It doesn’t matter what you name them – About, About Us, Meet the Crew – web site About pages are essential. Actually essential.
In the event you’re stunned by this, don’t be. Your About web page is a main connection level for purchasers. It’s a spot the place they can’t solely discover out extra about what makes you, what you are promoting, or product tick however extra importantly, what you are able to do for them.
Which is why this typically missed web page must be a copywriting tour de power.
Your About web page needs to be a conversion-friendly hub the place your guests are directed to buy, soar in your electronic mail bandwagon or start a free trial – all after being knowledgeable and impressed. In the event you’re not utilizing your about web page to transform clients, you’re shedding out.
Concern not these of you with lower than stellar About pages. Right here are some things you may work on to make your About web page something however a waste of house.
It’s Not About Me, It’s About You
“I invented, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’” -George Costanza
Making all of it about your self doesn’t work so effectively whenever you’re making an attempt to interrupt up with somebody. Identical goes for making an attempt to get with them. In your About web page, that’s.
The fact is that most individuals – your mom apart – don’t care how nice what you are promoting is. That isn’t to say that guests to your website aren’t thinking about realizing you’ve bought the abilities to again up your providers or that your merchandise are universally beloved. They merely need to know these items within the context of the way it will greatest serve them.
So, how do you try this? In a phrase, framing.
The way in which you body an announcement or argument, even a query, has an affect on how folks understand it. Psychologists Kahneman and Tversky (1981 study) discovered that by altering the best way they phrased questions concerning the dangers of assorted therapies of a virus, they may influences the alternatives folks made.
Principally, folks got a alternative between two attainable outcomes, each of which have been the identical. Just one was framed positively and the opposite negatively:
- “A 33% probability of saving all 600 folks, 66% chance of saving nobody.”
- “A 33% probability that no folks will die, 66% chance that each one 600 will die.”
72% of individuals selected choice #1 whereas solely 22% selected choice #2. Whereas this instance speaks to danger aversion, the idea of framing has been proven to have an effect on resolution making and attitudes in numerous different contexts.
The large takeaway?
Use your About Web page copy to inform guests how your services or products will be capable to profit them. Maintain bragging rights to a boring roar and take into consideration framing every part you’ve achieved in a means that can positively affect your clients.
Check out Copyblogger’s About page. They do a terrific job of framing their story throughout the context of offering worth added to their readers and clients.
They inform you how the corporate got here to be and why they’re consultants – with out shedding sight of what’s in it for you, the customer. It makes taking that subsequent step in the direction of becoming a member of their electronic mail checklist or shopping for one in all their merchandise a lot smoother.
Worth Propositions Aren’t Simply For Residence Pages
Worth propositions, or as I prefer to name them, “motive for being” statements (raison d’etre en Francais), are your probability to inform your guests clearly and concisely what’s on provide and why they need to care once they land on any given web page.
They’re your main headlines – your alternative to seize folks’s consideration, inform them the way you’re going to resolve their issues and make it value their whereas to learn on.
Don’t make your headline “About,” “About Us,” or any variation on the theme.
Present a greater motive in your guests to maneuver down the web page and do it in a means that will get to the purpose whereas nonetheless being compelling.
Bear in mind, folks have very restricted consideration spans, to not point out time. In the event you power them to assume an excessive amount of about what they’re taking a look at, chances are high they may transfer on.
Right here’s Assist Scout’s headline and sub-headline for his or her About web page.
The crux of their worth proposition is the significance of customer support to enterprise success. Not terribly distinctive.
However they mix that with the truth that they’ve created a product together with free content material that may assist different companies with customer support. Out of the blue it’s much more intriguing to maintain studying down the web page.
I additionally love the conversational side of this About web page copy – how the sub-headline responds to the headline, stopping the worth proposition from sounding trite.
A Little Persona Can Go A Lengthy Means
Individuals typically make selections primarily based on their feelings after which justify them with motive after the actual fact. To show this, researcher and neuroeconomist Paul Zak offered research individuals with a brief, unhappy story a couple of father and son.
Zak discovered that the story produced the neurochemicals Cortisol and Oxytocin within the topics and that the discharge of those chemical substances, that are related to misery and empathy, elevated the diploma to which people have been keen to make a charitable donation.
The folks being studied weren’t conscious that these chemical adjustments have been occurring or that they influenced their decision-making. However they did.
Does this imply you need to be telling unhappy tales to promote your merchandise? Most likely not.
However, by infusing your About web page copy with a component of emotional storytelling you may create a connection together with your guests. Tales interact the mind in a means that mere details don’t, inspiring folks to take motion.
Take into consideration MailChimp, the e-mail advertising plaform. Their product will be thought-about fairly boring however they’ve constructed their model messaging on a enjoyable, conversational type.
Taking a look at MailChimp’s About web page, you may see it not solely discusses the advantages of the providers they supply and who they serve but additionally the story of how the corporate has created worth in its hometown of Atlanta. The About web page grounds their work within the lives of actual folks.
How are you aware what sort of character works in your model?
It’s all concerning the tone in your writing and ensuring your copy matches the values of what you are promoting and the expectations of your goal market.
That is the place spending a while doing a little bit of qualitative analysis will serve you effectively. Conduct surveys and interviews together with your present and previous clients. Ask them questions on how they’d describe your product or enterprise.
Take a look at providers like Qualaroo, Survey Monkey and Typeform for producing questionnaires.
Then, take into consideration the way you need your model mirrored on-line and see the place the 2 intersect.
Inform Individuals What You Need Them To Do
With each set of eyeballs that lands on one in all your pages, you’ve a possibility to maneuver them additional by your gross sales funnel. Your About web page is an ideal place to shuttle folks alongside in the direction of the subsequent step you need them to take.
After giving guests a large number of causes to consider in your organization’s skills to offer them worth, take them by the hand and make it painfully apparent what to do subsequent.
Less Films, a video manufacturing firm, has a crystal clear name to motion on the finish of their About web page. They use a high contrast color for the CTA together with copy that makes it obvious that the subsequent factor it’s best to do is contact them.
Determine what motion your need folks to take once they unravel your About web page. Contemplate operating an A/B take a look at in your name to motion copy to find out how one can make it more practical. Must you change what you’re asking them to do, or just how you’re asking them to do it?
Typically Extra Is Simply Extra
As human beings, we are able to solely deal with processing so many issues directly. Subjected to numerous fonts, flashing photographs and sophisticated web page codecs, our brains undergo from cognitive overload. Principally, we’re restricted by what we are able to soak up at anybody time.
Check out Vertical Response’s About web page shortly and see for those who can recall something aside from the truth that they’ve gained just a few awards.
Again in 1956, the psychologist George Miller hypothesized that an individual’s short-term reminiscence may solely maintain between 5-9 chunks of knowledge (teams of letters, faces, and so on.). Newer research have proven our limits to be even decrease: 2-6 chunks.
After we’re offered with a myriad of distracting components on a web page our brains have a really troublesome time remembering what we’ve simply seen.
What’s the lesson right here?
Stuffing your About web page (or any web page) with dense patches of textual content or graphics will make it troublesome in your guests to determine what they should do or get out of your web page.
Cut back cognitive load at any time when attainable by doing issues akin to overlaying explanatory textual content onto a graphic in order that the viewer doesn’t have to maneuver forwards and backwards between the 2.
See John Sweller’s research into Cognitive Load Theory and the way it impacts studying and educational design.
And attempt to break up your About web page copy into small, simply digestible chunks with applicable sub-heads. Your guests will thanks by not hitting the again button instantly.
Tiny Blue Orange, an internet design and growth firm, does a pleasant job of utilizing headings and quick punchy paragraphs to maintain the attention transferring down the web page. The inclusion of top quality photographs together with simply the appropriate dose of character offers this About web page a compelling twist (get it?).
Placing It All Collectively
Let’s decide aside an About Us web page to see the place it’s missing and the way we are able to make it more practical. Crowdrise, an internet platform that allows people to lift cash for his or her favourite charities has an About web page that would use a bit assist of its personal.
Simply trying on the high half of the CrowdRise About web page (the underside not proven), we see a great deal of densely packed textual content in a too-small font competing for consideration.
We will’t miss that we’re on their About web page with that big title however with no simple to learn, compelling headline we’re left asking ourselves a giant, “So what?”
What could make this About web page copy higher?
Properly, let’s piece collectively every part we realized on this publish:
- Create a strong worth proposition and implement it within the type of a headline and sub-headline on the high of the web page. Another may be:
Be part of the group
And have a complete lot extra enjoyable elevating cash for charity than you thought attainable - Break up the copy into smaller, extra manageable chunks – use bullet factors and sub-headlines to assist with this
- Combine “the story” into the opposite copy in a means that tells potential customers how Crowdrise can profit them
- Determine the place to direct guests – select between “The way it Works” a “Contact Us,” spotlight the copy and make it a extra compelling CTA to click on
Remember that these are all simply ideas. Do not forget that each touchdown web page, web site and enterprise is totally different. What works for one marketer could not work for an additional. Do your analysis then take a look at, take a look at and take a look at once more.
Are you prepared to show your About web page right into a conversion hub?
(high picture by way of Amazon)