Website Content: Put Your Best Foot Forward & Write An Effective “About Us” Page
Whether It’s “About Us” or “About Me” … Visitors Want to Know About You!
Are you aware of the importance of well written website content that is information packed for your “About Us” page? You’ve probably noticed this page on practically every site or blog you visit, but what are the key factors you really can’t afford to overlook when writing this page for your own site? Well, let me tell you what I believe you should not ignore if you want a great “About Us” page …
I often find many omissions of important information on people’s “About Us/Me” web page. Since I usually view web content with a critical SEO eye, I know that those omissions are also causing the site owner to miss out on a little extra ranking juice. But this doesn’t has to happen to you.
It’s important that you do your best to give your web site or blog visitor, who just might be a potential customer, a nice overview of you and/or your company, and what you do. It’s also very easy to take advantage of optimizing this page for search engine ranking purposes. The informative content basically goes hand-in-hand with what the search engine spiders are looking for, so it really isn’t hard to make your “About Us” page a good one in all respects.
Here’s what I suggest you should include on your “About Me” or “About Us” page:
- Highlight yourself and your key staff members – write a little something about each of you.
- Visitors love to see who “you” are. Include a nice smiling photo of yourself. A group shot of your staff works well, or individual photos work great, too. Make sure to list their names and if they have phone extensions, list those too;
- Be creative with the photo(s) of yourself or your staff. This a big plus and can really help drive across the uniqueness of what you have to offer. (And in the case of the first photo, can provide a chuckle for your visitor!)
If it is appropriate in your marketing niche, something beyond the standard head shot is a great idea. In an image search on Google for “about us”, I found some of the most interesting photos and they sure made me understand the “feel” of what the web owner was wanting to get across to their site visitors.
I’m showcasing these three “About Us” photos because I think they are excellent examples of how thinking outside the box can make your “About Us” or “About Me” page much more interesting and I do believe an approach such as these will leave a lasting impression in your customers minds!
Please note I have NO AFFILIATION with any of these businesses … I am merely showcasing them to help give you some creative inspiration. Click on the photo to go to the “About” page of each business:
- Provide a short history of how you began and where your business is now (explain it’s growth);
- Proudly list your mission statement, or what sets you apart from the competition, as example;
- Any special recognitions, industry awards, etc. that are worth noting;
- Any business groups or organizations that you or your staff belong to;
- Your street address (or P.O. Box if you work from home and wish to protect your privacy), city, state and zip code;
- Your phone number – it’s preferable for SEO purposes to list a phone number with area code versus an #800 number (but list your #800 too if you do have one);
- Testimonials and/or a link to your Testimonial page if your have one;
- Anything else that you feel would set you apart from your competition and is worth noting.
Your “About Us” Content Needs to be Written as if You’re Speaking to that Visitor
Every bit of web content that I write, even for my www.SEO-Innovation.com site (which is purely an informational site for highlighting my SEO consulting and web developement services), is written with my personal flair.
I am a big advocate of writing as if you are literally speaking face-to-face to your visitor. Why not? This approach has always served me well, and based on the emails I receive saying “you express yourself in such a nice way … your tutorials are so easy to follow and understand”, etc. that I encourage you to use the same style when writing the oh-so important content for your “About” page.
Google Search Cheats
Learn How to Dig Deeper with Advanced Google Search Techniques
Many people are not taking the best advantage of Google when they are searching for information. I am quite honestly surprised at how almost everyone only uses the basic search technique – that being to just type in the word or words that they think pertain to the information they need to find.
Because some of my SEO clients take over the optimizing tasks for their websites after I’ve gotten them ranking well, I feel it’s very important to teach them these valuable Google search “cheats”. It helps them do a better job of understanding their competition as far as “keyword competition” is concerned, and of course helps them do a better job when they are searching to find information. Even if that information is the “best chocolate cake recipe”, as example.
I have encountered very few of my SEO clients who are aware that if they add a quotation mark at the beginning and end of their search terms, i.e. “SEO consultant“, that they increase the option for more relevant SERPs to be returned to them for the search term. The bottom line is that the better you are in your searching techniques, the less time you will spend trying to find the information or answers you’re searching for!
Please note: some or all of these cheats will NOT work in other search engines.
Whether you’re doing research for your search engine optimization campaign, or you’re trying to research other information using Google, try the following modifiers to create more specific and accurate searches. You’ll get much better results and you’ll zero in on what you’re really searching for.
Use These Queries To Search Like A Pro:
| Search Examples | Finds Pages Containing… |
| meat balls | finds the words meat and balls |
| recycle steel OR iron | finds information on recycling steel or recycling iron |
| “SEO consultant” | returns the exact phrase SEO consultant |
| pet –toys | finds the word pet but NOT the word toys |
| internet ~glossary | finds glossaries about the internet, as well as dictionaries, lists of terms, terminology, etc. |
| fortune-telling | returns all forms of the term, whether spelled as a single word, a phrase, or hyphenated |
| define: website | finds definitions of the word website |
break
For the most extensive list of search “cheats” I’ve ever come across, I totally recommend the following resource: Google Guide Quick Reference: Advanced Operators Cheat Sheet.
Content Freshness – Great Value For SEO Purposes
Keep It Relevant – Post On a Consistent Basis – Boost Your Rankings
Sometimes SEO is almost too simple for many people to really want to believe. Such as the ranking value of adding a new article to your website, or adding a new post to your blog on a regular and consistent basis. Really!
Now, I must stress that it is also very important to be writing quality content that also pertains to the theme of your site – not just half-heartedly writing an article, into which you’ve dumped keywords you’re hoping to rank highly for. No … that’s not the way to do it. The search engine spiders are smart! They can tell well written, good quality content that pertains to the overall theme of a site from “junk”.
This keyword focused, site theme oriented content is commonly referred to as “relevant content”. This “relevancy” is what Google and the other search engines are looking for AND providing ranking positions for. If your content is totally on target for what your site is all about … and it’s good, keyword focused content that your visitors will find of value … then I’ll wager in the long run you’ll be doing quite well with your site’s overall rankings. Which means your hoped for client base will certainly be able to find you online.
If you really want your website to gain a strong, long lasting foothold in the SERPs, then take that list of keyword phrases you or your SEO consultant has carefully researched, and put them to good use in great articles that you post to your site on a regular basis.
Whether you post daily, twice a week, once a week or even bi-weekly, you really will gain many more benefits for content “freshness” than you might expect. The search engine robots love it – your site will get crawled more often, and of course your readers will have a greater opportunity to find the information they’re looking for.
Over time, by consistently adding great content which utilizes your chosen keywords effectively, you very likely will become known as an authority site, and you’ll have greater opportunity to monetize your site, too.
It’s a win-win all the way around.
A Simple SEO Tip To Help Keep Visitors On Your Website
Provide Your Visitors With the Information They Were Hoping to Find
In a previous post about how to write compelling copy I talk about keeping it foremost in your mind that whatever you are writing needs to provide the information the visitor was hoping to find.
In other words, they typed in a search term; your SERP listing caught their eye; and click … they were carried onto the page showing up on the SERP. Now, that content should be of great interest to your new visitor. The content should provide the information they were hoping to find about your services or products.
Side note: Because I know your content is always keyword focused (you have been following what I teach, right?), and because you always do a great job optimizing your Title tag and Description meta tag, that is why the visitor found you via their search efforts.
Today I just want to drum home the thought that we all should strive to write quality, informative content that sticks to the keyword phrase we have targeted to that specific page.
The Only Thing Separating Your SERP Listing From Your Competitors’ is …
… a compelling Title tag and Description meta tag! The SERP listing is your first stab at attempting to attract the attention of your ideal buying audience! If you’ve taken your time to write an interesting and to-the-point listing you’ve got a very good chance you’ll get the click.
Once you’ve gotten that visitor’s trust (meaning you got the click), then you’ve got to make darn sure the content on the page that visitor lands on is FOCUSED to the information the SERP listing provided them.
That visitor should immediately recognize upon landing on your page that “Yup! This is exactly the information I was looking for!” If this is the case, then it’s a win-win for everyone. 
Remember … in almost all instances, treat each and every page on your website as a landing page. Make sure your well written SERP listing is in total agreement with the information the visitor will find on that page.
If you do this with every new page you write, you will be miles ahead from almost all of your online competition.
