The definition of a good About Us page

I need to start this article by qualifying what makes an amazing About Us page. The reason for this is that some About Us pages look amazing but have terrible content whilst others look terrible but grab your attention immediately. The list I have compiled here are based on the fact that they:

• Get the point across
  First and foremost an About Us page has to get a point across. Everything else is completely useless unless the content and the layout is achieving a goal. That goal is to tell the user who you are by showing them what you can do for them or have done for others.
• Give you the information you need
  Some About Us pages spend the whole time talking about what it is that the company does and nothing about the staff members. Some do the opposite. Unless the page gives the information that you need based on the type of site you are on then it won’t make the list.
• Give you social proof, testimonials and other authenticity statements
  A good About Us page always needs to have some mention of past successes, achievements, social proof, etc. Giving concrete examples of why your site or blog is worth reading is extremely important for these pages.
• Don’t let design elements negate the potency
  Some of the About Us pages I am about to show you will make you weep because they are so beautiful. Some not so much. But it is important to note that I haven’t included any pages on here purely because they look nice. This last dot point is all about that Blue-Shirt Trust; as long as the design doesn’t detract from the message I’m cool with however it looks.

I didn’t want to go in to too much detail here because I am going to talk about the advantages of each About Us page as we go through them. I’m hoping to use this post as a way of showing you what I believe you should be doing on your own page.

Special tip for About Page conversions
Since writing this post I have included an Aweber sign up form (affiliate link) on my About page and have seen a hugely successful subscriber rate. It seems that people want to subscribe to you while they are reading about you!