When it comes time to write an effective About Us page, you need to nail a few challenging parts:
- Knowing what to focus on,
- Where to put your story,
- How to frame it all into the main message you want to tell
Come off too boastful, and people may not relate. Share your entire experience from the ground up, and people may be turned off by your efforts (or lack of).
Writing my About Me page went through many iterations for my content writing business. I wanted to convey my authority as a freelancer and someone who helped thousands of new writers learn the ropes to write for clients.
And while About pages for solopreneurs vary drastically from writing an About Us page for a business, the overall theme for both is deep research of a brand. Doing this will make their message, vision, product or service shine.
Here's everything I know about creating more effective about pages.
Key takeaways
- 10 inspiring company about us pages and why I saved them
- How to use AI to generate an about page
- Common about us page copy mistakes
All About Us pages should have these elements
Whether you have a B2B or B2C business, the elements of an effective About Us page share three commonalities. You won't find these on bad examples of About Us pages. These elements serve as a framework to know how to write an About Us page.
1. Show, don't tell
After reviewing dozens of About Us business pages, I saw one bad example after another. These brands were coming at their About Us page copy from, "I need to tell people about our brand," angle.
This is the wrong approach. Just look at this bad example of an About Us page copy from a digital infrastructure company.
This brand goes on to tell its users what its product does but fails to show what they mean.
The best way to show users what you offer on the About Us page is with storytelling. The Social Outfit, a program that provides training and employment to refugees, clearly shows exactly how they help their community.
Not only do they express the need for their program through their story and expert quotes, but I like how they also show us how they help refugees assimilate to living in Sydney.
Other ways brands can show instead of telling are:
- Brand messaging
- Brand personality
Brand messaging
As someone who is in charge of writing the About page (this could be a content writer or a staff member), this all starts with deep research of the brand. Ask these questions to founders to help you understand the brand behind the product.
- Who is their customer/client avatar?
- How does their product or service help customers/clients?
- What makes customers/clients come back?
- Does their original vision match with what business looks like today?
- Why do people want to work for this company?
Brand personality
- What three words describe their brand?
- What is unique about their brand?
- What tone of voice does the brand want to convey?
Once you find the answers to these questions, you can convey a business's core message, vision, and mission statement.
With Mailchimp's About Us page example, they have expertly crafted their message, vision, and mission statement through storytelling.
Ben and Dan had humble beginnings and molded their business idea around them – empowering the underdog ← vision, message, and mission statement.
How to do it: Tell a captivating story by using a copywriting formula. One copywriting formula, Before-After-Bridge, highlights how poor things are currently (the before), how the product or service helps solve the issue (the after) and how or what the product or service is all about (the bridge). This is what The Social Outfit and Mailchimp's About Us page expertly crafted and something I liked.
2. Framing how your business helps (rather than pushing sales)
One thing I noticed when reviewing About Us page examples was how product-focussed eCommerce copy was.
Some eCommerce brands didn't even have an About Us link on their homepage. Instead, they had a short paragraph (I'm looking at you Verb).
Instead of pushing sales, why not celebrate your product and congratulate those helping your mission grow? This is what eCommerce brand SmartSweets does on their About Us page, ridding sugar for good.
How to write an About Us page doesn't mean using all "I" statements either. It's okay to share a founder's story as Tara did for SmartSweets. But she flipped the script and focussed on her purpose with her audience – the "You" – people she wanted to help remove sugar from their diets entirely.
Communication agency Zeno conducted their 2020 Strength of Purpose Study and found that 94% of consumers are drawn to companies with a strong sense of purpose.
How to do it: Create a brandable hashtag like #kickSugar for SmartSweets or #ShareACoke, or #WorthSaying by Lorêal Paris. With community involvement and user-generated content, you can highlight the efforts in your About Us section, making a substantial impact on brand awareness.
3. Putting it all together with AI
As the content writer, it's up to you to weave together the About Us page copy into a cohesive package. Follow these tips to get the process right.
- Simplify language by rewording long-winded sentences. Use a professional tone.
- Create sections (H2's or H3's) for each part of an About Us page: introduce the product or service and who the business helps, mission statement, founding story, vision and how the company evolved, community-building, meet the team, etc.
- Provide images, graphics, and/or expert quotes.
- Use the answers from the brand personality and messaging questions to set the scene and walk the customer or client through the brand's story.
You can see how everything is put together by checking out Teachable's About Us page.
What I liked the most about Teachable's About Us page was the use of chapters to create sections and that they used the Before-After-Bridge copywriting formula. Each sentence created a scene, and each scene created a story of how Fedora became Teachable.
How to do it: Only use the essential details – for Teachable, they show how they support their instructors – and must-know information – how Teachable values transparency above anything else – when writing an About Us page. Use a copywriting formula to connect every part of the story.
Purpose of an about us page
With the proper elements done and finished, knowing the purpose of About Us pages can help you as a writer figure out the writing angle. Are you writing to customers only, or is there another audience to cater the About Us page for?
When viewing this page that way, it's easy to see that About Us pages for a business don't only serve the customer or client. Depending on the business type, the About Us page copy serves multiple purposes.
Startups
Every startup wants to be the next Airbnb or Uber, but the odds of that happening is less than 1%. Instead, startups must work on making their brand unique and even viral.
The Always Pan from Our Place created a viral hit with user-generated content and was even dubbed the Instagram Pan.
Seeing the first iteration of their About Us page back in 2020, I like how their value message was: ethical labor, real stories, and responsible materials.
These whole-hearted values might have spoken to potential investors and given them a persuasive kick towards investing in their Always Pan and brand.
Startups can appeal to investors on their About Us page by:
- Using social proof – shows investors the need for a product or service
- Being authentic – brands can show the impact of their product on real people and highlight their stories
- Having transparency – Our Place made it clear that they only invested in ethical factories and supportive environments, which looks good in an investor's portfolio
Potential employee
While the majority of copy on an About Us page speaks to the customer, brands mustn't forget about employees.
Startups, eCommerce, or B2B brands must celebrate company culture and demonstrate how they treat their employees.
Starbucks does a bang up job of highlighting its employees on its About Us page. I like that employees aren't just workers; they are partners.
Starbucks also shows how they treat their partners – investing in their health and overall well-being.
I never worked at Starbucks (I worked at Domino's Pizza in high school), but after reading their core message, values and how they view employees, I know I would've loved working as a barista back in the day.
Customers
The heart of most About Us page copy stems from speaking with the customer. As a content writer, you must know and understand the customer avatar. What are their likes and dislikes, goals and values, challenges, and pain points?
This can help with knowing how to write an About Us page for customers.
Let's take Home Depot as an About Us page example. Since I'm a customer, I like how their page helps me understand the product better and what Home Depot has contributed over the years.
Home Depot's core principle is that customers and associates are first on their list of priorities.
I also like how their About Us page is not only speaking to customers, but also associates, communities and stakeholders.
There's a little bit for each of us on Home Depot's page.
Process of writing the about us page
Let's take a page from these memorable brands and see how a content writer can frame an About Us page.
To start this process, a writer needs to figure out what the founders/CMO is aiming for with the brand's About Us page. This can be found by interviewing the founders and finding the story behind the brand, their mission and their vision for the growth of the brand.
Ask questions like:
- Why did you want to offer this product/service?
- What 3 words describe your company culture? (ex: hard-working, laid back, eccentric)
- What are the main messages you want to convey?
- What values do you want to instill in your employees?
- What are the main marketing channels for your company?
- What is the company's five-year plan for growth?
- What do you hope to accomplish with your product/service?
- Does the company support any charitable organizations?
Make sure also to use the brand message and personality questions when interviewing the founders.
1. Write the brief
Quite often, for a content writing job, a client will give you a brief of the project you were assigned.
If none was provided, the first step would be to develop a content brief. This is similar to a pitch or overview of what the project is about. But it's not as detailed as an outline. Check out this About Us page template you can use for your clients.
This content brief will have simple phrases to explain a brand you need to write about. With the answers to your interview questions and the content brief you are ready for the next step.
2. Create the Outline
Use the proper elements in your content brief to lay out the About Us page. Use H1 for the heading. I suggest using a quote from the founder or the brand's core message as your headline.
The following sections should be in H2's. Play around with centering titles or making them a larger font size as a way to convey your point or angle.
For a complete outline, include the elements under each subtopic and any quotes, references, or links you want to use.
Once finished, send it to your client's editorial team for review and approval.
3. Write the About Us page
Once approved, it's time to write the About Us page.
If you're using Google Docs to write, here are some handy tips to help speed up the writing process.
Use the summary tab to show the document outline. Make sure to use the headings to show up in the summary tab. To enable this feature, click on the little note icon in the upper-left-hand corner of Google Docs.
This makes it easier and faster to go to a section in your document or find out where you left off.
Do the bulk of your writing in distraction-free mode. This removes the upper and sidebar of Google Docs, helping you focus better with what you are writing.
To turn it on, go to View > Full Screen.
Finally, consider using Text to Speech to speed up the writing process and make your writing more conversational and friendlier.
Typically, it can take me several hours to write 4,000 words, but with Text to Speech, I can get it down to under two hours.
You do have to capitalize words often and self-edit as you go. And it's best to use a mic when speaking. To activate text to speech, go to Tools > Voice typing.
If your transcript is too long you can also shorten it using Wordtune Read.
4. Work with a designer
About Us pages are usually visually heavy with company photos. As the writer, it's not up to you to supply stock photos. Instead, work with the client's designer to let them know your ideas of what type of photos to include in which section of the About Us page.
This might mean using a work management tool like Trello or Asana to work with the design team.
Conclusion
The About pages that stand out to me are the ones that have relatable visions and core messages. They are the brands that can show me what their product is about and how it helps. With the right questions to ask and a template to use, a writer will have no problem writing an About Us page for a business.
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