How to Write an About Page for a Small Business

The about page is one of the most visited pages on almost every small business website, and one of the worst written. Visitors go there for a specific reason — to decide whether they can trust you before they call — and most about pages answer with a wall of corporate filler that reassures nobody. Written well, it is one of your best sales tools. Written the usual way, it is a page that says "committed to excellence" and convinces no one of anything.

Here is how to write one that actually does its job, even if you are not a writer.

Understand why people are really there

Nobody reads an about page to admire your journey. They read it to reassure themselves. A prospective customer is about to let you into their home, handle their money, or fix something they depend on, and they want to know: are these real, competent people, and are they the kind I want to deal with? Every choice you make on the page should serve that question. The about page is not about you; it is about whether the reader can trust you.

A structure that works

You do not need to be a writer to follow a shape. This one works for almost any small business:

• Open with what you do and who for. Not your founding story — the plain fact of what the business is. "We are a family-run electrical contractor serving North Dallas homeowners." The reader confirms they are in the right place.
• Establish credibility. How long you have done this, your qualifications, licenses, the number of jobs or clients. Concrete facts that answer "are they competent."
• Introduce the people. Who runs it, who they will deal with. Real names and real photos. People trust people, not logos.
• Say what you care about getting right. Your actual standards — showing up on time, cleaning up, straight pricing. What makes you different in practice, not in adjectives.
• Point to the next step. End with an invitation to get in touch, so a reader you have just convinced does not have to go hunting.

Be specific, always

Specificity is the whole game. "Committed to quality and customer satisfaction" is a sentence every business on earth could write, which is exactly why it persuades no one. "Family-run since 2009, three licensed technicians, and we do not leave until the site is cleaner than we found it" tells the reader something real. The more concrete the detail, the more believable the page, because specifics are things a bluffer cannot easily fake.

Whenever you write a general claim, stop and ask what the specific version is. "We have lots of experience" becomes "fourteen years and roughly four thousand installs." "Great customer service" becomes "we answer the phone, and if we cannot, we call back the same day." Trade every adjective you can for a fact.

Trust is built with specifics. Anyone can claim excellence; only a real business can tell you it employs three licensed technicians.

Use real photos of real people

The single fastest way to build trust on an about page is a genuine photo of the actual people behind the business — you, your team, your van, your workshop. Stock photos of strangers in a boardroom do the opposite: they signal that you are hiding, or that there is no real "you" to show. The photo does not have to be studio-perfect. It has to be real. A slightly imperfect photo of the actual owner beats a flawless stock image every time.

Phrases to delete

Some phrases are pure filler and should be cut on sight, because they take up space while saying nothing:

• "Committed to excellence" / "dedicated to quality"
• "Solutions tailored to your needs"
• "Passionate about customer satisfaction"
• "We go above and beyond"
• "Welcome to our website"

None of these tells the reader anything they can act on. Every one can be replaced with a specific fact, and the page gets stronger for the swap. If you removed a sentence and no customer would ever notice, it was not earning its place.

Keep it human, and keep it honest

Write the way you would talk to a customer standing in front of you. Formal, stiff language creates distance exactly where you want warmth. It is fine — good, even — to sound like a real person rather than a press release. And do not inflate: claiming a team of fifty when you are three, or awards you did not win, is the fastest way to lose the trust the page exists to build. A small business that is honestly small, run by people who clearly know their trade, is far more appealing than one pretending to be something bigger.

The about page sits alongside the other core pages every site needs — it works best when the rest of the site is just as specific and just as human. And if the writing itself is the sticking point, the same plain-language method applies to every page, not just this one.

A simple way to start when you are stuck

If the blank page is defeating you, do not try to write. Talk instead. Imagine a customer standing in front of you asking, "So who are you, and why should I trust you with this?" — and answer out loud, in the plain words you would actually use. Record it on your phone or just jot the answers down. That raw, spoken version is almost always warmer and more convincing than anything you would type trying to sound professional.

Then tidy it lightly: fix the grammar, cut the rambling, keep the specifics and the human tone. Do not polish the life out of it. The goal is not a page that sounds like a brochure; it is a page that sounds like the competent, honest person a customer is hoping to hire. Most owners already know exactly what to say about their own business — the trouble is only that they try to write it in a voice that is not theirs. Use your own, and the page mostly writes itself.