An About Us page works when it answers three questions fast: who are you, can I trust you, and why should I pick you for this job. Lead with who you serve and where. Add the people, the proof and one clear next step. Keep the whole page to a few hundred words that sound like you talking. For a local business, the page also carries the details that tie your site to your Google Business Profile. We build hand-coded sites for Cincinnati businesses, and the About page is the page we most often see owners put off. It is also a page most visitors check before they call.
TL;DR
- Open with who you are, what you do and where you serve, in the first two paragraphs.
- Show real people, real photos and real proof (years, customer words, results) instead of adjectives like "quality" and "passion."
- Put your phone number, address and hours in plain text on the page, and end with one specific call to action.
- Aim for roughly 300 to 600 words of copy, in short paragraphs, written in first person.
- Name your name consistently: the same business name, address and phone number everywhere they appear online.
Table of Contents
- What an About Us page is actually for
- What to put on your About Us page
- How to write it so it sounds like you
- Make it work for local customers and local search
- Name the page, then give it a next step
- A short checklist before you publish
- What to put on your homepage versus your About page
- Where we come in
- Our perspective
- FAQ
- Sources
What an About Us page is actually for
Most owners treat the About page as a place to describe themselves. Visitors treat it as a checkpoint. Someone who has found your service page or a search result now wants to know who is behind it. Usability research from Nielsen Norman Group found that people peek at top-level pages like About for answers to foundational questions, and that making them work hard for an introduction reflects poorly on the organization.
That changes how you write it. The page is not a biography. It is a short, scannable argument that you are a real business, run by real people, who solve a specific problem for a specific kind of customer. The best About pages also do a second job: they move the visitor to the next step instead of leaving them at a dead end.
If you run a local service business, that visitor is usually comparing you with two or three other companies in the same city. The About page is where you win the comparison, because a national competitor cannot say they live down the street.
What to put on your About Us page
No single list is official, but the guides that rank agree on a core. Search Engine Land's guide names the most common sections: who you serve and what you do for them, your story and how you got started, your mission, your values, short bios of the team, and an explanation of your process. Salesforce's small business guide adds an elevator pitch and a timeline of when and why the business was founded.
Here is that core translated into a structure you can build on.
| Section | What it does | Example for a local business |
|---|---|---|
| Opening summary | Says who you are, what you do, where | "We are a family-run roofing company serving Hamilton County homeowners." |
| Your story | Explains why the business exists | The job, frustration or moment that led you to start |
| People | Puts faces to the name | Owner and key staff photos with two-line bios |
| How you work | Shows your process | Three or four steps from first call to finished job |
| Proof | Builds credibility | Years in business, review quotes, licenses, projects |
| Local roots | Ties you to the area | Neighborhoods served, local groups you support |
| Next step | Turns reading into action | A call button, a quote form, a phone number |
You do not need every row. A one-person business may only need the opening, the story, a photo and a next step. What you cannot skip is the opening and the next step, because those are the parts a skimming visitor actually reads.
Start with a summary, not a history
The Nielsen Norman Group advises writing brief summaries that emphasize a few impressive facts in a scannable format. Put that summary at the top. Three or four lines: what you do, who for, where, and one fact that sets you apart. Everything below it is optional depth for the visitor who wants more.
Tell the story the way you would tell a customer
You do not need a dramatic founding tale. Search Engine Land's guide says the brand story should cover how and why the business got started, along with the mission behind it. If your story is plain, tell it plainly: you worked for someone else for years, saw how customers were treated, and opened your own shop to do it differently. Specific beats grand. "We started because the last company that fixed my mother's furnace never called back" earns more trust than "We are passionate about service."
Show the people
Real photos of real people matter. A survey Metrobi reports on found that real photos of the team and premises were rated a trust-builder by 47% of respondents, and contact details in plain text were rated highest at 67%. Use your own photos: you on a job site, your crew at the shop, your storefront. Stock photos of smiling strangers do the opposite of what you want.
Give them proof, not adjectives
Customers skim past "quality" and "reliable." They stop at numbers, names and quotes. Good proof for a small business includes how long you have operated, the number of jobs or customers served, licenses and insurance you hold, a few review quotes in the customers' own words, and one or two before-and-after results. Practical Ecommerce makes a related point about verifiable claims such as years in business, awards and notable clients carrying more weight than aggressive marketing language.
How to write it so it sounds like you
The most common failure is corporate fog: "We are a full-service, results-driven provider of innovative solutions." Nobody talks that way, and nobody trusts it. Here is a process that avoids it.
- Write for one customer. Search Engine Journal advises knowing what your audience is struggling with, what they have already tried, and what their number one goal is. Picture the last good customer you had and write to them.
- Draft fast, without editing. Give yourself twenty minutes and write as if explaining the business to a friend. Cut and polish afterward, not during.
- Read it aloud. Delete anything you would never say in conversation. Replace "utilize" with "use," "solutions" with the actual thing you sell.
- Use "we" or "I." Third person ("Smith Plumbing was founded in...") reads as evasive on a small business site. First person reads like a handshake.
- Flip every claim into a fact. "We care about customers" becomes "We return every call the same day" (only if you do). If you cannot back a sentence with something specific, cut it.
- Ask someone who knows you. A friend, an employee or a regular customer can flag anything that sounds fake faster than you can.
On length, one widely repeated guideline is that 300 to 600 words of copy is enough, broken into paragraphs of two to four sentences with a subheading or two. It is a guideline, not a law, but it fits how people read these pages.
Ideas that make the page memorable
If your draft feels flat, try these:
- Use customers' words. Pull a line from a review that describes what you do better than you can. Bryan Eisenberg recommends using customers' actual words from reviews and testimonials.
- List 25 small facts. The same writer suggests a "25 Things About Us" exercise: quirks, mistakes, routines and beliefs. Most will not make the page, but two or three will be the best lines on it.
- Show a timeline. A family business with decades in its community can walk visitors through its history with milestones instead of just stating an "established" year.
- Share a belief you will not compromise on. One honest principle ("we will tell you when a repair is not worth it") does more than a values list of five abstract words.
- Show the early days. Buffer's guide suggests photos from the early days and behind the scenes to show the humans behind the company.
Make it work for local customers and local search
A national brand cannot claim a neighborhood. You can. Open the page by saying who you are, what you do and where you serve, then name the neighborhoods, towns or landmarks you actually work in. In greater Cincinnati, that might be Hyde Park, Mason, Covington or Anderson Township, whichever are true for you. Write them as ordinary sentences, not a keyword list.
Proof of roots helps too: how long you have been in the area, the youth team you sponsor, the charity cleanup you join each year. Say only what is true and specific. "Serving Cincinnati since 2012" carries more weight than "We care about quality."
The basics you should not bury
Local visitors often arrive on the About page to check that you are real and reachable. Put these in plain text on the page, not only in an image or the footer:
- Business name, street address (or service area if you work from home), phone number and email
- Business hours, including any seasonal or emergency availability
- A contact form or booking link as a second option
- Payment methods, licenses and insurance where relevant
Hours matter more than owners expect. Clover's small business guide lists operating information such as hours and payment options among the elements worth including. If you have a store or office, list hours as text so search engines and visitors can both read them, and keep them identical to your Google Business Profile. Our Google Business Profile management service exists partly because mismatched hours and addresses are so common.
About page SEO without the awkwardness
About pages are not usually where rankings are won, but they support everything else. Practical Ecommerce reports that generative AI platforms crawl About pages to judge whether a business is credible to cite, and that factual details can matter more than promotional claims. A few practical rules:
- Title tag. Replace a generic "About Us" with your business name plus what you do and where, for example "About Smith Roofing | Roofing Contractor in Cincinnati, OH." MorningScore suggests keeping title tags between 50 and 60 characters.
- One H1. Make the page headline a real H1 that says what the page is about, not just "About Us."
- Natural keywords. Mention your service and city in the first paragraph and where they fit. If you read it aloud and it sounds stuffed, rewrite it.
- Consistent details. Your name, address and phone number should match your Google Business Profile, contact page and directory listings. Our guide to local SEO citations explains why that consistency counts.
- Internal links. Link from the About page to your main service pages and your contact page, so the visitor who trusts you has somewhere to go. Our piece on service page SEO covers what those pages need.
- Speed and security. A slow or insecure page undercuts the trust you are building. In the Metrobi-reported survey, a secure HTTPS site was the second-highest trust factor at 51%. See our note on website speed and SEO.
For a small business, one About page is enough. A separate set of subpages for story, values, methods and news makes sense for large or multi-location organizations, not for a shop with a handful of employees.
For a wider view of why these signals matter, this piece on building trust online covers how visible people and proof shape credibility.
Name the page, then give it a next step
The page does not have to be called "About Us." "Our Story," "Meet the Team" or "Who We Are" can fit your voice better. Keep it in the main navigation and keep the URL simple, such as /about, so visitors and search engines find it immediately.
Then end it properly. Greg Shadik of LeadsNearby points out that forgetting to ask for the business risks losing it. Make the call to action specific and visible: "Call us at (513) 555-0100 for a free estimate" beats "Contact us" or "Submit." Liquid Web's guide gives a clear example of the principle: a specific, benefit-focused call to action beats a vague one.
Do not make visitors hunt for a way to reach you. LocaliQ reports that 44% of website visitors leave a site without a clear email, form or phone number. Put the phone number at the bottom of the About page and make it tappable on mobile.
A short checklist before you publish
- Does the first paragraph say who you are, what you do and where?
- Is there at least one real photo of a real person from your business?
- Is there one concrete proof point: years, numbers, a license or a customer quote?
- Are your address, phone number and hours in plain text, matching your Google Business Profile?
- Is it written in first person, in language you would say aloud?
- Does it end with one specific next step?
- Does the page load fast and display well on a phone?
What to put on your homepage versus your About page
The homepage is for the visitor with a need: what you do, who you do it for, proof and a way to act. The About page is for the visitor who is deciding whether to trust you with it. Do not copy the same paragraph into both. The homepage should lead with the customer's problem and your service, with a short trust strip (reviews, years, service area) and a link to About. Our guide on local on-page SEO checks walks through the page elements to fix first.
Where we come in
An About page only helps if the site around it is fast, mobile-friendly and easy to change. Our Website plan is $99 per month with no upfront development cost. Sites are hand-coded rather than built from themes or page builders, and the plan includes hosting, SSL, your domain, ongoing maintenance and unlimited content updates. That last part matters here: when you hire someone, win an award or move your hours, you can update the page instead of waiting on a change order.
If your current site needs a fresh start, our Website Redesign is $99 per month too. You can see the plans on our pricing page, or look at how we presented a local brand in the Cin City Moto case study. Our Google Review Automation plan is $99 per month, and it can feed your About page with the fresh customer quotes that make it believable.
Our perspective
We build websites for Cincinnati businesses, and the About page is where we see owners most tempted to hide. They write "we are committed to excellence" because it feels safe. It is also the sentence a visitor forgets in a second.
Our view is simple: an About page should read like the owner talking across the counter. Say what you do, say where, show your face, and give the visitor a phone number. Local businesses have a real advantage over national companies, and the About page is where that advantage is visible.
That is why we build sites by hand and include unlimited content updates in the monthly plan. A page that tells your story should never be expensive to change. When your team grows, your hours shift or a customer writes you a great review, the page should say so this week, not next quarter.
Yoshua
FAQ
How long should an About Us page be?
For most small businesses, 300 to 600 words of copy is a workable range, plus headings and team bios. Use short paragraphs of two to four sentences so a skimming visitor can get the point. Longer pages are fine if each section earns its place with a story, proof or a process.
Should I write my About page in first or third person?
First person ("we" or "I") is usually the better choice for a small business, because it sounds direct and personal. Third person can feel evasive, as if someone else wrote it. Pick one and stay consistent across the whole page.
Do I need an About page if I only have a few pages on my site?
Yes. Even a five-page site benefits from one, because it is where a first-time visitor checks that you are a real, reachable business. Keep it short: who you are, where you work, a photo, proof and a phone number.
Does the About page help SEO?
It supports it. A clear title tag, an H1 that names what you do and where, and details that match your Google Business Profile help search engines understand your business. Links to your service pages and contact page pass visitors on to the pages that earn the calls.
Should I include business hours on the About page?
If you have a location or fixed availability, yes. Put hours in plain text, not an image, and keep them identical to your Google Business Profile and contact page. Mismatched hours confuse customers and weaken the trust the page is meant to build.
Sources
- Great Summaries on About Us Pages Engage Users and Build Trust, Nielsen Norman Group
- How to write an effective About Us page, Search Engine Land
- Tell Your Story: 8 Tips for Your Small Business About Us Page, Salesforce
- About Us Page Examples That Build Trust With Local Customers, Metrobi
- About Pages Shape AI Visibility, Practical Ecommerce
- How to Write a Winning About Us Page, Search Engine Journal
- How to Write an About Us Page That Converts, SBO Tools
- How To Make Sure Your About Page Doesn't Suck, Bryan Eisenberg
- 6 About Us Page Examples for Creators and Small Businesses, Buffer
- How to write a great About Us page for your small business website, Clover
- About Us Page SEO, MorningScore
- How to build trust online: proven strategies for business success
- What Is The Purpose Of An About Us Page?, LeadsNearby
- How to Write a Killer About Us Page, Liquid Web
- 9 About Us Page Examples We Love, LocaliQ