Posted by AnnSmarty
Somehow, many businesses I’ve come across online have one glaring problem in common: a very weak and unconvincing About Us page.
This doesn’t make any sense in my mind, as the About page is one of the most important brand assets, and unlike link building and social media marketing, it doesn’t require any ongoing effort or investment.
An About page is often part of a buying journey. It can drive people to your site and help convince them to deal with you. And, in these uncertain times, you can use it to help build trust in you and your business.
Creating a solid About page is a one-time task, but it will boost both brand loyalty and conversions for many months to come.
Why is your About page so important?
It is often an entry page
Whether you’re a business owner or blogger, your About page tends to rank incredibly well for brand-driven search queries (those that contain your name or your brand name). If nothing else, it shows up in your sitelinks:
Or your mini-sitelinks:
This means your customers will often enter your site through your About page. Is it making a good first impression to convince them to browse your site further (or engage)?
Let’s not forget that branded queries have high intent, because people typing your brand name in the search box already know you or have heard about your products. Failing to meet their needs equals a missed opportunity.
It is often a conversion trigger (and more)
How often have you checked a business’s About page before buying anything from them? I always do, especially if it’s a new brand I haven’t heard of before.
Or maybe it’s not even about buying.
Anytime someone approaches me with a quote or an interview request, I always check their About page. I refuse to deal with bloggers who don’t take themselves seriously.
Likewise, I often look to the About page when trying to find a press contact to feature a tool in my article.
On a personal level, I always open an About page to find a brand’s social media profiles when I want to follow them.
A lack of a detailed, well-structured About page often means leaked conversions as well as missed backlinks or follows.
It is an important entity optimization asset
We don’t know exactly how Google decides whether a site can be considered a brand, but we have well-educated theories so we can help Google in making this decision. The About page is a perfect entity optimization asset.
First, what we know: An About page is mentioned in Google’s human rating guidelines as one of the ways to determine the “expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness”, or E-A-T, of any page.
Human raters don’t have a direct impact on search results, but their assessments are used to teach Google’s algorithm to better rank pages. So if the About page comes up in their guidelines, it’s likely they use it as a ranking signal.
Second, Google is using information you choose to put on your About page to put your business inside their knowledge base, so it’s important to include as much detail as you can.
With all of this in mind, how should you put together a great About page?
1. Start strong
This step is not unique to this particular page, but that doesn’t make it any less important.
Treat your About page as a business card: People should be willing to learn more as soon as they see it. Your page should be eye-catching and memorable, and grab attention at first sight without the need to scroll down.
For example, Cisco starts with a powerful picture and message:
Nextiva starts with their main tagline:
Slack tells us exactly what they are doing and sums up its most impressive stats:
Telling your brand’s story is a great way to make your About page more memorable and relatable. Terminus does a very good job at starting their page with some history about the company that leaves you wanting to know more:
And Zoom starts with a video and a list of the company’s values:
Starting your page with a quick, attention-grabbing video is probably the best idea because video has been proven to convince visitors to linger a little bit longer and start engaging with the page.
You can create a short and professional video within minutes using web-based video editors like InVideo (in fact, InVideo is probably the most affordable solution I’m aware of).
To create a video intro using InVideo:
- Pick a template
- Upload your images and videos (or use the ones inside the platform)
- Edit subtitles to tell your brand’s story
- Add music or a voiceover
It’ll take you just 30 minutes to create a captivating video to put on your landing page:
2. Link your brand to other entities
With all that Google-fueled nonsense going around about nofollowing external links, or even linking out in general, marketers and bloggers tend to forget about one important thing: A link is the only way for Google to crawl the web.
More than that, Google needs links to:
- Understand how well-cited (and hence authoritative) any page is
- Create a map of sites, entities behind them, and concepts they represent
This is where linking out to other “entities” (e.g. brands, organizations, places, etc.) is so important: it helps Google identify your place within their own knowledge base.
To give you some ideas, make sure to link to:
- Your company’s professional awards
- Your featured mentions
- Conferences you were/are speaking at
For personal blogs, feel free to include references to your education, past companies you worked for, etc.
To give you a quick example of how useful this may turn out to be, here’s my own Google Knowledge Graph:
How did I get it?
To start, “Shorty Awards” is Google’s recognized entity. When I was nominated, I linked to that announcement from my blog, so Google connected me to the entity and generated a branded Knowledge Graph.
This nomination is hardly my only — or even most notable — accomplishment, but that’s all Google needed to put me on the map.
Google may know you exist, but without making a connection to a known entity, you can’t become one yourself. So start by making those associations using your About page.
To help Google even more, use semantic analysis to create copy containing related concepts and entities:
- Register at Text Optimizer and type in your core keyword (something that describes your business model/niche in the best possible way)
- Choose Google and then “New Text”
Text Optimizer will run your query in Google, grab search snippets, and apply semantic analysis to generate the list of related concepts and entities you should try and include in your content. This will make it easier for Google to understand what your business is about and what kinds of associations it should be building:
Using some structured markup is also a good idea to help Google connect all the dots. You can point Google to your organization’s details (date it was founded, founder’s name, type of company, etc.) as well as some more details including official social media channels, awards, associated books, and more.
Here are a few useful Schema generators to create your code:
For Wordpress users, here are a few plugins to help with Schema integration.
3. Include your CTA
Most About pages I’ve had to deal with so far have one issue in common: It’s unclear what users are supposed to do once they land there.
Given the page role in the buying journey (customers may be entering your site through it or using it as a final research touchpoint), it is very important to help them proceed down your conversion channel.
Depending on the nature of your business, include a CTA to:
- Request a personal demo
- Contact you
- Check out your catalogue
- Talk to your chatbot
- Opt-in to receive your downloadable brochure or newsletter
Apart from your CTAs, there are helpful ways to make your About page easier to navigate from. These include:
- Breadcrumb navigation
- “Skip” navigation links (which are essential for accessibility, too)
Whatever you do, start treating your About page as a commercial landing page, not just a resource for information about your business. Turn it into a conversion funnel, and this includes monitoring that funnel.
On Wordpress, you can set up each link or button on your About page as an event to track using Finteza’s plugin. This way, you’ll be able to tell which of those CTAs bring in more customers and which are leaking conversions.
Finteza allows you to keep a close eye on your conversion funnel and analyze its performance based on traffic source, user location, and more.
For example, here’s us tracking all kinds of “Free Download” buttons. It’s obvious that the home page has many more entries, but the About page seems to do a better job at getting its visitors to convert:
[I am using arrows to show “leaked” clicks. The home page us obviously losing more clicks than the “About” page]
You can absolutely use Google Analytics to analyze your conversion funnel and user journeys once they land on your About page, but it will require some setup. For help, read about Google Analytics Attribution and Google Analytics Custom Dimensions — both resources are helpful in uncovering more insights with Google Analytics, beyond what you would normally monitor.
Like any other top- and middle-of-the-funnel pages, you’re welcome to reinforce your CTA by using social proof (recent reviews, testimonials, featured case studies, etc.). Here are a few ideas for placing testimonials.
Takeaways
Creating and optimizing your About page is a fairly low-effort initiative, especially if you compare it with other marketing tasks. Yet it can bring about several positive changes, like more trust in your brand and better conversion rates.
You should treat this page as a business card: It needs to create a very good impression in an instant. Put something attention-grabbing and engaging in the above-the-fold area — for example, a quick video intro, a tagline, or a photo.
Consider using links, semantic analysis, and structured markups to help Google associate your brand with other niche entities, and put it into its knowledge base.
Add CTAs (and experiment with different kinds of CTAs) to prompt your page visitors to follow your conversion funnel. An About page is often an underestimated, yet a very important part of your customers’ buying journeys, so make sure it’s clear where you want them to proceed.
Thanks for reading, hope it was helpful, let me know your thoughts/questions in the comments. Let’s discuss!
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Three Steps to a Better-Performing About Page published first on http://goproski.com/
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