And it is. It’s all about you. Yesterday I found this really great online service and checked out their About page. It wasn’t really about them at all - it was a thinly veiled sales/benefits pitch and it got me thinking about content and how sites engage their visitors. Too many times people try to pounce on their visitors - never getting to know them or letting them get to know you.
About pages are not meant to be a list of the benefits of using your company; they are not a sales pitch. That should be on your home page (in elevator pitch style) or within the actually sales section of your site. It has no business being in a section about who you, or your company, are. is. <– (I don’t know which to use there but it’s not important).
Think about it as a conversation with your visitor. They’ve already walked up (browsed) to your company and heard the sales pitch or the value proposition and now they are interested enough to want to know a little more about you. They are looking for a personal connection in a marketplace where things can be so impersonal (the interwebs). Do you want to repeat the sales pitch like a funky 1970s movie robot or do you want to engage them on a personal level? The personal connection creates a relationship - being able to relate to you in any way can mean the difference between a new customer and someone who moves on.
If your site is sterile and impersonal (maybe it’s your company’s style) - this is the place to show a little bit of yourself. You don’t have to pull the curtain back - maintain your professional tone. But give them the content they are seeking - they want to know about you. Very rarely is a company’s value proposition so unique and different from other companies that they don’t need to connect with their visitors - get the edge over your competitors be being your visitors’ friend. That they pay money to.
April 13th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
Good stuff, Ryan. I really like the title, by the way. Got my attention AND I thought it was going elsewhere. Very suave.