Answer in brief
A strong About page answers who is behind the business, what it does, for whom, and how to reach it, with details a visitor can check. Google’s guidance names the About page as one signal of trust. Real pages from Wikimedia and Basecamp show two workable shapes: an organised reference page and a signed founder’s story.
Why visitors open an About page before they write to you
People who search for about us page examples usually want an answer to one practical question: what should my own page say so that a stranger believes me? The visitor has read a service page and still hesitates; the next click is About. The page is the trust step before contact, and it should be written as one.
Google’s guidance on helpful, reliable, people-first content says the same in its own terms. It calls trust the most important part of E-E-A-T and lists, among the signals that help a visitor trust a page, links to an author page or to a site’s About page. The page gives a reader a place to check who stands behind the words.
What Google’s who, how and why questions ask of a small site
The same Google page builds its self-check around three questions. On who, it asks whether it is self-evident to visitors who wrote the content, and it says a byline should lead to more information about the author. On how, it says readers should be able to see how the content was produced, including any use of automation or AI that a reader might wonder about. On why, it names the question perhaps the most important one: content should exist to help people who arrive, not mainly to attract search traffic.
These questions were written for articles, but a small business can read them as a checklist for the whole site. The About page is the natural home for the answer to who: named people, their roles, a way to reach them. It is also the place to say plainly how you work. Google’s page treats invented creator profiles as deceptive, which is a good reason not to decorate your team section with faces that do not belong to your team.
Seven parts that most strong About pages share
Looking across pages that work, the parts repeat. A one-sentence statement of what the business is. What it does and for whom. Where it came from and since when. The people, with names, roles and real photographs. Proof that a stranger can check: work, figures with a date, reviews with names. A short note on how you work with clients. And a contact route that does not make the visitor hunt for it.
A small studio, a clinic or a shop can cover all seven on a screen and a half. What matters is the order: the visitor’s first question is who you are, the second is whether you do what they need, and only the third is how you started.
The Wikimedia Foundation page as an organised reference
The About page of the Wikimedia Foundation, read in October 2026, opens with a plain heading, We are the Wikimedia Foundation, and then splits itself into four short subsections: its vision, its model, its technology work and a statement that the project is not for sale. It states a founding year, 2003, and says that nearly 250,000 volunteers around the world write the content of Wikipedia.
The page then does what a cautious visitor wants. It links to staff, leadership and the Board of Trustees, describes itself as a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit, says it publishes a Transparency Report twice a year and has its financial statements audited annually. A short question-and-answer block deals with who writes the content and whether anyone can edit. Contact is a single link in the footer, and the page names no individual people itself.
The lesson for a small business is the order, not the scale. Say what you are, say how you are organised, show where a reader can verify it, and answer the two or three questions people always ask. Few small companies have audited statements, but most have a registration or a list of clients who agreed to be named.
The Basecamp page as a founder’s signed story
Basecamp takes the opposite route. Its About page, read the same month, is a first-person account by co-founder Jason Fried under the title Where we came from. A web design firm needed better tools to keep its clients from being disappointed, built them, found that clients wanted to use the tool itself, and about a year after release saw the product earn more than the design business. The firm then stopped doing web design.
The page ends with a signature: a name, a title and an email address, followed by a newsletter form. It also says who stands behind the product, 37signals, which makes other products too. This is a story that turns a company into people, and it works because it is specific and signed. It does not list a team or an office, so a visitor who wants those must look elsewhere.
A founder’s story suits a business that has a founder visitors can meet. A clinic with six specialists or a workshop with a team of ten is better served by a page that introduces each person in two lines and puts the story of the business in a short paragraph above them.
Company details a UK limited company must show on its site
Some of what an About page carries is not a matter of taste. According to GOV.UK’s guidance on signs, stationery and promotional material, a UK limited company must show certain details on its website: its company registration number, its registered office address, the part of the UK where it is registered, and the fact that it is a limited company, normally by ending the full name with Limited or Ltd.
Many businesses put these in the footer and repeat them on the About page, so a visitor looking for who is legally responsible finds the answer in the place they expect. Other countries have their own rules about what a commercial site must disclose, and the rules differ by company type. Check yours with the business register or a lawyer in your country; this story only reports what the UK page says.
Mistakes that make an About page weaker than none
The first is vague self-praise. Passionate, innovative and customer-focused say nothing a visitor can test, while a sentence such as we repair and sell used bicycles in one town says everything. The second is a team section built from stock photographs or invented profiles. Beyond the ethical problem, Google’s guidance calls fabricated creator profiles deceptive, and a customer who meets the real person will notice the difference at once.
The third is a figure that disagrees with itself. Both pages read for this story state a number in two places with two different values: Basecamp gives two different spans for how long the company has run, and Wikimedia gives two averages for a single donation. A small business loses credibility this way. State each figure once and put a date next to it.
The fourth is a page that exists but cannot be found, or one that has no way to contact anyone. The fifth is time: a page that still says we are a young team in a year when the team has doubled, or lists someone who left. Read the page twice a year as a stranger would.
Preparing an About page for a five-page business site
An About page is easy to write yourself if you have the facts and difficult to write if you do not. Prepare one sentence about what the business is, the year it started, the names and roles of the people who deal with clients, photographs taken for the purpose, two or three proofs you may legally show, your registration details and one contact route. If you can fill that list in an hour, you can write the page. If you cannot, the gap is in the business facts, and a designer cannot invent them.
When the facts exist and you would rather have the page designed and published for you, a studio can help. Business website at VITON13 Studio is a fast site with 5 pages, a CMS, enquiry forms and analytics, launched from your content. It costs from $113 AI-assisted or $173 human-led, with a turnaround of 3–5 working days. The About page fits inside it, and your own list of facts is what makes the estimate exact.
Practical checklist
- Write one sentence that says what the business is, for whom, and since when.
- List the people visitors will meet, with real names, roles and photographs.
- Collect two or three proofs you can show: dated figures, named reviews, permitted cases.
- Check your country’s rules on company details for websites with the register or a specialist.
- State each number once, add the date, and put a six-month reminder to re-read the page.
Questions and answers
How long should an About page be?
Long enough to answer who you are, what you do, for whom and how to reach you. For a small business that is usually a screen and a half. Depth belongs on separate pages for the team or the history.
Should the About page tell the founder’s story?
Only if visitors can actually meet the founder. A signed story with a real name and email gives a business a human face. A larger team is better introduced person by person, with the story kept short.
Do I need photographs of the team?
Real ones help, because they let a visitor recognise the person who answers the phone. Stock photos presented as staff do the opposite, and Google’s guidance treats invented creator profiles as deceptive.
Where should registration details go?
Wherever your national rules and a visitor’s expectations meet: often the footer, repeated on the About page. In the UK, GOV.UK lists what a limited company shows. Elsewhere, ask the business register.
Does an About page help search rankings?
Nothing in Google’s guidance promises a ranking from it. The page is named as one of the places that help a visitor judge trust, and trust is what turns a visit into a request.