Design in Detail: 5 Features Your About Us Page Should Include

The About Us page is the heart and soul of your website. It's probably the most important page on your site, it's usually the most visited page, and it is absolutely the hardest page to get just right. In today's installment of Design in Detail, we're looking at key features you should include in your About Us page, and how to make the most of this critical part of your website.

To help us decide what to put on the About Us page, we really need to understand why customers look for this page in the first place. The primary reason is that they want to learn something about you and your business; not just who you are and what you do, but also things like what makes you special, what's important to you, or even why they should trust you versus your competition.

With that in mind, here are 5 important features that I think every About Us page should include, in one form or another:


1. Tell Your Story
Most of the time, the About Us page will end up having more text on it than any other page on your site, unless you have a lot of products and services to cover. This is the one place where you can get away with being a little more wordy than you normally would. The main thing you want to accomplish here is to inform people about you and your business. A little history is good, or an anecdote about how you got started, or something that's really important to you in your work.

People come to your About Us page to learn information, but you also have to be interesting enough to keep their attention. You will have to walk the line between fact and hype, between boring and boastful. Your home page is the place for grand statements about how amazing you are. Use the About Us page to be more intimate or personal, more relatable, and at least somewhat humble.

Even if your business is more than a one person operation, and even if you're a large corporation, try to avoid corporate speak in your About Us page. This is your chance to show people the human(s) behind the company. Speak with honesty, from the heart, in a more conversational manner. A friendly tone will make you more likable.


2. Your Site, Your Values
There's more to your company than just the products or services you offer. Take the time to talk about your values, why you do what you do, and why it's important to you. Again, that human connection is a vital part of this page, and showing people why you believe in what you're doing will help to win them over. If they feel like they have a connection with you or agree with your mindset on an issue, they are much more likely to choose you over some mindless corporate automaton.

If you are involved in community service or sponsoring a charity, this is a good place to highlight that. Show that you're not just out to make a buck, but that you have causes that are important to you, and that you give back to the community. This goes a long way towards earning trust, especially in a smaller community that is more tight-knit.


3. Not Just About "Us"
Even though this is your page, it's not all about you. Don't spend all your time bragging about yourself. Remember, we're trying to forge a connection to visitors and convert them into customers. We do that by showing them how what we do relates to what they want, or how we can help them. Talk a little bit about the benefits of the products or services you provide, and how being a customer is going to make their life or their work better, easier, or more convenient. Show how you will be of value to them, so they'll think of you in those positive terms.


4. Social Proof and Testimonials
We already talked in the first Design in Detail article about including at least one testimonial on the main page of your site. The rest of them go here. All the boasts in the world won't convince most people to believe in you, but reading unfiltered reviews from other customers (or news outlets / critics if you're large enough) will go a long way towards swaying their opinion. You can include actual review scores, or links to positive social media interactions, or any other 3rd party analysis of your company and your products. This is your chance to prove that you're not just talk.


5. Enable Conversions
You'll hear me speak often about including opt-in opportunities in many places on your site. You want to make it easy for visitors who are interested in what you're saying to gain access to more content or interaction with you. The About Us page is a fantastic place for this - you've spent the majority of your time on this page talking about yourself, your company, your values, and how working with you will benefit your customers. If any page on your site is going to convince a visitor to "buy in," it's this one. So don't miss the chance! Include a sign-up form for a newsletter, or email signup for marketing and promotions.

I've gotten more signups for my company newsletter off my About Us page than from all the rest of the pages on my site combined. It turns out people who take the time to read about you end up in a positive frame of mind - so strike while the iron is hot!


Examples!
Since there's a lot to digest here, and there are a lot of different tactics you can take, I thought it would be helpful this week to include some examples. Here are three sites I really like the About Us pages for, as well as a brief explanation of why.

Tumblr:
Talk about social proof! With over 360 million active users and 150 BILLION individual posts, Tumblr has earned the right to be a little boastful. This About Us page is beautiful in its simplicity. The stats speak for themselves as a value statement, and the backgrounds are just gorgeous. I don't normally like automatically scrolling slideshows, but these images are all just so crisp and beautiful that I think it works great with the limited amount of other content on screen.

Tim Ferriss:
Tim Ferriss is one of my all time favorite authors and entrepreneurs. He is larger than life, and his About Us page really reflects that. Looking at his page, we again see lots of social proof, including a review from the New York Times, iTunes stats, and a very hefty number of facebook followers (and I'm pleased to see so many of the people on my friends list also following him!). I also love that he has both a brief and long-form bio here, since there really is so much material to cover.


Giphy:
This last one may seem silly to some, but in terms of capturing the essence of your brand and owning your voice, giphy really gets it. In case you don't know, giphy is a platform that people use to create and share memes and funny pictures online. The About Us page may look ridiculous in terms of a professional corporate entity, but the whole point is that it represents exactly what the site is all about for its users - and built pretty much entirely using giphy's own platform. Up top, we have a video showing what the platform is and how it works, as well as two more instructional videos showing users how to actually use the platform. And below, more tutorials for using the platform's various features. What more is there to say? This page really captures the style of the platform, and emphasizes the site's do-it-yourself mentality.

Conclusion
The About Us page is an extremely important part of your overall website, that lots of businesses struggle with. Hopefully, these tips will help you make the most of your own About Us page, and harness its potential to convert visitors into customers.

Do you agree with my suggestions? Or think I missed out on a key feature? Sound off in the comments and let me know what works for you. Don't have a website of your own yet? Or need help bringing your existing site up to date? Whistler IT Solutions can help. Contact us today! And be sure to come back again next Thursday for the third installment of Design in Detail, where we'll be discussing the real meat of your website: the Products & Services page.

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