The about page is one of the most visited pages on most small business websites. It’s where potential clients go when they’re genuinely considering hiring you and want to know who they’d actually be working with. It’s the page that has the most power to convert a curious visitor into someone who picks up the phone.
It’s also the page that almost everyone writes wrong.
Not because the information is inaccurate. Not because the writing is poor. But because most business about pages answer the question “tell me about yourself” when the person reading them is actually asking something completely different.
They’re not asking for your origin story. They’re asking: are you the right person to solve my problem? Do I trust you? Do I like how you think? Would working with you feel like working with someone who gets it?
Those questions require different answers than a professional biography. And the about page that closes the gap between who you are and whether someone feels confident enough to reach out is the one written with those questions in mind rather than the ones you assumed they were asking.
Here’s how to write it.
Why most about pages don’t work
The typical small business about page follows a predictable pattern. It starts with how the business was founded, usually a sentence or two about a passion or a gap in the market. Then it lists the owner’s credentials, degrees, certifications, years of experience. Then a mission statement about being committed to excellence or putting clients first. Then maybe a fun fact about the owner’s hobbies or family. Then a generic CTA at the bottom.
That page might be entirely true. It might even be well-written. But it’s organized entirely around the business owner’s story rather than around the reader’s experience of encountering it.
The reader who lands on your about page isn’t there to learn your history. They’re there to decide whether to trust you with something that matters to them. Every word on that page should be serving that decision, and a chronological professional biography serves it only incidentally, when it happens to surface something that feels relevant to the reader’s situation.
The about page that converts is oriented differently. It starts from the reader’s perspective, establishes the connection between your story and their situation, and builds toward the conclusion that you’re the right person for the specific kind of help they’re looking for. The information can be similar. The orientation is completely different.
The reframe that changes everything
Here’s the mental shift that makes writing a better about page significantly easier.
Instead of asking “what should I tell people about myself?”, ask “what does this specific person need to know about me to feel confident reaching out?”
Those are different questions and they produce different answers.
The potential client reading your about page doesn’t need your full professional history. They need to know:
- That you understand the kind of problem they’re dealing with
- That you have relevant experience or expertise to actually help
- That you’re a real human being they’d be comfortable working with
- That other people have trusted you and been glad they did
- That reaching out feels like a reasonable, low-risk next step
Every element of your about page should serve one of those five needs. Not every element has to serve all five. But if a paragraph doesn’t serve any of them, it’s probably there for your benefit rather than the reader’s, and that’s worth examining.
What to actually include and in what order
Open with the reader, not with yourself.
This is the single most impactful change most business owners can make to their about page and it requires the least amount of new information. Instead of opening with “I founded this company in 2019 after 10 years in the industry,” open with a description of the person you help and the situation they’re typically in when they find you.
Something like: “Most of the small business owners I work with are good at what they do and genuinely stuck on the marketing side of it. They’ve tried things. Some of it worked a little. Most of it didn’t compound into anything. And they’re tired of figuring it out themselves while trying to actually run a business.”
That opening doesn’t mention you at all. But the right reader reads it and feels immediately recognized, which creates a connection that no amount of credential-listing produces.
Transition from their situation to why you specifically.
Once you’ve established that you understand their situation, the natural question is: why you? This is where your background, experience, and approach come in, but framed around how they make you the right person for this specific kind of help rather than as a chronological career history.
Not “I have 15 years of experience in digital marketing.” But: “I came to digital marketing through cybersecurity and financial advising, which sounds like an unusual path until you realize both of those fields taught me the same thing: how to take genuinely complicated systems, understand every moving part, and explain what’s happening in language that actually makes sense to the person on the other side of the table. That’s exactly what I do with marketing.”
The credentials are still there. The experience is still communicated. But now it’s framed around what it means for the reader rather than around what it says about you.
Let your philosophy show.
The about page is the right place to share what you actually believe about the work you do, how you approach client relationships, and what matters most to you in how you operate. Not as a mission statement, but as a genuine expression of perspective.
This is what makes someone feel like they know how you think before they’ve met you, and that sense of pre-existing familiarity is one of the most powerful trust builders available on a website. People hire people whose values they recognize, not just people whose credentials they respect.
For a service business especially, the philosophy section of an about page often does more conversion work than the credentials section, because it answers the question “would I want to work with this person?” in a way that a list of qualifications never quite manages.
Add social proof in the right place.
Most about pages either have no social proof or have it buried at the very bottom after a long biography the reader may not have finished. The right placement is woven into the page at the moment it’s most useful: near the section where you describe your approach, or immediately before the CTA.
A specific quote from a client that speaks to the experience of working with you, not just the quality of the output, is the most powerful kind of social proof for an about page. Not “their work was excellent” but “they made me feel like my project actually mattered to them, not just as a deliverable but as something that was going to affect my business.”
That kind of specificity is what makes social proof feel real rather than manufactured.
End with a human moment.
The about page is the one place on your website where some genuine personal detail is not just acceptable but valuable. What you care about outside of work. What you love about the community you’re part of. Something that makes you feel like a real, three-dimensional human being rather than a professional profile.
This doesn’t have to be extensive. Two or three sentences at the end that give the reader a sense of who you are as a person rather than just as a service provider. It rounds out the picture in a way that makes reaching out feel less like contacting a business and more like reaching out to a person.
The about page formula in plain terms
Here’s the structure that works for most small service businesses, put as simply as possible:
- Open with them. Describe the person you help and the situation they’re in when they find you. Make them feel recognized before you say a word about yourself.
- Bridge to you. Explain why your background, experience, or approach makes you specifically the right person for this kind of help. Frame it around what it means for them, not what it says about you.
- Share your philosophy. Tell them what you actually believe about doing this work well. Let them see how you think. Give them a reason to feel like they already know you a little before they reach out.
- Add proof. One or two specific client quotes or results that speak to the experience of working with you, placed where they’ll do the most work rather than buried at the bottom.
- End human. A brief, genuine personal note that makes you feel like a real person they’d actually enjoy working with.
That structure, executed with specificity and genuine voice, produces an about page that does real conversion work rather than one that checks the “we have an about page” box without contributing meaningfully to whether someone decides to reach out.
The mistakes worth avoiding
Writing in third person when you don’t need to.
Third person, “Jane Smith is a marketing consultant with 10 years of experience,” creates distance between you and the reader at exactly the moment when you’re trying to build connection. First person, “I’ve been working with small businesses on their marketing for the past 10 years,” is warmer, more direct, and more consistent with how a real conversation would feel. Unless there’s a specific reason third person is appropriate for your brand, first person almost always serves a service business about page better.
Listing credentials without connecting them to the reader’s benefit.
A degree, a certification, a number of years of experience: these are meaningful but they’re not self-explanatory. “I have a master’s degree in cybersecurity” is a fact. “My background in cybersecurity taught me to think through every variable of a problem before proposing a solution, which is why my clients consistently say they feel like their situation was actually understood rather than just addressed” is a credential in context. The second version does work. The first just takes up space.
Using the same language as every other about page in your industry.
“Passionate about helping businesses succeed.” “Committed to delivering results.” “Client-focused approach.” These phrases appear on so many about pages in so many industries that they’ve become invisible. They don’t communicate anything specific about you because they could be said by anyone. The about page that stands out is the one that sounds like a specific person wrote it, with specific beliefs and a specific voice, not the one that checks all the professional-sounding boxes.
Burying the CTA or leaving it out entirely.
The about page is a high-intent page. The person who’s read all the way through it is genuinely considering reaching out. Make it easy. A clear, warm, low-pressure invitation to take the next step at the bottom of the page converts the consideration into action. Without it, the reader finishes the page with a positive impression and no clear path forward, which means a meaningful percentage of them simply close the tab.
Insider Tip from Gavin: The fastest way to know if your about page is working is to ask someone who doesn’t know your business to read it and then tell you, in their own words, who you help and why they’d choose you over someone else in your field. If they can answer both questions clearly after reading it, the page is working. If they can tell you what you’ve done but not who you’re specifically for or what makes you the right choice, the page is informing without converting. That gap is almost always fixed by being more specific about the reader’s situation and more direct about how your background connects to solving it.
A note on length
About pages don’t have a universal right length. They have a right length for your specific audience and the complexity of the trust decision your potential clients are making.
A therapist’s about page probably needs to be longer than a contractor’s, because the trust threshold for a therapeutic relationship is higher and the reader needs more information to feel confident making that kind of personal commitment. A local plumber’s about page probably needs to be shorter and more direct, because the primary decision is whether you seem competent and trustworthy for a relatively contained project.
The right length is the length that answers the five questions without padding. Long enough to build genuine connection and communicate the right things. Short enough that the reader actually finishes it. When in doubt, cut anything that’s there for your benefit rather than the reader’s and see if the page is still complete. It usually is.
At YAAL Consulting, every website we build starts with getting the copy right before we touch the design, and the about page is one of the places where that investment produces the most visible return. If your current about page isn’t doing the conversion work it should be doing, that’s one of the faster fixes available to a business that wants more leads from its existing website traffic.
Want to find out what your about page should actually say? Book a free consultation with YAAL Consulting and let’s take an honest look at it together.