Business Tech & Tools
What should an About page say to build trust without turning into a biography?
The short answer
Your About page should tell the parts of your story that help a customer understand why you do this work, how you approach it, and why she can trust you with her problem. It is about you in service of her decision.
You can be personal without starting at childhood or listing every job you have held. Choose details because they explain the business, not simply because they happened.
Use this six-part structure
1. Begin with the customer and the work
Open by confirming what the business does and who it helps. A visitor may land on the About page from search or a shared link and have no other context.
I help independent therapists keep clean monthly books, understand their numbers, and arrive at tax time with organized records.
That first sentence is more useful than “Ever since I was young, I have loved helping people.”
2. Share the relevant reason you care
Give the piece of your story that explains the work or your point of view. A meal-planning coach might describe managing dinner during years of shift work. A web designer might explain seeing capable local owners lose customers because their websites hid the basics.
Keep the bridge to the customer visible: “That experience is why…” or “It taught me…” The story earns its place by clarifying how you help now.
3. Explain how you work
Describe what a customer can expect from you. You might be calm and methodical, highly collaborative, quick and decisive, or especially patient with beginners. Prove the trait with behavior.
Instead of “I believe in personalized service,” try: “You work with me from the first call through final delivery. I send a written recap after each meeting, so you do not have to remember every decision.”
4. Show relevant qualifications and evidence
Include experience, training, credentials, publications, projects, results, or lived experience that genuinely applies to the work. Be precise.
| Weak | Stronger |
|---|---|
| Experienced marketing expert | Eight years managing email campaigns for membership businesses |
| Certified professional | Certified by [organization], credential earned in [year] if the date helps |
| Helped many clients | Completed 46 pantry and kitchen organizing projects since 2023 |
| Featured everywhere | Link to the two relevant interviews or publications |
If you are new, do not apologize or invent authority. Explain your training, preparation, process, portfolio projects, or experience from closely related work.
5. Add a small amount of human texture
One or two personal details can make the person memorable: the garden you tend, the dog who joins your video calls, the city you love, or the reason you keep Friday afternoons free for your children. Choose details you are comfortable making public.
You do not owe the internet your family names, exact home location, medical history, or every hardship you have survived. Warmth does not require abandoning privacy.
6. Point to the next useful step
End with the action that fits an About-page reader. It may be viewing services, seeing sample work, reading a case study, or contacting you. “Learn more” is weaker than “See the monthly bookkeeping packages.”
Decide what to leave out
Cut a detail if it does not help the visitor understand your work, trust an important claim, feel appropriately connected, or decide what to do next.
That usually means trimming:
- a year-by-year career history.
- unrelated credentials.
- several paragraphs about the business-name origin.
- a mission statement made of general virtues.
- personal hardship used mainly to pressure an emotional response.
- copied corporate language that does not sound like you.
You can keep a longer founder story elsewhere if your audience genuinely wants it. The main About page still needs to serve the customer who is deciding whether this business feels credible and right for her.
Make the page verifiable
Link important credentials or publications when a reader would reasonably want to check them. Identify testimonials honestly. Use real photographs if you are comfortable, but do not assume you need a formal headshot. A clear photo of you working, your studio, your process, or the people behind the service can be more informative.
Google’s people-first guidance says clear sourcing, evidence of expertise, and background about the author or publishing site can help readers trust content. It specifically points to author and About pages as useful places for that background. See Google’s guidance on helpful, reliable content.
That does not mean stuffing the page with badges. It means making truthful experience and responsibility visible.
Draft it with a relevance filter
Write a messy first draft under these prompts:
- I help…
- I started or chose this work because…
- That experience taught me…
- When you work with me, you can expect…
- My relevant preparation includes…
- Outside this work, I…
- If you are looking for…, your next step is…
Then label every paragraph customer, credibility, connection, or extra. Keep the first three. Cut most of the extras. Read the result aloud and restore any natural warmth you edited away.
Sources and further reading
A free next step
Not sure which business fits you yet?
The free Freedom Path Assessment can help you compare your strengths, schedule, income goals, and preferred way of working before you commit to a business direction.
Helpful WAHMN tool
Use the Homepage Planner to decide which trust-building details belong on the About page and which belong elsewhere.
Related Questions
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Related WAHMN resource
If you want to turn this website task into a service or build a stronger process for your own site, this system walks through the work in more depth. See Website & Landing Page Build System.