How to write an about page for a small business.

What an about page is for

A visitor who opens your about page is usually close to deciding. They have seen what you do and roughly what it costs, and now they want to know whether to trust you with their house, their dog, their back or their tax return. They are checking, not browsing.

Take a homeowner choosing between two electricians for a rewire. Both service pages look similar. One about page says "We are a family business with a passion for quality." The other says who the two electricians are, shows their faces, gives the licence number with a link to check it, names the towns they cover and says who answers the phone. The second one gets the call, and nothing about it needed a writer.

So write the page as a set of answers. The rest of this guide goes through the questions, a sample outline, the photos and three worked examples.

What visitors check, and how to answer each

Most visitors look for the same five things. Answer them in plain sentences:

• Who will I deal with? Give names, roles and photos of the people customers meet: who answers the phone, who comes to the house, who does the treatment. "You'll speak to Maria when you call, and Tom or Dev will do the work."
• Have you done this before? Say how long you have done this kind of work, and what that experience was. "Ten years as a hospital physiotherapist before opening the clinic" tells a patient more than "years of experience".
• Are you qualified, registered and insured? Name each licence, registration and membership your trade expects, give the number where there is one and link to the public register where customers can check it. Say what you are insured for.
• Where are you, and do you cover my area? Give the town and the areas you work in, and whether customers come to you or you go to them.
• How do you work? One or two lines on what happens when someone gets in touch, or at a first appointment.

If you cannot answer one of these well yet, such as experience for a new business, answer it honestly. "We opened in March. Before that, Anna spent eight years at a salon in the city centre" is a fine answer.

A sample about page outline

For most small businesses the page works in this order. Use the parts that apply and drop the rest:

• One line on who you are, what you do and where: "A two-chair dog grooming salon in Leith, run by Kirsty and Jo."
• The people: a photo, a name, a role and one line each on what they do for customers.
• How you work: what happens from the first message to the finished job.
• Qualifications, registrations, insurance and memberships, with numbers and links to check them.
• Where you work: the area you cover, or the address with parking and access.
• A short story: why you started, or why you work the way you do, in a few lines.
• A link to your reviews and to photos of your work.
• The same contact button and phone number as every other page.

Keep it on one page. A separate page for each team member is worth it only when customers choose a person, as they do at a clinic with several practitioners or a salon where clients book a stylist. Then each profile should say what that person treats or does best, and link to booking with them.

Your story, in a few lines

Many about pages open with a founding date and a passion. Visitors skip it, because every business has a passion and the date on its own means nothing.

A story earns its place when it tells the customer something useful. Compare these two openings for a dog groomer:

• "Founded in 2015, Paws and Claws is driven by a passion for pets and a commitment to excellence."
• "Kirsty worked at a rescue centre for ten years before she opened the salon, which is why we take nervous dogs. They get a quiet room, a longer appointment and no other dogs in the salon at the same time."

The second is no longer than the first, and the owner of a nervous dog now knows this is the place to book. Look for the detail in your own story that changes how you work: why you only do kitchens, why you see every patient yourself, why you open early on Saturdays.

If you work alone, write "I". Customers who expect a company and meet one person can feel misled, and many choose a sole trader precisely because they deal with the same person every time. Say so: "I'm the only person who will see your books."

Show the people customers will meet

Put the people customers deal with first, and give each one a line that matters to the customer rather than a job title alone. "Leah runs the office: she answers the phone, books every job and sends the quotes" tells a caller who they will be speaking to.

For a larger team, group people by what they do for the customer: the people who answer, the people who do the work, the people who send the bills. A personal line is welcome if the person wants it, such as the dog that comes to the office, but keep it short and let them choose it.

Keep the page current. When someone joins, add them in their first weeks. When someone leaves, take their photo and name down the same week, from the about page, the service pages and anywhere else they appear. A customer who asks for someone who left a year ago wonders what else on the site is out of date.

Team photos that look like your business

Photos of the real people in the real place do more than any sentence on the page. They do not need a studio:

• Take them where customers meet you: the salon chair, the van, the treatment room, the front desk.
• Use daylight from a window or the open door, and switch off overhead lights that tint skin.
• Shoot everyone in the same spot with the same framing, so the set looks planned.
• Show people at work where you can: holding the tools, with a client's permission, or at the reception desk.
• Take several of each person and let them choose the one that goes up.

Avoid stock photos of smiling strangers in an office. Visitors recognise them, and on an about page of all places they suggest the real team is hiding.

Give each photo a short text description with the name and role, such as "Leah Ortiz, office manager", so a screen reader can describe it. Resize the photos to the size they show at, so the page stays quick on a phone.

Ask before you publish anyone's photo

A photo with a name next to it is personal information, so ask first, every time:

• Ask each person in writing, and say where the photo will appear: the about page, the service pages, social media or ads.
• Make it a real choice. Offer a name without a photo, or a photo without a surname, for anyone who prefers it.
• Say what happens when they leave: the photo comes down, and it stops being used in new posts.
• Keep their answer with their staff record, so you can show what they agreed to.
• Never publish a child's photo without a parent's written permission, and think twice even then.

In Europe, data protection rules apply to staff photos. The UK's data protection regulator, the ICO, says consent is not usually the right legal basis where there is a clear imbalance of power, and names employers as the example, because staff may not feel free to say no. So employers often rely on another basis, such as legitimate interests, and still ask, explain and let staff opt out, as the list above does. Which basis fits your business is a question for your adviser. In the US, a signed permission is the usual practice, and some states have their own rules on using a person's likeness in advertising.

Photos of customers need the same care: a client in the salon chair or a family in a finished kitchen should agree before they appear. And if a photographer took the pictures, check that your licence covers the website. Which images you can use on your website explains who owns a photo.

Three short examples by trade

These are sketches to adapt, with your own details in the brackets. Each answers the checks above in under 150 words.

A two-person electrical firm:

• "Brightline Electrical is Sam and Leah Ortiz. Sam has been an electrician since [year] and holds licence number [number], which you can check on the [licensing board] website. Leah runs the office. She answers the phone, books every job and sends every quote, usually the same day. We work across [towns], we are insured for [cover], and every job gets a written certificate when the work needs one. We are a small firm on purpose: the electrician who comes to price the job is the one who does it."

A physiotherapy clinic with three physios:

• "[Clinic name] has three physiotherapists and Amira on reception. Each physio is registered with [regulator], and their numbers are below so you can check them. You see the same physio from your first appointment to your last, and the first appointment includes an assessment, treatment and exercises to take home. Amira can tell you who has availability this week and whether your insurer needs a referral." Then a short profile for each physio: what they treat most and where they trained.

A solo bookkeeper:

• "I'm Priya, and I'm the only person who will see your books. I've been a bookkeeper since [year] and I'm a member of [professional body]. I work with sole traders and small companies in [area], mostly cafes and shops. I use [software], and I can take over from your current bookkeeper at any point in the year."

For what customers in each of these trades ask before they get in touch, see home services and trades, physiotherapy clinics and accountants and bookkeepers.

The company details some countries require

Some of what belongs near an about page is required by law where you trade. Two examples from Europe:

• In the UK, GOV.UK says a limited company must show on its website its registered number, its registered office address, where it is registered, and that it is a limited company.
• In Germany, section 5 of the Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz (DDG) requires business websites to show who runs them, in what Germans call the Impressum: the name and address, a way to make quick contact including an email address, and register and VAT numbers where the business has them, plus more for licensed and regulated professions.

Rules differ by country and by the kind of business, and regulated trades such as law, accounting and health often have their own. Ask your adviser what applies to you. Then put those details where people can find them, such as the footer of every page or a legal notice page linked from it, and keep the about page for the people.

Mistakes that make an about page useless

• A mission statement in place of names and faces.
• "We" and "our team" on a page about one person.
• Stock photos of a team that does not exist.
• People who left still on the page, and new staff missing.
• "Fully qualified" with no qualification named, and no way to check it.
• Awards, memberships or years in business you cannot back up.
• The company history in full, while the area you cover goes unmentioned.
• No phone number or button, so the most convinced visitor of the day has to go back to the home page to get in touch.

Use the same facts beyond the about page

The about page is not the only place people check you. The same facts should appear, in the same words, wherever customers look:

• Service pages: "Your treatment is with one of our three physios" or "Sam does every rewire himself", near the button.
• The contact page: who answers, and when.
• Your Google Business Profile: photos of the team and the premises, and the same business name, address and phone number as the site.
• Booking confirmations: the name of the person they will see.
• Quotes and emails: a short signature with a name and role, rather than "The team".

If you are rebuilding the site, plan the people and the photos at the start rather than after launch. On a site we build, the websites process starts with the words, and the photos of your real team and premises are on the list of what we ask for.

How to write it in an hour

You do not need to be a writer. Work through it in this order:

• Write one rough line in answer to each of the five checks above. Bullet points are fine.
• Add names and roles for everyone customers meet, and the numbers and links for each licence or registration.
• Pick one detail from your story that changes how you work, and write it in two or three sentences.
• Read the whole thing aloud and cut every line that could appear on a competitor's page unchanged.
• Ask a regular customer to read it and tell you what is missing.

If writing is the part you dread, talk it through instead. Record yourself answering the five checks on your phone and type up what you said, or have someone write it from a call and send it back for you to correct. How to write the words for your website goes through that method for the rest of the site.