How to write an About page people actually read

An About page people read is written for the reader, not the company. It answers four questions in order: who do you help, how do you work, who will I be dealing with, and why should I believe you. It uses real names, real photos and specific facts (the number of projects, the year, the places), and it leaves out the mission statement, the stock photos and the history that starts with the founder's grandfather. Three hundred to six hundred words is enough.

What is the About page for?

Buyers open the About page at one moment: after the homepage or a service page has interested them and before they enquire. They are checking that the company is real, that it is the size and kind they expected, and that the people seem like people they could work with. Candidates read it for similar reasons. Nobody opens it to learn your values.

Check your own analytics; on many company sites the About page is among the three most visited pages. A page that many buyers read just before deciding deserves more than the template paragraph most sites give it. When we write one as part of a website build, it is usually the page clients find hardest to draft, and the one where a half-hour interview, transcribed, produces better copy than a week of writing.

What should an About page include?

Not every element needs its own section. A sole trader's About page can be one photo, four paragraphs and a link. A fifty-person firm's might have a team grid. The list is what to cover, not a layout.

What order should it go in?

Lead with the reader. The first paragraph says who you help and what for; the second says how you work; the third introduces the people. History, if it matters, comes last and short. "Founded in 2012 as a two-person studio in Kochi" is one sentence, not a timeline with icons.

This is the reverse of how most About pages are written, which start with "Founded in 1998, XYZ Pvt Ltd has grown to become a leading provider of..." and lose the reader before the first full stop. Our website copywriting guide covers the general rule: the important thing first, in the reader's words.

How do you write it without sounding like everyone else?

Replace every adjective with a fact. The adjectives are what make About pages identical.

The numbers in the table are examples of the form; use your own, and only ones you can stand behind. Then add one or two things that are true of you and not of competitors: the sector you know best, the thing you refuse to do, the way you price, the mistake you learned from. These lines are what a reader remembers.

The readability checker is useful here. About pages drift into long, formal sentences; if the grade level comes out above 10, split sentences and swap the Latin words for plain ones. The word counter will tell you when you have passed six hundred.

Should you show the team?

Yes, with names and real photos, if the people are comfortable with it. Buyers want to know who they will deal with, and a team section with faces does more for trust than any paragraph. Three guidelines:

• Real photos, same style. Taken on the same day, same background, same crop. Phone photos in good light beat a mix of LinkedIn headshots and holiday pictures.
• One line per person, about what they do for clients, not their hobbies. Hobbies are fine on a second line if the tone of the site suits it.
• Only people who are actually there. A team grid of twelve when three have left is a credibility problem the moment a buyer asks for one of them.

For a one-person business, show the one person. "Our team" for a sole trader fools nobody and loses the main advantage, which is that the client deals with you directly. For a business whose staff would rather not appear, show the founders and describe the team's size and roles.

Stock photos of people who do not work for you are the one thing never to use on an About page. Buyers recognise them, and the page then says the opposite of what it was meant to.

What does Google want from an About page?

Google's guidance on creating helpful, people-first content asks whether a site makes clear who is behind it and why they should be trusted on the subject; its quality guidelines refer to this as experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust. An About page with named people, real credentials and contact details is the simplest way to show it. The page does not need keywords; it needs to be true and specific.

Two technical points. Link the About page from the main navigation and the footer, so it is found and crawled. And if you publish articles, link author bylines to the About page or to a per-person page, so the writer's identity is visible.

What should you cut?

Mission, vision and values as a block. If the values are real, they show in how you describe your work. As a list of nouns ("Integrity. Excellence. Innovation.") they are wallpaper.

A long history. The reader wants to know what you are now. One or two sentences on the origin, if it explains something about how you work today.

Awards nobody has heard of. One recognisable one, named; otherwise skip the shelf.

Generic photos. Office buildings, handshakes, laptops with coffee. A photo of the team at work or of the work itself, or no photo.

Anything in the third person about yourself. "The company believes..." reads like a press release. "We" is fine; you are talking to one reader.

Where does the About page fit with the other pages?

It supports the service pages and the contact page; it does not replace either. Keep service descriptions on the service pages and proof on the portfolio, and link to both from the About page. Gathering the facts and testimonials that make this page credible is part of the content step in our website planning guide; see also how to collect testimonials. If the page is still blank after an hour, record yourself answering "who do you help, how do you work, and who does the work?" and transcribe the answer. That transcript, cut by a third, is usually the page.