The About page is one of the first supporting pages most companies create for their website. Along with your FAQ and Contact pages, it’s where you tell people who you are.
When someone wants to learn more about your business, the About page is their first stop. Yet, most B2B companies treat it as an obligation rather than valuable real estate where they can connect with visitors and turn them into leads and customers. With compelling content on your About page, you can set a foundation for any inbound marketing campaign, making it easier to connect with people and start a relationship.
Your About page can be a compelling and interesting part of your B2B website. It’ll just take a little planning, thought, and a great story.
What the About Page Is Really For
Most companies write a very perfunctory About page that outlines their history and maybe their leadership team. They’re pretty academic and boring, mainly because you avoid writing it until the end of your website development. It’s one of the most commonly overlooked pages, which gives you the perfect opportunity to stand out from your competitors.
An About page is a subtle sales page for your business that’s more goal-oriented than traditional sales pages. It’s the website home for your founding story and a place to show off your business wins. It’s a sales page that answers the second most crucial customer question: Why should they buy from you? Your regular sales pages are where you extoll the virtues and benefits of your products, but your About page is where you develop the story of why you’re the brand or company.
Building a remarkable About page for your B2B business is not something you do in an afternoon, but something that takes time, effort, and thought. Caroline Mays of Switchblade Lemonade, a boutique copywriting consultancy for platform builders, keynoters, and authors, calls this creating your “Epic Credential™,” where emotion, vulnerability, and story meld together to create a story that is uniquely you. Your business About page should do the same too.
Is it possible to create a B2B company About page that’s just as exposed as what someone would write about themselves? You bet.
The Journey to a Compelling About Page
To build a persuasive and compelling About page for your business, you’ll need a solid foundation. Then, you can add the compelling parts, or hooks, to keep people engaged and reading. You want people to think, “THIS is a company I want to deal with” as they read.
The Foundation Is Your Story
It all starts with your story. You’ll use this as the foundation for your About page, but it’s not the exact copy you’ll use on it. Incorporate what you come up with here into your narrative.
- Set the scene: Introduce your founders and establish the way things were for you, your target customers, or your industry./li>
- Introduce the problem: Describe the problem that you or your target customers faced and why you decided to act. What made you want to solve this problem for yourself or your customers? Dig into the details.
- Rise to the challenge: Explain how you decided to start your business and the obstacles you faced throughout this journey. This is where you mention your “aha!” moment and how you knew that the solution would help your customers.
- Deliver the solution: Share how your B2B business evolved as you pursued its purpose of delivering a solution to customers. Talk about the milestones you hit along the way and the pivots you’ve made to create a better product. Be honest about this part. Don’t be afraid to admit you had to pivot or completely redesign your product to meet your customers’ needs. Seeing the evolution can improve the story you tell customers and increase their trust in you. Nobody’s perfect, so put your faults out there.
- Envision what’s next: Based on your past and your vision for the future, paint a picture of where you want to go next. State your company’s mission and goals and how you want to help customers as you achieve those goals.
Many companies stop at this point and publish this foundational story on their About pages. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s just incomplete. If you want to create a persuasive About page for your B2B business, you’ve got to add more to it. In a sea of sameness, it’s the hooks that draw people in and create loyal customers. Customers who’ll pester their boss and other decision-makers that your products are THE ones for them. Customers who can’t help but become your biggest fans and evangelists. Customers who tell their colleagues and business networks about you and market your brand for you.
Use these six hooks to power up your About page copy and create something truly remarkable and shareable.
Hook #1: Your Business Model
For some B2B companies, it’s their business model that’s the unique value proposition and is a selling point that’s worth including on your About page. For instance, how you cut out the middleman and pass savings on to your customers, how your product source materials are socially responsible, or how you pass along a portion of your revenues to charity.
Other companies use their About page to be transparent about their brand and business. Nextiva, a business phone system for remote teams, explains how their philanthropic branch helps make their local business area better through employee donations. The link to this page is second only to their leadership page, showing how important it is to them.
Hook #2: Your Awards, Testimonials, Press Mentions
A compelling About page doesn’t have to ignore your awards and press mentions. It is, after all, about your business. Use this information to signal to readers that you are good at what you do, but don’t use it as a trophy case. These mentions should never be just about you but demonstrate how you’re impacting your customers and industry.
Including social proof on your About page can increase conversion rates by 34% (at least when they’re testimonials.) People want to hear about what others think and give significant weight to awards, testimonials, and press mentions.
This is where Salesforce excels. They include their awards on their About page, but make it all about their customers. “These are the rewards of putting our customers first,” is the headline.
Hook #3: Concrete Numbers
Numbers give your B2B company credibility as you illustrate the problem you’re solving with your products. They help explain the progress you’ve made as a business and the value you’ve delivered to customers.
Consider which stats demonstrate your company mission best or quantify your impact as a business on your customers. Don’t be afraid to have some fun with these numbers, as Ideaware does on their About page:
As a software development company, these numbers are important to Ideaware and potential customers. But they also show their fun side as they joke about the amount of coffee it takes to deliver solutions to their customers.
Once you decide on the relevant numbers, use them to communicate your company story more effectively.
Hook #4: Your Team
As a B2B company that sells to other companies, knowing the people behind your brand isn’t essential to your overall customer. Where it becomes vital is in getting the attention of the individuals who work for your potential customers. They’re the ones who’ll bring your products to the attention of their decision-makers, so you’ve got to capture their attention first.
Shine a light on the people who power your business and humanize it. Communicate your company culture and explain how you’re the perfect fit to serve the market.
Google’s About page does a fantastic job of telling the founders’ story. Starting with the unconventional headline, it succinctly summarizes their start and early days.
Hook #5: Mix Up the Media
Here’s where you can combine different media types as you tell your story. It’s an easy way to add variety to your company About page and break up the text in the layout and design.
Most companies do this when introducing their leadership team or behind-the-scenes photos of the people who work there. Consider adding a video that tells your story or use a timeline to show how long you’ve been in business.
All of these different elements make it easier to read and keep people engaged with your story longer.
Hook #6: Calls to Action and Links
The final hook you can use on your company About page is to funnel people to other parts of your company website. Incorporate relevant links to your blog, career page, product review videos, calls-to-action for event landing pages, and more.
Think about how you can continue the visitor’s journey for people by encouraging them to visit these other areas of your website. Sprinkle them where appropriate on your About page to keep them on your website and show them how you deliver value to customers.
It’s time B2B companies embraced their About pages and made them as compelling as their latest sales landing page. Today’s buyers are interested to know more about the brands and products they use. If your About page is as dull and forgettable as the rest, you’ll never convert them into a customer.
A compelling About page sells your company, its vision and mission, and how it pursues value for its customers. Spend some time on yours, and it’ll be easier to engage them and turn them into loyal customers.
