There are a lot of different elements to create and optimize when building your e-commerce store. When you’ve invested hours of hard work into uploading products, creating categories, planning your shipping processes and so much more – it can be easy to let something like the About Us page of your website fall by the wayside and be completed as an afterthought.
It is not always easy to craft the perfect pitch – one that sells your company and positions your brand as one that customers want to purchase from. First impressions are important, and your About Us page is a perfect opportunity to set a great first impression for your brand and stand out from your competitors. Your customers want to know about the company they are purchasing from. Customers prefer to buy from companies they know and trust. If used correctly
Your customers want to know about the company they are purchasing from. Customers prefer to buy from companies they know and trust. If used correctly your About Us page can help to increase your sales by creating a trusting narrative about your business to your customers.
“Customers prefer to buy from companies they know and trust.”
The exact contents of an About Us page will be different from business to business. The style used to assemble your page may vary based on the personality and culture of your company and customers. You may want to create an entire About Us section of your website with links to different areas of interest about your company, however, in this guide, we will be focusing specifically on the single page that tells your company story. When creating this page you should reference your overall marketing and branding to create a cohesive overall message.
Telling Your Story
Your story is the basis of any About Us page. Who are you? What do you do? Why do you do it? What do you stand for as a company?
These are some questions you will want to answer when crafting your About Us page. Customers want to know about brands in an honest and easy to digest way. The information on your About Us page should be compelling and truthful. This is your chance to let your customers know where you have been and how you got where you are.
Paint a story about your company that is easy for customers to relate to and empathize with. Studies show that when people read stories, they can better engage with and live vicariously through the content they are reading. Some companies choose to rebrand their “About Us” section as “Our Story” for this very reason. A good story humanizes your brand, and it creates a context for your customers. Good stories are memorable, meaning your customers will retain the information and pass it on to others.
To tell a compelling story you should first consider who your audience is – who will be reading your story?
If you haven’t already done some work on defining your target audience, now is the time. Once you have a grasp on who your audience is, you can start to formulate what information is important to share with them. If you only had one sentence to get your core message across to your audience, what would it be?
The best stories and storytellers speak from experience. The real life experiences of you and your business give an emotional entryway for your customers. Express your experiences as a company in an honest and humble way. You want to emotionally connect with your audience to give your company a human feel that they might otherwise not get when shopping online.
You might also want to consider talking about how your company or product solves a common problem that you and your customers have. Walk them through the difficult parts of the problem you are collectively trying to solve and how your brand or product is the ultimate solution. This positions you as someone that is trying to help their customers rather than to simply turn a profit.
Make sure not to overwhelm your story with unnecessary details, keep it short and sweet and only provide the information that is going to be most relevant to what your target audience cares about.
For example, outdoor goods provider REI emotionally engages their customers on their About Us page by talking about their experience as coming together as a group of friends who liked to climb together – something a large portion of their target audience can relate to. They talk about the need for quality outdoor gear for these activities and how they stand behind making only the best products. They also appeal to their target audience by talking about the various outdoor conservation projects they support. When you read of all of this information together it is easy to imagine this very big brand having real people behind it.
REI tells their story while promoting their customer policies and talking about their conservation efforts in a few short and engaging paragraphs.
Include Visuals
It is a no brainer that images and visuals convert at a higher rate than text. 90% of all information that comes to the brain is visual, and sources suggest that visuals are processed 60,000x faster than text alone. Visuals are an efficient tool because they help people quickly process and understand information.
While you could certainly create your entire About Us page using nothing but text, it’s not ideal. Photos, infographics, illustrations, and videos will all help you enhance your About Us page. You might want to include product images, photos of your workspace, pictures of your team, and more.
Not all visuals will add to the power of telling your story, and not every visual will work in every context. Be sure only to add elements that increase the value of your story rather than adding elements to the page simply for the sake of doing so.
Be sure only to add elements that increase the value of your story rather than adding elements to the page simply for the sake of doing so. The context for your visuals is everything – only add visuals that fit in with the context of your story and can help serve as visual shortcuts. For example, if you talk about your unique workspace, then it would be appropriate to show a picture of the space. However, if you don’t make any mention of your workspace, it would seem out of place to have a picture of that space thrown in.
For example, Moz – a software company that makes products that assist people to perform Search Engine Optimization tasks – utilizes a timeline graphic to help tell their story. This is a great solution for them because they have had a long history with many key events that have shaped how their company has grown from the start until now.
Moz utilizes a clever timeline style infographic to help tell their story on their “About Us” page.
Reviews & Testimonials
Chances are if you’ve been running an e-commerce business then you know how important customer reviews and testimonials are. While it is important to have an area on your product pages for customers to review that product, you may also want to include reviews and testimonials for your business itself somewhere on your website. Your About Us page is a great place to include these sorts of user submitted quotes. Testimonials are basically a primary source on how awesome your business is – straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Testimonials are a great contribution to your story and can help you build trust with your customers and add to the overall narrative you are telling about your company.
Stay Up to Date
It’s important to keep all information on your website up to date, and your About Us page is no exception. If you have a customer that is interested in learning about your company they should never be getting information that is out of date or even contradicts your other marketing actions. Keeping your information up to date also serves your SEO efforts, with Google giving higher rankings to pages that are updated with new, relevant content. You might want to set a reminder to check that the information on your About Us page is up to date every few months or so.
Closing Thoughts
With these simple tips, you can create an About Us page that expresses how awesome your company is, and creates a connection with your customers. If you don’t have an About Us page yet, it’s crucial that you spend some time figuring out how to want to tell your story. Your About Us page is your chance to show your customers that they are buying from a human being that they can relate to and not a machine. When customers can connect with and trust your business, they are going to be more likely to convert.
Need help optimizing your About Us page? Customer Paradigm can help. Connect with us today and let us help you reach your e-commerce goals!
About Kelly Mason
Kelly is a Marketing Assistant at Customer Paradigm. She loves creating engaging and educational content and connecting with the community through social media. Outside of the office, she can be found eating her way through Colorado one brunch at a time and hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park.