How to write an About page people can trust

A useful About page explains who is behind the business, what it does, who it serves, and how readers can check its important claims. Use real people, specific details, and relevant evidence, then point visitors toward a sensible next step.

Start with the questions a cautious customer would ask. A company history can help answer them, but an account of your beginnings shouldn't bury what the business does today.

Give readers a clear account of the business

Explain who is behind the business and what it actually does.

Write an opening that someone outside your industry could understand. Say what kind of business you run and the work you take on. If location, service area, or delivery model affects whether you can help, explain it plainly.

Then introduce the people responsible for that work. Use their actual names and current roles, with relevant experience you can substantiate. A small team doesn't need to sound like a national organization to give a useful account of itself.

Google's guidance on helpful, reliable content includes clear sourcing, evidence of expertise, and background about the author or publisher, including links to an About page. It also encourages accurate authorship information. That supports making responsibility clear; it doesn't make a polished biography a substitute for evidence.

Build the page around a few practical questions:

• Who runs the business and does the work?
• What do you help customers do, and where are the boundaries?
• What relevant experience or work can a visitor inspect?
• How should someone find out whether you can help them?

Include your origin story where it explains a present choice. For example, it might explain why you specialize in a particular service. Keep dates and milestones accurate, and leave out a dramatic founding story if you don't have one to tell.

Replace impressive claims with useful evidence

Choose details a reader can understand and someone can verify.

For each important sentence, ask what would let someone check it. A current service description can support your stated scope. A documented qualification can support a specific credential. A permitted photograph of completed work can show the work represented in that image.

Keep each claim within what its support establishes. One project doesn't prove that you are the best provider in the region. A founder's previous experience doesn't automatically become the trading history of a newer company.

Our guide to citing sources readers can verify explains how to match a sentence to its evidence. The same discipline applies to claims about your own business, even when the supporting record is internal.

A hypothetical workshop: from vague praise to useful detail

Imagine a small bicycle workshop preparing its About page. Everything in this example is fictional: the business, records, service scope, and draft copy. This is a writing exercise, not a customer story or a test of conversion results.

Assume the owner has confirmed these facts for the exercise:

• Two mechanics carry out repairs on pedal bicycles.
• The current service list covers punctures, brake adjustments, and gear repairs. It excludes electric motors and batteries.
• Customers enquire before a visit is arranged. Sending an enquiry doesn't confirm a booking or a fixed price.
• There is no documented award, national service operation, or evidence supporting a claim of market leadership.

Draft wording to reject:

We're the nation's leading bike experts, delivering award-winning care for every kind of bike. Book online for a guaranteed repair price.

The problem isn't just that the sentence sounds generic. It misstates the fictional business's reach, evidence, service boundaries, and booking process.

A replacement supported by the stated facts:

We're a two-mechanic workshop repairing pedal bicycles. Our work covers punctures, brake adjustments, and gear repairs; we don't work on electric motors or batteries. Contact us to describe the problem before arranging a visit. An enquiry doesn't confirm a booking or a fixed price.

The revised paragraph gives a prospective customer something to decide with. Someone who needs battery work can recognize the mismatch. Someone with a suitable repair knows to enquire first rather than treating a form submission as an appointment.

Keep a record of the choices behind the copy

For this fictional draft, a short review record could look like this:

On a real page, replace these assumed records with actual checks. Add links to the relevant service and contact pages, and have the people described confirm their own roles. If a credential matters, verify what it is, who holds it, and whether it is current before publishing it.

Don't create staff profiles to fill gaps. Google's authorship guidance specifically identifies fabricated creator profiles, including false credentials or generated headshots used to imply human expertise, as deceptive. Use genuine people and genuine evidence when presenting your team or authors.

Help readers choose a sensible next step

Let readers move from understanding the business to a relevant next action.

An About page can establish context without repeating every service detail. Link readers to the page that answers their next question.

For the hypothetical workshop, the routes would be straightforward:

• What repairs do you offer? Link to the current service list.
• Can I bring my bike in? Link to the enquiry process and confirmed visiting arrangements.
• Who will do the work? Introduce the actual mechanics and their roles on the About page or a relevant team page.

Choose link text that describes the destination. “See our repair services” is more informative than “Discover more.” W3C's web-writing guidance recommends meaningful link text, descriptive headings, and clear, concise language to support accessibility.

Use headings such as “Who does the work” or “How to arrange a visit” when those are the questions the section answers. The reader should be able to scan the page and find the relevant part without decoding a slogan.

If recurring practical questions need fuller answers, put them in an appropriate service section or useful FAQ. Keep detailed policies in one maintained place and link to them, so an old About-page sentence doesn't contradict the current offer.

Keep the business identity consistent across the site

Compare the About page with the home page, contact information, service descriptions, and genuine profiles you maintain elsewhere. Check the business name, current roles, stated scope, and contact route. Resolve contradictions before adding more copy.

If your site uses organization structured data, have the person maintaining it check the same facts. Google describes Organization structured data on the home page as a way to help it understand administrative details and distinguish one organization from another. It isn't a reason to invent details or assume that every possible field is relevant.

Keep the visible identity and the information supplied about it aligned. Our structured-data guide explains the distinction between describing a business and receiving a particular search appearance.

For a real workshop, a change in who handles enquiries or which repairs are accepted should trigger a review of every page that states those facts. Assign someone to maintain the page rather than letting it become a permanent version of the business as it used to be.

Review the page as a new visitor

Read the opening without the rest of the site around it. Can someone tell what the business does and whether it might suit their need?

Then inspect the strongest claims. Check that each has appropriate support, the people named are real, and the examples represent the work described. Ask the owner of the relevant fact to resolve anything uncertain.

Finally, follow the service and contact links. Confirm that the next step matches what the page promises. For the fictional workshop, that means an enquiry route, not a claim that the visitor has already booked a repair.

Publish the account you can stand behind, and update it when the underlying facts change.

For help with SEO and AI search visibility, try HoneyWeRank.

References

• Google Search Central: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
• Google Search Central: Organization structured data
• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Writing for Web Accessibility