How to Turn Dull About Us Pages into Persuasive Lead Generation Pages
Lead generation websites don’t always give About Us pages the attention they deserve. SEO and PPC campaigns tend to focus on product and service pages, but website visitors visit the About Us page for a very important reason: to help them decide whether the company in question is a reputable, competent and trustworthy business partner.
An About Us page can make or break a conversion, and should be written in a way that persuades visitors to call or submit a form as their very next step on the website.
How to Write an About Us Page
The No. 1 problem with About Us content: no audience segmentation.
About Us pages often contain information that is interesting to customers/prospects, vendors, investors, job candidates, community and journalists — but it’s all mixed together haphazardly (and usually too verbosely), making it difficult for each audience segment to zero-in on what they need. In my ideal world, an About Us page would conform to this structure:
- Elevator Speech — A clear, concise explanation of what the company does, and why customers should care.
- For Customers/Prospects — Cite relevant statistics, such as customer retention rate. Describe geographic area of service. Include a brief but hard-hitting testimonial.
- For Vendors — Cite relevant statistics, such as “we pay our bills 100 percent on time.” Briefly describe vendor selection and review processes.
- For Investors — Cite relevant financial statistics. Briefly review prior year/5-year performance. Provide brief executive bios or link to them.
- For Job Candidates — Describe the culture. Briefly summarize benefits.
- For Journalists — Walk through the company history, highlighting mergers, acquisitions, awards, patents owned, etc.
- For Community — Mention number of employees in each location, community service projects, causes supported, sustainability initiatives, etc.
A few additional points:
First, notice I used the word “briefly” a lot. “About Us” information is very important, but must be scannable and digestible. A more detailed page could be written to support each audience segment if so desired; I’m not sure customers would want to read tons of detail, but journalists and investors definitely will.
Second, customers and prospects may have more than a passing interest in information directed to journalists, investors, the community, etc. That’s fine: the information is there for them, but separated so they don’t have to wade through it if they don’t want to. This is a big UX plus.
Finally, some companies (such as ours) have a brief, customer-focused About Us page, with separate pages geared to other audiences. This is not a bad thing, especially for a lead generation website, but it does force other audiences to make additional clicks to find what they need. For some businesses, this may be a significant drawback.
Calls to Action on the About Us Page
The About Us page should have two prospect-oriented calls to action (CTAs), one for hot prospects, such as a form to request a consultation, and another for window shoppers, such as a PDF download.
Yet with a segmented audience structure, why stop there? Why not add a CTA for journalists, inviting them to schedule an interview with a top executive? How about adding a form for new vendor inquiries? Most important, what about adding a form for customer referrals? Considering all the audience types that visit the About Us page, a referral CTA placed here casts the widest net possible outside of the Home page.
How Is Your About Us Page Doing?
Taking a look at About Us page statistics provides clues as to whether a content overhaul is in order. A high bounce rate, lots of exits, and short time spent on the page indicate ineffective messaging. In addition, by looking at the pages visitors go to next, and tracking conversions from the About Us page, you will gain insight about the page’s conversion power.
