pagefly.ioIn this chapter I’ll discuss the benefits of sharing your story and the effect it has on your visitors, and examine the crucial components that will turn your Shopify About Us page into a converting page in itself.
Scroll down to watch the video tutorials at the end of this chapter. Click here.
A Matter of Trust
Many product categories are saturated nowadays due to the astounding number of eCommerce entrepreneurs competing for sales. Because so many products are so readily available at variable quality and price points, discriminating shoppers are looking deeper.. Looking for something real and something they can connect with in order to persuade them to part with their hard-earned money.
The About Us page for your Shopify store gives you the opportunity to do exactly that: a chance to be relatable to your visitors and, with luck, inspire or touch them with your personal history or story. It may seem like the About Us page is a residual necessity that everyone should include on their store, but the data paints a different picture:
You wouldn’t purchase a Rolex from a shady, trench coat-laden individual in an alleyway, right? You would go to a well-known retailer where you can interact face to face with a knowledgeable and trustworthy salesperson. The About Us page operates on the same principle, it gives your business a ‘face’, so to speak, that gives your customers faith in your brand.
Be transparent, and use this opportunity to share your story. It doesn’t have to be a teary-eyed rags-to-riches inspirational piece, but make sure you convey what motivated you to be in the industry and how committed you are to deliver consistent quality and experience. It shouldn’t be hard to tell, after all, it’s your personal story, but there are some ways you can optimize the About Us page to make it speak more resoundingly to your potential customers.
Essential ‘About Us’ Information
For a minimally-viable site, the information that absolutely must be included on the About Us page is communicated by providing the following information:
- Identify yourself:
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- Discuss who you are and where you came from. What was the inspiration for starting the business? What do you hope to achieve? What is your raison d’etre?
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- Explain what you do:
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- Tell visitors what products/services you offer, how they’re offered, and anything that is unique about your processes. This is a good chance to accentuate the points that are on-trend, for example, if you manufacture furniture or clothing, explain how the materials are sustainably produced, if you’re in SaaS, describe how innovative your approach is.
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- Your industry:
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- Who do you serve and why do you stand out amongst competitors? In what way will you contribute to the growth of your particular industry and to the benefit of your clientele? Speak to your target market.
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- Your integrity:
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- Possibly the most important part is that you demonstrate why you are worthy of your customers trust. There are many ways to increase the effectiveness of this aspect, which will be included below.
Now for the Extras
Beyond the bare minimum, there are many ways to bolster your About Us page. This can be through creative design, trust-building methods, or others which I’ll outline below.
- Make a clear mission statement: You should have a clear vision that can be summarized into a few sentences at most. This should be concise but still show exactly what you intend to do for your customers and your business.
- Great photos: Invest in high quality photos of your team. It’s good to include group photos and individual photos, along with photos of your unique systems and processes.
- Potent copy: You want your story to be written eloquently but relatable enough, you don’t want to come off as arrogant or pretentious. Write with clarity and sincerity in a tone that matches your brand and how it has evolved.
- Smart design: Make sure the page layout is appealing and easy to follow. It should direct the visitor to what you wish them to see, and the order should make sense.
- Clever CTAs: Calls to action can be more subtle on the About Us page. Rather than “Buy Now” buttons, try something that matches the content like “Follow our Journey” or “Join us Today” to gain email and social media marketing followers.
- Authority pointers: Display information that points to your brand as a leader in the industry. This can be done by displaying various certifications or achievements, or by including logos of well-known partners you may have successfully collaborated with.
- Team member section: This is a great way to add a personal touch from your employees to the About Us page. Along with photos of your team, include their names, roles, and perhaps a quote from them. This demonstrates that you have a happy staff that is so committed to the brand that they are willing to stand by it publicly, adding a remarkable amount of integrity and transparency.
- Make it about the visitor: You should absolutely make the defining message of your About Us page about how your services or product will benefit and improve the visitors life. While telling your story, suggest that all this hard work has been for them, the visitors, and your commitment to constant improvement.
- Be mindful of your tone: The tone should, of course, match the personality of the brand. If you’ve positioned yourself as a humorous and progressive brand, a monotonous, bland description of your business will be off-putting. Consider what your audience wants to hear.
Great Examples of About Us Pages
Here’s a nice variety of approaches to making an effective About Us page. As you can see, not every page has every single thing from the list above, but each example is congruous with the rest of the site and the brand it represents.
ALOHA
“ALOHA make plant-based food from a few thoughtfully chosen, real food ingredients meant to nourish your body.”
ALOHA produces vegan chocolate products that are dairy, soy, GMO, and gluten free. Their About Us page makes their stance on health and ethics very clear. The copy is short but effective, demonstrating exactly what the benefits of their products are.
Mission, check. Benefits, check. Relate to your audience, check. And wrap it all up with a very attractive and clever CTA:
Allbirds
For Allbirds, it takes only two paragraphs to answer the who, the what, the how, and the why. Great photo of the founders in front of their products is a nice touch as well.
Look at those warm smiles. I feel like I’ve known these guys for years already.
Also included is their commitment to sustainability and community outreach. These are super on-trend and will surely win over visitors that align their values with Allbirds’ production process and ethical commitments.
Brosa
Brosa is on a mission to offer premium furniture at affordable prices. While I do believe that the page could be improved upon, there’s a lot they did right. They’ve done a great job of showing off their products with beautiful photography, and the copy is very persuasive. There’s also an incentive to subscribe to their email list at the bottom of the page.
They briefly mention their method of cutting out middlemen and also their growing team. If I were to add to this page I’d like to see more about their means of production and the people that sustain the brand. I’d also like to hear about how they’ve been successful so far. Of course, this is not to take away from a very elegant and effective About Us page that is present on the site as of now.
Harry’s
Harry’s offers exceedingly high quality razors and other male grooming products. They are proud, as they should be, of there 600+ member team that all share the same philosophy of simple and effective design.
These two clean-cut young men, evidently users of their own wonderful product, are the founders of Harry’s. Just like Allbirds above, it lends a huge amount of integrity to the brand that Jeff and Andy are willing and proud to place themselves personally on the site.
They’ve also brilliantly included a “social mission” page under their About tab that includes their charitable activity and the various non-profit partners they work with to improve the lives of others.
Greetabl
So I may have cheated a little bit with this one because it is not technically an “About Us” page. However, Geetabl’s massive homepage is loaded with About Us page-worthy features like descriptions, trust markers, CTAs, and even a well-produced video showcasing what they do.
The homepage is extensive, so I invite you to check it out for yourself.
The Greetabl team also have a page dedicated to their team, including the founders and everyone else, complete with photos and job titles. This a good example of how you can integrate features of different pages onto one, which when done correctly actually adds tremendously to the customer experience.
Bonus: Chubbies Shorts
I wanted to include this as a more abstract example. Instead of a dedicated page, Chubbies have included a section on their homepage that delivers a quasi-mission statement and really shows off the personality of their brand. The laid-back and cheeky tone really speaks to their target market: young, fit, beach-going party people that like wacky designs and comfortable attire (okay, it might be generalizing a bit but that’s definitely the theme their leaning towards).
This is a good example of a business knowing what will best suit their brand and entertain their visitors while still being informative. Note the “Onward to the Weekend” CTA at the bottom. Cool.
Build your own Beautiful About Us Page with PageFly
Are you inspired yet? I hope so. Now it’s time to try building a great About Us page that will add value to your visitors and to your business. Luckily we have a trick up our sleeve to help you do so: install the PageFly App for your Shopify store to have complete freedom over designing your very own converting pages, not only restricted to the About Us page.
We’ve even created a video tutorial to get you started. Check the video out here and let us know your thoughts on the importance of the humble About Us page.
[Video] Building A Shopify About Us Page Like Allbirds
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