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All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust pixels.
– Andy Hayes, blatantly misquoting J.M. Barrie

I’ve been writing a lot of about pages lately. It is one of my favorite consulting packages, actually, because I get to learn a lot about my clients, who are some pretty interesting folk. On the flip side, those discussions gets a lot of clients a bit fidgety.

Why? Because a good About Page is all about revealing a bit about yourself.
(click to tweet that)

Most websites are in a rush to make the sale. And that’s understandable, given that an average user spends less than a minute on your site. But when a potential customer clicks on the word “about” and is pommeled with sales messages and promotional offers, that’s a real turnoff. About isn’t about “about the stuff we sell,” it is about YOU.

trust faith

It’s All About Trust and Faith

Five years ago, if a client was talking to me about making their website more authoritative or trustworthy, I would have first talked to them about “As Seen In” logos, customer testimonials, and things like secure shopping badges. (Those are all still very good things.)

Now, my first question when asked about this is how is your about page? In a digital world awash with choice – for example, a Google search for “bacon flavored beer recipe” nets 1.7 million results – customers demand to know why they should trust you.

It is not just about trust.
Your customers want to have faith that your product or service will solve their problem.
(click to tweet that)

They want to know your eco-friendly products are made by someone who really cares abouteco-friendly. They want to know that your restaurant won’t make them sick and that those meatballs really are as good as the Yelp reviews. They want to know your tour guide is nice and really will make the vacation much more pleasant and that it was money well spent.

Help customers make that mental leap of faith by telling your story. I’ve even seen websites where the about page is even called “Our Story.” It doesn’t matter what you call it, it matters that you’re telling it. Who you are, why you do what you do, what makes YOU (which is different than your product or service) the right choice.

Let me know if you need some help.