Why your About Us page matters so much

There are a lot of factors at play when it comes to what impacts your content being seen in search today.

One of the most important may be a little surprising to you, but actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it: About Us pages.

I’m going to explain why this is the case, show you some great examples and even provide you a short template to work from to create your own great About Us page.

Why are About pages playing a role in search?

As I’ve covered many times before, E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) is Google’s huge focus about what drives the content they decide to show in search results and what you display on your About page can have a direct connection to this.

These pages matter more than ever in search because they help demonstrate your expertise and credibility to the machines. They show that you create high-quality content, follow editorial standards, and have earned recognition or awards based on content that has built trust.

Showing things like your mission, your ethics standards and the expertise that your team brings to the community all help these machines gain a better understanding about who you are and your purpose.

In addition, they really help AI gain a better understanding of your coverage, your audience and why you are the authority on the topics you cover.

What should you include in your About pages?

There should be a clear difference between About pages and Contact pages.

About pages should tell your story while Contact pages should make it simple for readers to connect with you and sign up for your services. That’s not to say that some of that contact information can’t be on your About page too, but it’s still important to have two different pages that serve different purposes.

But let’s now address the things that should be on your About pages.

• History of your business (founded, ownership changes).
• Your mission (company and editorial if there are two separates).
• Your ethics policy(s). If they are long, summarize them.
• Your AI policy
• Awards your organization has won.
• Leadership team with detailed bios and ways to connect.
• How readers can support the organization.
• How to stay connected (newsletters, social media).

What are examples of great About pages?

Your About page can be simply just like a story layout with headers and inline images.

But the current trend with some of the better pages — that address lots of parts like the topics I noted above — is to build a desktop version that utilizes navigation and takes you to that part of your page once you click on it.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Pro Publica: I love how deep the offerings are and how they break things into really detailed areas making it easy to find what you are looking for.

Homes and Gardens: You have to go past the bios, but they really get into their process on how they chose products and do their journalism. It’s very transparent.

NPR: This NPR page does a really nice job taking readers through different aspects of their business. And I like how they explain their funding and ownership.

Let us help with your digital strategy

About pages and their impact with AI are one of the many services we help clients with. Here is a look at some of the services we offer. Email me at david@davidarkincosulting.com to learn more.