A page that promises and does not deliver
One expert firm's About page says clients always know who is doing their work. The same page does not have a single name on it.
The page has not forgotten people. It identified exactly the right question and stopped one step short of the answer. Two first names would fix it, and the fix would take a minute.
What is interesting here is that the page knew what the reader was looking for. That is more than most pages manage, which is why it is the right place to start: the question is clear, and the answer varies.
What the page is actually for
A buyer cannot check a service in advance. A product can be turned over in your hand and a price can be compared, but the quality of a job only shows once the work is done and the invoice is paid. An About page fills that gap, and that is its entire job.
Which means there is no single right content for the page. The gap is a different size and shape depending on what is being bought. Contact details and legal information are a separate matter, they belong on the site regardless, and What your website needs by law covers those separately.
Three situations where the page does different work
Capacity
Construction, contracting, installation, and logistics. The buyer cannot check in advance whether the work will be finished on time and within the agreed scope.
The page answers by showing what has been done, how large the projects were, and who is responsible. A full staff list is not the point here. The one person who answers the phone when the schedule slips, is.
Expertise
Accounting, IT, research, and design, work where a mistake only shows up later. The buyer cannot judge the skill at the moment they choose who does the work.
The page answers by showing where the expertise came from: what kind of work it was built on and who it was done for. A track record does more work here than any description of your own skill level, because the reader can judge it for themselves.
The person
Hair salons, massage, photography, and therapy, situations spent one on one for an hour or two. The buyer does not know what it will be like to be there.
The page answers by naming the people and stating what each one specializes in. That lets the customer choose who to book and know what to ask for. This is the only one of the three situations where names and faces are the service description itself. The same trust also builds outside the site, and customer reviews make the same case in someone else's words.
When the page is not needed
A rental business, a shop, and a catalogue work on different logic. The buyer sees the product in a photo, the price next to it, and availability in a calendar. When the customer can check the item, they do not need to check the person.
A missing About page is therefore not automatically a gap. If the home page already says who does the work and what it is, a separate page just repeats the same thing a second time.
An empty page is a different matter. The reader clicked the link to get an answer, and if a list of adjectives is waiting there instead, the click was wasted. That costs more than a missing page, because the intent was already there. First impressions are decided quickly either way, and ten seconds is enough for a reader to decide whether they stay on the page.
DIGITALE
You write the About page in your own words.
The text and images stay in your hands, so a new team member or a new service reaches the page the same day the decision is made. I make sure the site keeps working and stays technically current.
What is not worth writing
Adjectives about your own attitude. Quality, customer focus, flexibility, and ethical principles are words every competitor in the same field can copy onto their own page unchanged. Read the sentence back and ask if it could describe the business next door too. If it can, it is not telling the reader anything.
A vague claim of scale. "A wide partner network" and "we operate nationwide" only start to mean something once you add what that actually gives the buyer.
A founding story that does not explain current skill. A founding year and a founder's story earn their place when they explain where the current capability actually comes from.
A repeat of the home page in different words. If the reader learns the same thing twice within two clicks, the second time is wasted space.
A promise the page does not deliver on. This is the costliest one on the list. A page that promises to say who does the work, and then has no names, ends up weaker than a page that promised nothing at all.
A test you can run yourself
Read your own About page once and ask two questions. Could a stranger say afterward who they would ask for? Would they know what they would get?
If both answers are yes, the page is doing its job. Length does not decide this. The page can be three paragraphs or three lines, as long as the reader gets an answer. If the answer is missing, the problem is rarely too little text. Usually there is plenty, and it is about the wrong thing.
If reading the page reveals that the whole site describes the business as it used to be rather than as it is now, that is a bigger issue than one page. Four signs it is time for a new website cover the rest.
Summary
An About page answers one question: what can the buyer not check before they buy. The answer depends on what is being bought, which is why the same page holds different content for a construction company, an accountant, and a hairdresser.
Once that question is in view, writing the page is easy. Without it, the page ends up saying what everyone else's already says.
