How to write an about page
Nobody came to read your history. They came to work out whether they will like dealing with you.
A real Clay site, built from a Google listing
The about page is the one every business writes last, in a hurry, in the third person, and it is the second most visited page on almost every small business site.
Somebody who opens it has already decided you can probably do the job. What they are working out now is whether they will feel comfortable in the room, and that is answered by who you are, why you do this, who you are good for, and what happens when they walk in. Four paragraphs, written as yourself.
Four paragraphs, in this order
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1
Who is actually here
One person or four, and their names. A business that will not say who runs it reads as a business that would rather you did not know, whatever it is actually like inside.
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2
Why you do this rather than something else
The honest answer, not the brochure one. Somebody trained in Lyon and came home is a reason; passionate about quality is a phrase every competitor has already used.
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3
Who you are good for
And by implication who you are not. First timers who are nervous, or people who know exactly what they want, are two different businesses and both are worth saying out loud.
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4
What happens when they arrive
The bit everybody leaves out and everybody wants. Where to wait, whether to ring the bell, how long it takes, what to bring.
Nobody talks about themselves like that
Founded in 2011, the salon has grown to become is written by somebody pretending to be somebody else, and every reader hears it. You are a person and the page is you talking.
The exception is a business genuinely bigger than its founder, and even there the about page is usually better with a named person in it than without.
The mission, the values, the journey
A values list is a page nobody has ever read to the end and cannot be checked against anything. It also reads identically on every website in your trade, which is a strange thing to spend your only paragraph on.
What earns its place instead is a fact: the year, the street, the training, the thing you refuse to do. One of those does more than three paragraphs of adjectives.
The tests it has to pass
What the page is really doing
Answering the nervous question
Most people arriving at a small business are slightly unsure of the etiquette. The about page is where that gets settled, quietly.
Putting a face to the name
One photograph of the person who will be there does more than any paragraph, and it is the single most skipped element on these pages.
Making the reviews make sense
When people read your reviews after reading about you, the names in them connect to somebody, which is what makes them read as real.
What it looks like when it is live
Drawn rather than described, the page, the address, and what it can switch on.
Questions
How long should it be?
Four short paragraphs. Anything longer is a page people scroll rather than read, and the useful half is always the first half.
Do I need a photograph of myself?
One of the people who will be there, yes. If you would rather not be photographed, a picture of the room with somebody working in it does most of the job.
What if I am not the interesting part?
Then write about the work. Where the beans come from, who taught you, what you will not compromise on. Specific is the only thing that has to be true.
Should I list qualifications?
Where they matter to the customer, one line, plainly. In some trades that is the whole page and in most it is a footnote.
Where should the page sit?
In the menu, and linked from the front page, because somebody who scrolls the whole home page and still wants to know more is exactly who this page is for.
Can the site write it for me?
Clay drafts a first version from your listing and your reviews, and it is a starting point rather than an answer: what a website built from your Google listing gets right.
What else belongs near it?
The team, if there is one, and your reviews: testimonials that read as real sit naturally under an about page.
Try it with your business
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