December 2010 - Sheldon Nesdale

If you pay any attention to your webstats, you may have noticed that your About Us page is one of the least visited webpages on your website.

This doesn’t mean it is unimportant. It is vitally important.

The low traffic means that each prospective customer will visit it only once, so you’ve got one chance to give them what they came for.

So, what are they looking for?

When prospective customers visit your About Us page they are looking for 2 things:

They want to know you are legit, with a real physical address (preferably nearby to them, and at least in the same country)
Use real names (not “us” and “we”). Certainly name everybody the customer may be in contact with, and it’s good to name all the support people too. Plus name the founders/managers.
Use official company names (not just your trading-as name) so they know they can check you out with the Companies Office if they wanted to

Lots of detail. On most web pages you need to be quite brief and get to your point quickly, but on the About Us page the rules are relaxed a bit because the web visitor is asking for a story so you can write as much detail as you like. Divide your “About Us” content into sub-pages if you need them eg “History”, “Founders”
Define your target customer (don’t try and be all things to all people). The idea is to be specific so your target customer sees themselves in your description and has confidence you will serve them well. And those outside your target will still see elements that match them so you win both ways
Convey your passion for helping people like them, perhaps you have an interesting story of why and how you got into this business that communicates that passion?

What more tips can you suggest for About Us pages? Add them to the comments below.

My notes on “Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business” by Erik Qualman

Bacon Salt was an idea that was born out of the minds of two Seattle buddies, Justin Esch and Dave Lefkow, who over a few beers jokingly posed the question – “Wouldn’t it be great if there was a powder that made everything taste like bacon?”
They found over 35,000 people that mentioned bacon in their MySpace profile. They began reaching out to these people to gauge their interest in Bacon Salt, and not only did they find interest, they started receiving orders when they didn’t even have a product yet.
It went viral.
The spice that made everything taste like bacon incredibly sold 600,000 bottles in 18 months. “We didn’t even have a product at the beginning; instead, we bought cheap spice bottles, printed out Bacon Salt logos and scotch them onto the bottles.”
Lesson: People are passionate about what they like. Each passion is a niche that can turn into a business.

Month: December 2010