Do You Really Need an About Page?

People may not read every word of your website, but when they're seriously considering working with you, they start looking for more information. Your About page gives them somewhere to go once your services have caught their attention and they want to know more about the person or business behind them. For service-based businesses especially, you're often asking someone to trust you with their money, their business, their wedding, their home, or something else that matters to them. Wanting to know who they're hiring is completely reasonable.

Qualifications, experience, awards, and credentials absolutely have their place, but an About page shouldn't feel like someone copied and pasted their LinkedIn profile onto their website. People can find plenty of businesses that technically know how to provide the service they're looking for. Your About page is an opportunity to show them why they might actually want to work with you specifically. Your experience builds credibility, but your personality, values, approach, and story are usually what make someone feel connected to you.

This matters even more when you're selling a higher-priced service. If someone is preparing to spend thousands of dollars with a business, they're probably going to do a little investigating first. They might read reviews, look through your portfolio, scroll through social media, and eventually find their way to your About page. Giving them a real person to connect with can make the entire business feel more trustworthy. You don't have to share your entire personal life, but hiding completely behind a logo can make a small business feel much less personal than it actually is.

I believe a website should feel like the business owner behind it, and the About page is one of the easiest places to make that happen. You can talk about why you started the business, what matters to you, how you approach your work, and even share a few pieces of your life outside of it. Those details might seem insignificant, but they're often the things people remember. Especially when someone is comparing several businesses offering similar services, personality can be the difference between being another option and being the person they actually want to call.

There is a point where an About page can become too much about the business owner and not enough about the person reading it. Your story matters, but there should always be a reason you're telling it. If an experience shaped the way you work, explain that. If your background gives you a unique perspective, share it. If something personal helps someone understand who they'll be working with, include it. The goal isn't to tell your entire life story. It's to give visitors enough of you to understand the person behind the business.

A solo service provider and a large company probably shouldn't have identical About pages. For one business, the owner's personality might be a huge part of why people choose them. For another, the company story, team, values, or history might matter more. That's why I don't believe in treating an About page like a required template with a headshot, three paragraphs, and a list of fun facts. It should reflect the way people actually experience your business.

For most service-based businesses, I think the answer is yes. People buy from people, and your About page gives potential clients another reason to feel comfortable choosing you. It doesn't need to be overly personal, overly professional, or particularly long. It just needs to help someone understand who you are, why you care about what you do, and what kind of person they'll be working with if they decide to reach out.

Your About page isn't there because every website is supposed to have one. It's there because trust matters, especially when your business depends on people choosing you over someone else who technically offers the same thing. Your services tell people what you do. Your portfolio shows them what you're capable of. Your About page gives them a reason to care about who's behind it all.