paragraphs of warm generic sentences that could describe any business in the country.
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Short answer
An about page tells a visitor who runs the business, what it has actually done, and why it can be believed. Specific facts persuade: how long, how many, which credentials, which area. Generic statements about passion and quality persuade nobody and appear on every competitor's site.
Why the page matters
Somebody about to let you into their home, or hand you money, wants to know who you are. That check happens on this page.
It is consistently among the most visited pages on small business sites, and consistently the least considered.
It also carries most of the trust signals a search quality framework describes, which makes it useful in two directions at once.
And it is one of the few pages where a competitor genuinely cannot copy you, because the facts on it are yours.
It is consistently among the most visited pages on small business sites, and consistently the least considered.
Watch where people go on a small business site and the pattern is consistent: the service page, then the about page, then the phone number. It sits directly on the path to an enquiry.
What belongs on it
Who runs the business, by name. How long it has operated. Where it operates. What it actually does, in the customer's words rather than the trade's.
Credentials, licences and memberships, current and accurate. A photograph of real people rather than a stock image of a team that does not exist.
Something specific about how you work that a competitor could not copy without lying.
What to cut
Passion. Commitment to quality. Customer focused. Every competitor says all three, which means none of them mean anything.
Company history nobody asked for, particularly a founding narrative that runs longer than the description of what you do.
Any number you cannot support. This is the page most likely to carry an invented figure, because it is where people reach for something impressive.
- Passion, commitment to quality, customer focused
- A founding narrative longer than the description of what you do
- Any number you cannot support
- Stock photographs of a team that does not exist
- Mission statements nobody reads
- Anything a competitor could paste onto their own site unchanged
Specificity is the whole trick
Two hundred kitchens fitted in this county since we started beats leading kitchen specializts, and it is provable.
We answer the phone ourselves, and there is no call center is a real differentiator for a trade where everybody else uses one.
The test is whether a competitor could paste the sentence onto their own site unchanged. If they could, it is doing nothing.
Run that test on every sentence of your current about page. Most small business about pages lose four fifths of their content to it.
Run the paste test on every sentence of your current about page. Most lose four fifths of their content to it.
Author pages
Where individuals write content, a short biography establishing relevant experience helps a reader judge the material.
Keep it relevant. Qualifications and experience connected to what they write about, not a full career history.
For a one person business, the about page and the author page are usually the same page and that is fine.
For a one person business the about page and the author page are the same page, and that is fine. Two thin pages saying the same thing is worse than one good one.
Contact and trust signals
Make it easy to reach you from this page, through your contact form rather than by publishing an email address that scrapers will harvest.
Name your service area precisely. Vagueness about where you work reads as evasion to somebody deciding whether to call.
If you have a physical address, show it. If you do not, say you are mobile or online rather than implying premises you lack.
Name your service area precisely. Vagueness about where you work reads as evasion to somebody deciding whether to call.
How ours is written
The about page on a site built here is written from a conversation about your business, which is how the specific facts get onto it instead of the generic ones.
The builder refuses claims nobody can support, so an unsupportable number does not reach the page.
Every page passes a check that runs before anything publishes, validated against Google Search Essentials and modern web standards.
It is written from a conversation about your business, which is how the specific facts reach the page instead of the generic ones — see experience and trust.
The facts on it are the ones a competitor cannot copy, which is the whole argument in experience, expertise and trust.
Questions people ask
How long should an about page be?
Long enough to answer who, how long, where and what, with something specific. That is usually a few hundred words rather than a page of history.
Should I use a photograph of myself?
A real photograph of real people is one of the strongest trust signals available, and it is the one thing a competitor cannot copy.
Do I need author biographies?
Where individuals write content about subjects where expertise matters, yes. For a small business a strong about page usually covers it.
Can I put my email address on it?
Better not to. Published addresses are harvested and buried in spam. A contact form reaches the same inbox without the cost.
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