How to Write an About Page That Builds Trust (Not Just Fills Space)

On most service business websites, the About page quietly gets more traffic than almost anything except the homepage — often more than any individual service page. That makes sense: someone comparing a few local businesses for a job that involves letting a stranger into their home, or handling something they can't easily verify themselves, is looking for a reason to trust one over another. And yet the About page is routinely the most neglected page on the site — written once, years ago, and never revisited.

Treating it as an afterthought is a missed opportunity. This page exists at exactly the point in a visitor's decision where trust either gets built or doesn't.

Why this page carries more weight than it gets credit for

Service pages answer "can you do what I need?" The About page answers a different, arguably more decisive question: "should I trust this specific business to do it?" Someone who has already confirmed a business offers the right service is now trying to figure out who they're actually dealing with — a real person or an anonymous operation, someone experienced or someone new, someone who seems to care about the outcome or someone running a volume operation. A well-built About page answers that directly. A neglected one leaves the visitor to guess, which usually means they move on to a competitor whose page did answer it.

What actually builds trust on this page

Real names and real photos of the people behind the business

Anonymity is one of the fastest ways to undercut trust. Naming the owner, showing their actual face, and saying who they are goes further than almost anything else on the page — it turns "a company" into "a person I could recognize if they showed up at my door." If there's a small team, showing the people customers are most likely to actually interact with does the same thing at a smaller scale.

Genuine years of experience and specific credentials

"Years of experience" is only convincing when it's specific and verifiable — a real number, a real license number where applicable, a real certification, a real trade background. "Highly experienced team" says nothing. "Licensed and insured, in business since 2014, previously a project lead at [prior employer/trade background]" says something a visitor can actually evaluate.

The actual story of why the business exists

Every business has a real reason it exists, even if it's ordinary — a tradesperson who got tired of how customers were treated elsewhere and started their own shop, a family business passed down, someone who saw a gap in how a service was delivered locally. That specific, true story is more compelling than any amount of polished language, because it can't be copy-pasted onto a competitor's site. If the honest answer is "I wanted to run my own business and this is the trade I know," that's a legitimate story — say that, specifically, rather than dressing it up in language that could describe any business anywhere.

What to avoid

• Stock photos of generic "team" people. Anyone who has spent time online recognizes stock photography on sight, and using it on the one page meant to establish who you are undercuts the entire purpose of the page.
• Vague mission statements. "We are passionate about quality and customer satisfaction" could be pasted onto any business in any industry in any city, and reads as exactly that — filler. If a sentence on your About page could describe your top three competitors equally well, cut it.
• Walls of text with no photos or structure. A dense paragraph with no breaks, no photos, and no visual hierarchy asks for more effort than most visitors are willing to give a page they're skimming. Break the story into short sections, add real photos, and make it easy to scan.

The connection to E-E-A-T

Google's quality guidelines describe evaluating content in part through experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trust — commonly shortened to E-E-A-T. It isn't a single ranking factor to game, but it does describe real signals that separate a credible, established business from an anonymous or low-effort one. A strong About page is one of the more direct ways a site demonstrates those signals: a named, identifiable owner with visible credentials and a real history is stronger evidence of a genuine business than a site where no person is ever named. Combined with genuine reviews (see how to get more Google reviews) and real photos of completed work throughout the site, the About page becomes part of a broader pattern of authenticity rather than a single isolated page.

How this plays out differently across industries

The specifics of what builds trust shift a little depending on the trade, even if the underlying principle — be real and specific — stays the same. A home services business (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, roofing) benefits most from license numbers, insurance details, and years actually doing the trade, because the risk a customer is weighing is letting someone into their home. A professional services business (legal, accounting, consulting) benefits more from specific credentials, where the person trained, and what kinds of cases or clients they've actually handled. A personal or wellness service (salons, fitness, med spas) leans more heavily on the personality and philosophy of the person providing the service, since the relationship itself is part of what's being sold.

None of that changes the core advice — it just changes which specific facts are worth foregrounding first. A roofing company's About page that leads with "family-owned since 2011, fully licensed and insured, GAF certified installer" is doing the same job as a bookkeeper's About page that leads with "CPA, former controller at [industry] companies, now working directly with small business owners" — both are trading vague reassurance for something a visitor can actually verify or at least evaluate.

Treat it as a living page, not a one-time write-up

Most About pages are written once, at launch, and never revisited — which means the "5 years of experience" line is still there a decade later, the team photo is missing three people who've since joined, and the story stops at the founding instead of reflecting what the business has actually become. Revisit this page at least once a year: update the experience figures, refresh the photos, and add any credentials, certifications, or milestones earned since the last update. A page that's visibly current reinforces the same trust signals the page itself is trying to build — a business that maintains its own About page is a reasonable proxy for a business that maintains its work.

A simple structure that works

1. A short, direct opening: who you are and what you do, in plain language.
2. The real story of why the business exists — specific, not generic.
3. Who's actually behind it — names, photos, relevant background.
4. Concrete credentials — licenses, certifications, years in business, service area.
5. What working with the business is actually like, if it's genuinely different from the norm.
6. A clear next step — contact, quote request, or phone number, so the trust built on this page has somewhere to go.

None of this needs to be long. It needs to be true, specific, and paired with real photos — the same principles that make a service page convert apply here, just aimed at a different question: not "can you do this job," but "should I trust you to."