As a home-based or other small business owner, and especially if you are someone who is selling a business opportunity, distributorship, licensee opportunity or even a small franchise, sometimes the only thing that stands between you and near obscurity in this day and age is your website.  Websites are an incredibly powerful tool for communicating who you are as a company, as well as for selling your opportunity, products and/or services.  Keeping the former purpose in mind, your company’s “About Us” page is more than likely one of the most visited pages on your site.  Unfortunately, many companies are not making the most of the tremendous opportunity this all-too-important branding and image tool presents.

It’s unfortunate yet true that all too many websites’ About Us pages offer a very cursory, if not downright boring couple of paragraphs on a company’s goal and mission.  And while those are nice and important things to talk about, they’re often not terribly original in their content and can really put readers to sleep.  Not only that, they’re not usually all that informative.

Your company website’s About Us page is an opportunity to connect with your target audience on a very personal level.  It’s a chance to actually demonstrate who you are and what you’re made of, not just to talk about it.  Don’t spend too much time talking about your company’s lofty aspirations and goals.  Instead, keep the particulars about what you do and how you do it from a company standpoint to a minimum, and work on telling your customers a bit about yourself and your partners if you have any, where you come from and what it is you value the most.

Simply stating the facts about who you are, what you offer, how long you’ve been around, where you’re located and, of course, a brief statement about your mission and goals is perfectly appropriate.  But it’s important to keep this stuff really straightforward and simple.

Once that’s out of the way, it’s time to make it interesting and set yourself apart, and here are some tips to do just that:

• Tell your founding tale.  Everyone loves a good story, and if yours is at all compelling, tell it.  Talk about your background, how you got to be a business owner, why you decided to go into business for yourself, what you enjoy doing in your spare time…even your family, if you’re so inclined.  Anything that personalizes you to a potential customer is a plus.  Knowing exactly who they’re buying from or counting on to service their needs is really important to consumers today, as interpersonal interaction in the daily course of conducting business is becoming more and more rare as time goes by.
• If you have employees, they are the face of your company.  Who they are speaks volumes about who and what you are every bit as much as you do.  So it’s important to include photographs and descriptions of your staff, their credentials and what they do for you as well.  And don’t forget to include their contact information.
• Talk about your past and current clients, and include testimonials from them if at all possible.  Include their logos and company descriptions, particularly if they’re impressive and/or recognizable.
• Include and create a link to photographs or videos of jobs well done if at all possible.  Nothing speaks to your commitment to quality quite like an image of your work can; words seldom can do such things justice.
• Talk about any recognition you or your company has received.  Include any press clippings or positive reviews, information about awards won, community outreach or charitable work, or anything else that speaks to your company’s values and achievements.
• Finally, make sure that all the pages of your website are linked to your blog or any other social media channels you may be using to promote your company, such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.  Linking all of your communication channels together ensures that you’re maximizing your ranked position on internet search engines, which is a must in this day and age.