Your about page is the second-most-visited page. Is it working?

Here’s a stat that surprises most business owners: after the homepage, the single most-visited page on a typical small business website is the about page. Not services. Not pricing. About. People want to know who they’re dealing with.

Which makes it all the more remarkable that most about pages are terrible. A generic paragraph about “passion” and “quality”. A photo of a building. Maybe a mission statement nobody means. That page — the one your potential customers are actively seeking out — is doing nothing. Let’s talk about what a good about page actually does.

People aren’t there to read your CV

Here’s the misunderstanding. Business owners think the about page is for them — a chance to list their qualifications, their history, their achievements. But the visitor isn’t there for any of that. They’re there to answer one question: can I trust this business?

Every word on your about page should serve that question. Not “look how great we are” but “here’s why you can feel comfortable picking up the phone”.

What a good about page does

It shows a face. The single most powerful thing on an about page is a photograph of the actual person or people behind the business. Not a logo. Not a stock photo. A real face. It instantly says “there is a human here you can deal with”. For sole traders and small businesses, this matters enormously — people buy from people.

It tells a genuine story. Not a list of qualifications — a story. Why you started. What you care about. A detail that makes you real. “I started fixing boilers because I got sick of seeing pensioners ripped off” builds more trust than “fully qualified with over 15 years’ experience”. Both can be true; only one makes someone remember you.

It reassures. Qualifications, accreditations, years in business, areas covered — these belong on the about page, but as supporting evidence, not the main event. They answer the practical worries: are they qualified? Are they insured? Are they local?

It ends with a next step. A good about page doesn’t just peter out — it points somewhere. “Here’s how to get in touch.” “Here’s what we do.” Someone who’s read your story and decided they like you should be one click from contacting you.

What kills an about page

• Writing in the third person when you’re a one-person business. “John Smith Plumbing was founded in...” No. You’re John. Say “I”. Be a person.
• No photos, or only a logo. A faceless about page defeats the entire purpose.
• Corporate waffle. “Leveraging our passion for excellence...” Say it like you’d say it to a customer in your kitchen.
• Treating it as an afterthought. The page people actually read gets the least effort. That’s backwards.

The honest takeaway

Your about page is one of the most-visited pages on your site — and for many businesses, the one where the decision to trust you is actually made. A good one turns a wavering visitor into a confident enquiry. A bad one wastes the moment.

The irony is that a great about page is often the easiest page to get right — because the thing that makes it work, being a genuine human being that a customer can picture dealing with, is exactly what you already are. You just have to actually show it.