The first thing to know about how to write an About Us page is that it is not about you.

Absolutely not.

I know you’re sitting right now with 8 windows opened across your desktop, trying to figure out how to write the best About Us page you can. You want to learn how to write about yourself better than Shakespeare could in order to wow your customers and make them buy from you.

You want to show you’re a rockstar!

To show you what is wrong with this approach on how to write an About Us page, let’s take a few steps back and revisit why you need an About Us page in the first place. What makes them so important?

Why You Need an About Us Page

Why do you think people click through to your About Us section shortly after they land onto your website? They take a few seconds and skim through a few articles and then they head over to the About Us section.

Yes, it’s partly because they want to know if you’re legit and not some random ghost site looking to run off with their money.

But more importantly, it is because they want to know if they can trust you. They want to know if you understand their struggles and journey enough to help them with what keeps them up at night.

By identifying and empathizing with their journey, they can identify and empathize with your mission.

Get it?

Tips on How to Write an About Us Page

Most of the advice you get on About Us pages will tell you to:

Talk about your brand!

Mention any awards!

Expand on your mission!

Explain what makes you different!

Me Me Me Me Me

Ugh!

Given that this is one of the first pages new visitors check out when they come across your website, you can liken the experience to a first date.

Imagine going out with someone for the first time and all you talk about is yourself and how special you are.

That’s not gonna win you any favours by the end of the day.

Instead, you want to establish common ground, build rapport, forge an emotional connection, and then credibly ask for the conversation to continue—in other words, a second date.

In this manner, your About Us page becomes a sales page, gluing readers to the screen, funneling them into other parts of your website, and turning them into engaged fans.

So with that understood, here are tips for writing an About page that actually works:

• Lead With Your WHY—An Authentic Story: It all begins with the stories you tell. What set you on this path? Why is your mission urgent? Why should the reader pay attention? This is the point where you catch their attention and establish a connection with your audience. Why? Because this is your telling of a story your audience already knows. It might even be their personal story.

Here is a website in Denmark that does this pretty well in their About Us page by laying out the plight of those they are trying to help: underprivileged rural women farmers in Africa.

• Lay Out Your Vision for the Work You Do: At this point after establishing the central conflict or situation that makes your organization worthy of existing, you want to state the opposite of that situation should be. In other words, you want to lay out your central vision or purpose through which you hope to either enforce or counteract the status quo.
• Reveal What Your Organization Is Currently Doing to Make a Difference: Visions and noble statements are all well and good, but what is your organization doing right now to achieve your lofty goals. This is an invitation to the reader, done by means of being transparent. What do you do? How do you do it? Who does it? Why are you the best at doing it the way you do? Let loose in this section because this is the only section that even slightly pertains to you.
• Call to Arms: By this point of your About Us page, those who completely buy into your vision and mission have already identified themselves and are waiting for you to tell them what to do. Please, don’t disappoint them. Don’t end without a call to action. I prefer the phrase ‘call to arms’ because you’re on a mission. Tell them what to do or where to go next. It could be a call to sign up to your newsletter to stay updated, or it could be an invitation to start reading at a particular page on your website—whatever, just don’t leave them hanging and waste a good opportunity.

Your About Us page will undoubtedly be among the most popular on your website, so it makes sense to take the time to learn how to do it right.

But don’t get stuck on it. You can change it later if you get inspired for a better one, or hire someone to write you another one. Just don’t get caught without it and end up looking like an anonymous weirdo online.