The about page gets read more than owners expect, and it is almost never read for the reason they think.
Nobody arrives curious about the year you were founded.
What they are really doing there
They are about to hand money to a stranger, and they want to know who they would be dealing with. That is the whole job of the page.
It gets read late, too. Usually after they have decided you can probably do the work, and just before they get in touch. It is the last check before the email.
What usually goes there instead
The year it started, and a sentence about growing steadily since.
Values. Honesty, quality, putting the client first. Nobody claims the opposite, so it tells a reader nothing.
A stock photograph of people in a glass meeting room.
A list of memberships and logos that every firm in the trade also has.
None of it is wrong. All of it is the same as everybody else, which makes it invisible.
What actually settles it
Who actually does the work. Not job titles, but how the team is put together and who a client ends up dealing with.
How you work, in plain terms. Who answers the phone. What happens after someone gets in touch.
What you are not, and will not do. That one is rare enough that it does more work than anything else on the page.
Why the limits help
A firm that says what it is bad at sounds like a firm telling the truth about the rest.
A firm that is good at everything, for everyone, sounds like a brochure. Readers have met a lot of brochures.
The test
Read your about page and ask whether a stranger finishes it knowing who they would actually be dealing with.
If it only tells them you have been going since 2004 and you care about quality, it has not done anything. Those are facts about you. They came for something else.
