Website Glossary · Letter A
What Is an About Page?
An about page is the page on a website that tells visitors who is behind the business, what it does, and why it can be trusted. For a local business it is often where a customer decides whether the people are real and worth calling.
What an About Page Is, and What Most of Them Are Instead
The about page is where a stranger goes to find out if you are real. That is the whole job. Somebody is thinking about letting your business into their home or handing you their money, and before they do, they want to know who they are dealing with.
Which makes it strange that the about page is usually the worst page on a small business website. It is where the empty phrases go to pile up. Family owned and operated. Committed to excellence. Dedicated to serving our valued customers. Words that describe every business and therefore describe none of them.
A real about page does the opposite. It tells the actual story. Who started this, and why. Who is going to show up at the door. What the people behind it actually care about. The reader should finish it feeling like they have already met you.
The first one could belong to any business on earth. The second one belongs to exactly one, and you already trust him more, because he told you something true instead of something safe.
Why This Matters for a Local Business
The stakes are higher for a local service business than almost anywhere else, because of what you are asking. You want a stranger to let you into their house, or trust you with an expensive repair, or hand over a deposit before you have done anything. That is a lot of trust to ask from a website.
The about page is where that trust gets built or lost. It is one of the most visited pages on a small business site precisely because people go looking for it when they are deciding. They have seen your services and your prices. Now they want to know if you are somebody they would let in the door.
A weak about page fails at the exact moment it matters most. Somebody was ready to trust you, came to confirm you were real, and found generic filler that told them nothing. That is a customer you nearly had, and it is a version of the quiet problem where a website gets clicks but no phone calls. They were interested. The page gave them no reason to act.
There is a search angle too, though it is the smaller reason. A genuine about page adds real information about who you are, your history, and where you operate, and that substance feeds how search engines and AI systems understand and trust the business. A real page about real people is part of looking legitimate, which quietly supports algorithmic trust.
What Kills an About Page
The failures are almost always the same handful, and every one of them destroys the trust the page was supposed to build.
- Stock photos of strangers. A grinning team in matching shirts that is obviously not your team. The moment a visitor realizes it is fake, they distrust everything else on the page.
- Empty phrases. Committed to excellence, passionate about service. Every competitor says the identical thing, so it distinguishes nobody.
- Talking like a corporation. A one person operation writing "our team of dedicated professionals" reads as either fake or hiding how small it is.
- No people at all. A page about the business that never names a human being. Nobody to trust because nobody is there.
- All history, no point. A dry timeline of founding dates and milestones that never says why a customer should care.
- No page at all. Just a homepage and a contact form. The customer looking to trust you finds nowhere to do it.
The stock photo one is worth dwelling on, because being small is not the weakness owners think it is. A customer choosing a local business is often choosing it precisely because it is not a faceless company. The owner who answers the phone is the selling point. Hiding that behind corporate language and fake photos throws away the one real advantage you have, which is the same instinct that makes a site try to look professional by looking generic when the opposite is what earns trust.
How to Write One That Works
You are not writing marketing copy. You are answering the question a nervous stranger is silently asking, which is simply: who are you, and can I trust you. Answer that like a human and you are most of the way there.
What Belongs on It
- The real story. How it started, who started it, why. Not a legend, just the true version told plainly.
- A real photo. You, your team, your truck, your shop. The actual people who will show up, not strangers from a stock library.
- Who they will deal with. If they call, do they get you. Say so. That is exactly what a local customer is hoping to hear.
- What you actually stand for. Not a slogan. A real habit, like answering your own phone or telling people the truth even when it costs you the job.
- Where you work. The towns you serve, named. It grounds the business in a real place and helps the right customers find you.
- A way to act. End it with a phone number or a button. Somebody who just decided to trust you should not have to go hunting.
Read your about page and ask whether a stranger comes away feeling like they know who runs the business and would be in good hands. If it could be swapped onto a competitor's site without changing a word, it is not an about page, it is filler wearing the label. The whole value is in the parts that could only be true of you.
Being honest here is also being useful in the way that lasts. The true, specific story you tell about yourself is exactly the kind of real substance that separates a page worth reading from a page full of claims, which is the same thing that makes any of your pages authoritative content rather than noise.
How Cannone Marketing Handles This for Every Client
The about page is written around your real story, not filled with the phrases every other business uses. How the business started, who runs it, who a customer actually deals with when they call. The parts that are true of you and no one else are the parts that go on the page, because those are the parts that earn trust.
Real photos go on it, not strangers in matching shirts from a stock library, because a customer choosing a local business usually wants to see the actual person who will answer the phone or show up at the door. Your towns get named, the page grounds itself in the real place you work, and it ends with a clear way to reach you so nobody who just decided to trust you has to go looking for the number.
You work directly with Mike Cannone on the writing, so the story on the page is your real one, and if it needs changing later, one message handles it under Worry-Free Support. The cost is $199 one time to set it up and $49 per month after that. No contracts. No middlemen and no account managers.
Related Terms
Common Questions About the About Page
What should a small business put on their about page?
The real story of who runs the business, how it started, who the customer will actually deal with, and why the business does what it does. A real photo of the owner or the team matters more than most owners expect. The goal is to make a stranger feel like they already know who is going to show up at their door.
Does an about page actually get read by customers?
More than owners assume. It is one of the most visited pages on many small business sites, because a customer deciding whether to trust a stranger with their home or money wants to know who they are dealing with. A weak about page is a missed chance at exactly the moment someone is trying to decide.
Should an about page have a photo of the owner?
Yes, a real one. A genuine photo of the owner or the team does more to build trust than any amount of polished writing. A stock photo of strangers in matching shirts does the opposite once a visitor realizes it is not really them. People want to see the actual person who will answer the phone or knock on the door.
Does the about page help with local SEO?
It helps in a supporting way. A genuine about page adds real information about the business, its history, and its location, which contributes to how search engines and AI systems understand and trust the business. It is not a ranking trick, but a real page about real people is part of looking like a legitimate, established business.
How long should an about page be?
Long enough to tell the real story and short enough that it stays interesting. A few honest paragraphs usually beats a long corporate history nobody finishes. The test is whether a stranger comes away feeling like they know who runs the business and why they would be in good hands.
Tell the Story Only You Can Tell
Your real story, your real photo, your real towns, and a clear way to reach you at the moment a stranger decides to trust you. Cannone Marketing writes the page where that trust gets built instead of lost. Request a free custom homepage demo and see your site built for you within 24 hours.
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