Your “About Us” Page – It’s all about you!

MoreVisibility - February 25, 2008

Last week, one of our clients confessed to me that they were extremely surprised at the high amount of traffic their “Leadership” page had been receiving. They were surprised that so much of the traffic that had been landing on their homepage eventually found its way to their “Leadership” page.

My response to that statement was “…don’t be surprised by that – I’ve also noticed how much traffic some of our other client’s “About Us” pages receive, too…”. Now, I ask the readers of this blog to start to take notice of where your traffic is going as well. Chances are good that your traffic is going to your “About Us” / “Leadership” / “Executive Team” pages.

What does this mean?
In my opinion, this means that, at some level, the visitors to your site are interested in your company. They are trying to learn more about the people in charge of your company, whether they are simply curious, or checking credentials as some sort of measuring stick. They probably want to know the story of your executive team, and their roles within your organization before contacting you, and (hopefully) doing business with you.

What should be on my “About Us” page?
This is of course going to be different for each company. There are also no set rules or guidelines, so I can only tell you what I like and what I expect to find. When I visit a company’s “About Us” page, I like to be able to clearly and fully understand what the company is and what the company does. Depending on the type of company, I also like to see a brief list or summary of main services offered. Then, I scroll down or look back at the navigation of the site and locate a “Executive Team” page, where I can see the names, faces, and short bios of the people in charge of the company that I am interested in or curious about. An “Executive Team” section or page adds trust and credibility to your business in the online world, and a company gets those extra “Trust Points” with me.

How should I market / how should I put together my “About Us” page?
The concept of “different strokes for different folks” applies here. If you consider your business a serious one, you should keep your “About Us” / “Executive Team” page(s) that way as well. Keep the bios of the executive team short and to the point, but highlight whatever accomplishments, certifications, and degrees the person has. A nice color photo of each member wearing a suit also adds a clean-cut professional touch. On these pages, I would let the content speak for itself – there is no need to slap on your huge-orange-flashing “FREE QUOTE” feature graphic here. Keep the paragraph about each executive brief, but loaded with current responsibility and biographical information. A good experiment here would be to see what happens when you add a calm, inviting call-to-action image to this page. Depending on the nature of your visitors, it may not have any affect, or they may react positively to it and pursue the call-to-action.

What if I don’t have an “About Us” page? Do I even need one?
Whether you sell bean bags or real estate, I would strongly recommend you integrate an “About Us” page on your website that explains who you are and what you do in a very clear manner. Or, if your “About Us” page is cryptic and uninformative, I would advise a clean-up project on that page.

Remember, these points are merely my opinions. All that I know is that websites with an “About Us” or “Leadership” page seem to find a very high amount of traffic going there, generating a lot of pageviews. Therefore, as the saying goes, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Another good experiment that someone could conduct would be to see what happens to the traffic as a whole when the “About Us” page is removed from the website navigation. I have a strong feeling that your traffic will visit less pages as a result, and you may even find yourself with fewer leads or conversions, as well.