Writing an about page nobody skips

An about page’s job is to establish who is actually doing the work, and why that matters to whoever is deciding whether to hire them. Most about pages answer a different question instead — a history of the company, a mission statement, sometimes a paragraph about values that could belong to any business in any industry — which is why so many about pages get skipped, and why the ones that do get read tend to be the shortest, most specific ones on the site.

Why about page copy defaults to filler

An about page is usually written last, after the pages that describe what the business sells, and by that point whoever is writing has already said everything specific there is to say about the service. What is left over is genuinely general material — when the business was founded, what it believes in, a paragraph of adjectives — because the specifics have already been spent on the service pages. That is the mechanical reason about pages trend toward filler, and it is fixable by deciding in advance that the about page’s job is different, not a leftover.

What about page copywriting is actually for

A buyer reading an about page is not curious about company history for its own sake. They are checking something: is there a real, accountable person behind this business, and is there a specific reason to trust this person with the job rather than a competitor. An about page that answers those two questions, briefly and specifically, does more work than one three times the length that never quite gets to either.

The opening line carries more of this weight than any other single sentence on the page, because it is the one a reader sees before deciding whether to keep reading. A headline that restates the business name and a generic claim gives a reader no reason to continue; a headline with the specific person and the specific reason to trust them, stated plainly, holds the reader through to the facts that back it up. Personality belongs here too — an about page written in a voice a reader can picture as an actual person talking, rather than a template, is doing the trust-building job the rest of this page describes.

What the about page should establish	What it commonly contains instead
Who is actually doing the work, by name	An unattributed “our team” paragraph
Why this person is credible for this specific job	Generic claims about passion or quality
A real photo of a real person	A stock photo of an unrelated office
One or two specific, checkable facts — years in trade, a licence number, a specific project type	Adjectives with nothing behind them
A reason to trust this business over the alternative	Company history with no bearing on the buying decision

The photo does real work a paragraph of copy cannot

For a small business, a genuine photograph of the person who will actually turn up or answer the phone is one of the highest-value single additions an about page can carry, because it answers a trust question faster than any paragraph can. It has to be a real photo of a real person connected to the business — never a stock image standing in for a person who does not appear in it, and never an invented scene presented as the business’s own premises or team. Where photography for a page like this needs planning, photography briefs covers what to brief a photographer to shoot, and what to do if a proper shoot is not affordable yet.

Specific facts, not adjectives

“Passionate about quality” is a sentence a reader has seen a hundred times and trusts a little less each time. “Licensed in this state since 2014, and the person who signs off every job personally” is a sentence that carries information a reader can actually weigh. The test for an about page draft is the same test that applies to a service page: could a direct competitor publish this sentence unchanged? If yes, it is doing nothing, however true it is.

Where it sits next to a case study

An about page and a case study are doing related but different jobs. The about page establishes who the business is in general; a case study demonstrates a specific outcome for a specific past job. Case studies without client permission problems covers how to write the latter honestly, including the consent and anonymisation issues an about page rarely runs into because it is describing the business rather than a named past client.

What if there is genuinely no interesting story

Not every business has a dramatic founding story, and reaching for one that does not exist tends to produce the same generic filler this page is arguing against, just dressed up as narrative. Where there is no distinctive history to tell, the honest and effective substitute is specificity about the present rather than invention about the past: who does the work today, how long they have been doing it, what a customer can expect from dealing with them directly. A plain, accurate paragraph about the current reality of the business is more useful to a reader than a stretched or embellished history, and it is also easier to keep truthful as the business changes.

Multiple people, or a sole trader

The shape of an about page differs depending on whether the business is a sole trader or has a small team. A sole trader’s about page can be almost entirely personal — this is the person, this is why they are credible, this is how to reach them. A page for a small team works better naming the specific people a customer is likely to actually deal with, rather than an undifferentiated group photo with no individual attached to any of the specific facts. Naming names and roles, briefly, is usually more useful than a paragraph describing “our team” as a collective.

Writing it yourself versus briefing a copywriter

A business owner who can write plainly and specifically about their own work usually writes a better about page than a copywriter who has never met them, because the personality and the specific facts are the owner’s own to begin with. A professional website copywriter earns their fee where an owner is time-poor, uncomfortable writing about themselves, or has drafted several versions that all still read like the filler this page is arguing against. Where copywriting services are being briefed for the rest of the site anyway, an about page is worth including in that scope specifically rather than left as an afterthought, because a copywriter working from a short interview with the actual person can usually produce more specific, checkable copy than a business owner staring at a blank page — the interview surfaces the facts a copywriter’s other clients tend to leave out until asked directly.

What to do next with your about page copy

Read the current about page and count the sentences that are true of this business specifically and not of every competitor in the same trade. If most of the page fails that test, it is a company-history page wearing an about-page label, and rewriting it around who actually does the work — with one real photo and two or three specific, checkable facts — is usually a smaller job than starting again. Writing in the business owner’s own voice covers how to keep the rewrite sounding like an actual person rather than a template with the business name swapped in.