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You’re About Us page is one of the most important pages on your business website. After your homepage, it’s often the first webpage a potential customer visits when deciding whether or not to do business with you. The About Us page is your opportunity to establish your credibility and build trust with new customers.
A well-crafted About Us page lets your company’s personality shine through. It allows visitors to identify with your mission, vision, backstory, and expertise. You’re About Us page gives customers confidence that they did the right thing by selecting your product or engaging your services.
Even though most About Us pages can be relatively short, writing effective copy and including engaging graphic design elements may take time and talent. This article explores important About Us page elements, some best practices, and About Us page examples.
8 elements of an effective About Us page
While every About Us page is different, the ones that resonate with readers usually include elements of content marketing that connect them to the brand on a personal level. If executed well, the About Us page is where tight copywriting, graphics, and page design come together to promote who you are, what you do, and why you do it.
When constructing you’re About Us page, try to focus on the following:
1. An engaging headline
Your headline lets readers know the content that follows is worth reading. Clearly and concisely, you’re About Us headline should convey the top attributes of your company and its story to your target audience. Your headline provides an important branding opportunity, so include one or two of your company’s top accomplishments and/or unique qualities in your headline.
2. Your company’s story and vision
Your company’s story conveys its history, values, and vision. Through your story, you show customers that you’re credible and worthy of their trust. A story that’s compelling and memorable goes a long way in establishing rapport with customers. Your story should invite readers to become emotionally invested in your brand.
For example, is your business eco-conscious, veteran-owned, family-oriented, innovative, and/or best-in-class? Did your founders come from humble beginnings, or do they boast impressive relationships with well-regarded captains of industry? Does your product support developing economies or contribute to a more just and compassionate world? Your About Us page is where you should make this information known.
While there are as many ways to tell a story as there are stories to tell, some best practices to consider when crafting the story for your About Us page include:
- Be authentic. You have just one opportunity to make the right first impression. Consumers can spot someone who is puffing up their importance or embellishing their background. Being real is way more attractive than overstating anything.
- Find the meaning. Create a connection between your story and what your reader needs or wants to hear. Put your experiences in a context that will matter to them. They should walk away knowing what your brand stands for.
- Keep it personal. Your company story should focus on your journey. There are other places (see below) to add third-party accolades and links to additional information. Pepper your prose with appropriate details about why you made certain choices.
- Be emotional. Don’t be afraid to wear your heart on your sleeve. Branding is all about creating an emotional connection between your business and the consumer.
- Keep it simple. You don’t have to fill in every detail about your enterprise or life. Remember that the goal is to make a lasting connection. Highlight the information that will most resonate with your readers and convey your value proposition. If your company has a long and complicated history that must be told, use an infographic or another visual device to keep the reader’s eyes moving and mind engaged.
3. Navigation to other important pages
The About Us page allows you to gently point your readers to other pages of your website that highlight your competencies and support your brand. The pages to link to include:
- Our team: By linking to your team page, you invite readers to meet the humans who power your enterprise and make the magic that is your brand. If you have a particularly interesting or prestigious board, you could also add a link to a Board of Directors page.
- Careers: Job seekers often land on an About Us page when doing their due diligence. Make it easy for them to find your open positions by adding a link to your careers page.
- Press: Provide a link to your Press or In the News page to highlight your brand’s prominence or your principals’ reputations as thought leaders.
- Contact us: The point of your About Us page is to win over customers. Now that you’ve succeeded with your great content, make it easy for them to take the next step toward closer engagement by providing a link to your Contact Us page.
4. Testimonials or awards
Testimonials, awards, and reviews can help showcase your reputation and engender confidence in your trustworthiness and abilities in potential customers. Depending on how your page is designed, you can include a link to these accolades or highlight them directly as a callout on the page. Many companies call out one or two great testimonials or awards and then link to a page with the rest.
You may want to feature the awarding organization’s banner or sticker on your page and/or a recognizable company logo (with permission) from a particularly prestigious reviewer or testimonial.
5. Strong visuals
It’s important to keep your reader on your About Us page long enough to soak up the information about you and your brand, and that means keeping them interested. Too much text on an About Us page is off-putting and, frankly, boring.
You may want to break up your text into chunks, using callouts and bulleted lists where appropriate. As with all things website-related, white space is your friend. Break up that text further using strong visual tools like photographs, embedded videos, infographics, and interactive graphics.
If you can, stay away from stock photos. If you don’t have the in-house talent to produce great graphics for your website, you can always turn to Upwork to find the right independent graphic designer to bring you About Us page to life. Our Project Catalog™ also offers predefined projects for your most pressing work.
6. Links to your social media accounts
You may want to include links to your business’s social media accounts—such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram—on your About Us page. Even though you’ll probably link to these accounts in your footer (see below), it’s a good idea to highlight links to any social media that you’re particularly active on.
7. Comprehensive footer
Your footer—the space located at the bottom of the page—is often overlooked in website design. It shouldn’t be. A well-constructed footer improves a website’s overall navigability. Visitors scroll to footers to search for links to pages they’re interested in. Typically, you’re About Us page footer will contain, at a minimum:
- Your copyright notice
- A link to your privacy policy
- Your company address
- Your sitemap
- Social media icons and links
8. A call to action
The About Us page is different from other pages on your website in that the call to action (CTA) is typically not a direct pitch to purchase a product or engage your services. Instead, the CTA on the About Us page centers around learning more about the company and/or joining an email list for updates or a newsletter to stay abreast of certain topics. Be sure to provide the appropriate links to your contact page or your email signup form.
18 About Us page examples you can learn from
The internet is full of websites that have done a good job presenting effective and engaging About Us pages. You’ll find 18 impressive examples below, beginning with an analysis of Upwork’s About Us page.
The Upwork About Us page
The Upwork About Us page incorporates many of the elements and best practices discussed in this article.
The headline, “The world’s work marketplace” is a simple yet powerful branding statement that conveys the site’s purpose. A message from President and CEO Hayden Brown conveys the company’s mission while personalizing the message, as she tells readers how Upwork has impacted her own life.
Scroll down, and you’ll see the rest of Brown’s message sharing how Upwork can impact both talent and clients. The text is informative and inspiring, emphasizing how Upwork helps both independent professionals and businesses meet their respective goals in a mutually beneficial way.
The message is broken up into chunks with plenty of white space so that each point pops.
Scroll down a bit more, and you are invited to click one of two green buttons to “Start your journey” with Upwork. You can either Find Talent or Find Work.
The page is anchored by Upwork’s comprehensive footer, allowing the visitor to easily navigate the site and engage with the company on social media.
Moz
Moz draws you in right away with its expertise (SEO) and mission (make SEO simple). A declarative sentence followed by one simple paragraph tells you everything you need to know about this company’s search engine optimization (SEO) chops.
You would expect Twitter to know how to deliver a clever message in as few characters as possible, and this headline doesn’t disappoint. The opening section of its About Us page is a simple statement about what Twitter delivers: real-time communications on late-breaking happenings.
Start scrolling, though, and a graphic of a tweet from Twitter pops up, a surprising and effective way to demonstrate the power of a tweet while connecting with users who can relate to not wanting to step out of the Twitter loop, even when it’s time to go to bed. The social media giant cleverly takes tell-me (words) messaging and combines them with show-me (interactive graphics) marketing techniques.
Nike
Nike’s About Us page opens with a video on a continuous loop showing all types of athletes doing what athletes do (in Nike gear, of course). Its asterisked message, “*If you have a body, you are an athlete,” sets the stage for the ensuing pages that cover how Nike infuses its core values into worldwide operations. Of course, the iconic Nike swoosh logo appears in the upper-left corner, a subtle yet effective piece of branding.
BMW
BMW’s company page manages to present some pretty impressive figures about its sales and operations in an engaging way. The infographic appears static at first, but then the figures start scrolling—an eye-catching way of drawing attention to what could be boring statistics. The continuous movement on the page keeps the visitor’s interest while conveying impressive metrics.
LG
LG includes a timeline on its company page, walking visitors through a quick overview of six years of innovation. Plenty of white space, some color contrast to break up the text, and a color photograph featuring LG products keep the page interesting.
Yellow Leaf Hammocks
Yellow Leaf Hammocks manages to describe its products, explain its history, and relay its mission in a way that compels visitors to connect emotionally with the company. The individual lounging in the hammock is relatable, while the family photo featuring one of the Thai craftswomen who make the hammocks invite visitors (and potential customers) to think of the positive impact their purchase has on families in developing economies.
Lonely Planet
The simplicity of Lonely Planet’s directive to “Just go” is very effective in communicating the company’s core message. The short paragraph that follows packs a lot of punch, building credibility and an emotional connection with travelers. In just two sentences, the reader learns how and why the company was started, the benefits of using Lonely Planet products, and a description of what the company offers.
Facebook’s About Us page is another example of lending engaging graphic design to messaging to evoke an emotional connection. The message of community is found in the choice of photos, the headline text, and the metrics provided. The sky-blue background subtly fades right, drawing the reader’s eye from the carefully chosen photos representing Facebook personas to the numbers supporting the message of philanthropy and community.
Mattress Firm
Mattress Firm wants to sell you a mattress and their About Us page unabashedly tells you so. They make great use of branding—featuring a photo of their familiar storefront with the logo—while emphasizing personalized service and offering multiple ways to engage with their sales team. You can “Meet The MattressMatcher” or chat live with an expert. The About Us takeaway is that Mattress Firm is not just a mattress store; it’s your mattress store. All this is conveyed with a few graphic elements and two short sentences on a clean white background.
GIPHY
Of course, the best way to experience GIPHY’s About Us page is to visit it online so that you don’t miss out on the animation. The visuals supporting the headline, “GIPHY is the platform that animates your world,” draw the reader in. The short paragraph underneath informs readers of the breadth of GIPHY’s offerings and the depth of its market penetration.
Mailchimp
Mailchimp devotes a lot of its About Us page real estate to its founder story, providing a prominent link to the founders’ profiles page. With parents who ran an at-home hair salon and bakery, the details of the founders’ backgrounds will strike a chord with the small business owners they count as their target market.
Ford
Ford reminds us that even though the company has been around for 117 years, it keeps innovating. The message comes over loud and clear, both through a short explanatory paragraph and a photo of a young couple on a modern, metallic blue truck.
Adidas
The Adidas company profile page is simple and powerful. Making great use of white space, the company covers its history and global footprint, purpose, mission, and attitude/worldview in a few short and easy-to-digest paragraphs.
Microsoft
Microsoft hits all the best About Us page elements without overwhelming the reader or crowding the page. Its mission statement is followed by links to an overview of the company, a “Meet Our People” page, a page extolling the company’s values and good works, and a Contact Us link. Scroll down to the below-the-fold real estate, and you’re taken to featured programs and projects where the company offers more links to information about how it applies its values and innovation. The footer at the bottom of the page is comprehensive and organized for easy navigation.
National Geographic
National Geographic opens it’s About Us page with an underwater photograph followed by a video showcasing the 130-year-old brand’s recognizable yellow border. The video explains that the yellow border is a portal to the wonders of the world that Nat Geo brings to its audience through various media assets. The video manages to share the gist of the organization’s who, what, when, where, and why in 45 seconds of beautiful images and informative narrative. The use of imagery and video doesn’t get any better than that.
General Electric
General Electric (GE) expresses its mission, “Building a world that works,” with a simple statement and a compelling photograph. Click any of the menu items at the top of the page and you get an expansion of how this mission informs that aspect of the company. For the About Us page, GE explains how its mission fuels the company’s technology, global network, and exceptional team. That’s brand messaging at its best.
Chipotle
Chipotle’s spin on the About Us page is to convert it into an Our Values page. You get a dancing script introducing the company’s value statement, “We believe that food has the power to change the world,” followed by photographs emphasizing products, ingredients, and people and even more dancing letters, words, and videos. The message of fresh, organic ingredients sourced locally comes out in stages of entertaining design. The Our Values page on Chipotle’s website doesn’t make you see, smell, and taste its fresh ingredients; it just makes you think you can.
Make the most of your About Us page
Not every element of an About Us page covered in this article or used in these examples will be right for you. The design and content that best promotes your brand and conveys your message will be unique to your company and your content marketing strategy.
You can hire experienced copywriters, graphic designers, video producers, photographers, website designers, and branding experts to help you reach your vision but, ultimately, the story you’re telling is about the business you envisioned, formed, and nurtured. How you express that to your readers will be up to you.
