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Ensure your ‘About Us’ website page is helpful

For some reason, informational web pages about organizations can be difficult to find or they give only minimal or formal information. It should be easy for visitors to your website to find out the basics of your organization, large or small. But surprisingly often, this important information is hard to find or is even missing.

An ‘About Us’ or ‘About [the name of your organization]’ page should give concise summary information (but not just repeating info posted elsewhere in your website). A suitable word count would be around 300-500 words, so readers won’t be overwhelmed by the volume of info. Include where appropriate:

1. What your organization does, with a value proposition above the fold (top half of the web page, visible without scrolling down the page)
2. organizational vision, mission and goals – with tight descriptions and perhaps links to these topics on separate pages.
3. Broad structure, if applicable.
4. Names and titles of senior executives – these could highlight relevant skills and experience in providing value to your customers. (To keep the page concise, you may want to provide a link about those key people posted on another page).
5. Brief summary of products and operating locations.
6. Imagery such as photos of products and the CEO/chairperson/founder or equivalent. Videos are useful here as well. Try to minimize stock photos in this page. Apparently genuine images of operations, employees, products, etc increase page conversions significantly.
7. Succinct summary of your most recent financial results or operating performance.
8. Short chronology of the organizational history and key milestones – such as how the founder/s were inspired to start the business, obstacles that were overcome, and other info that reveals more human interest elements than would be on other pages.
9. Testimonials and positive reviews – you can very briefly quote. They increase sales and trust.
10. Up-to-date contact information, especially your telephone number, and email address of a live person or job title. It looks evasive when these details aren’t shown.
11. Your organizational ethics policy. If that is too long to include in full, provide a sentence or two overview and link to an ethics page.
12. Include a call-to-action towards the end of the page, because this can increase conversions significantly.

Obviously, if you are a small or medium business, the content on your About us page can be adapted to suit. Overall, the page should represent your organization to strangers – you should put yourselves metaphorically in the shoes of a visitor and offer them a snapshot of your organization.

Don’t use fancy names like Info Center or put the information anywhere except the home page. This only makes it harder for a visitor to access the information they are seeking.

An easy-to-find About us page is essential for journalists. If you don’t have a separate area for the media, they will visit your About us page instead, or they will visit it regardless.

Make sure the essential information is accessible on your About us page, especially the contact information. Some large organizations merely give an email address for inquiries. This looks evasive. If your telephone number is not supplied, it gives visitors the impression that you are making it difficult for current and potential customers to speak to a live person and thereby dodging accountability for your products and services. Government websites are common offenders.

If your corporate information is hard to find or is out of date, visitors are likely to go to straight to a competitor’s website.

Why not conduct a quick usability check of your website to see how accessible your About us area, or its equivalent, is? Look for the name of your CEO, check your corporate telephone number and email address, and find your organization’s operating philosophy.

If you are looking for examples of useful ‘About Us’ pages, you can find some here:

• 15 of the Best ‘About Us’ & ‘About Me’ Pages and How to Make Your Own
• 50 of the best “About Us” pages to inspire you

• How to Write the Best About Us Page With 50 Examples and a Template

• Image: ‘About Nike’ page in 2020.

About the author Kim Harrison

Kim Harrison loves sharing actionable ideas and information about professional communication and business management. He has wide experience as a corporate affairs manager, consultant, author, lecturer, and CEO of a non-profit organization. Kim is a Fellow and former national board member of the Public Relations Institute of Australia, and he ran his State’s professional development program for 7 years, helping many practitioners to strengthen their communication skills. People from 115 countries benefit from the practical knowledge shared in his monthly newsletter and in the eBooks available from cuttingedgepr.com.

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