Almost every about page on a small business site is written for somebody who already likes the business. It is warm, it is a little bit about the journey, and it closes with a line about passion.
The person actually reading it is colder than that. They found you twenty seconds ago, they are thinking about giving you money, and they are looking for a reason to believe you exist. Warmth does not help them. Detail does.
Before anything else: we never require an about page for inclusion in the register. There is no criterion in our entry bar about it, and writing one will not affect whether we would list a business. This is advice, not a hurdle.
What this is, and who it is for
This is for anyone whose about page is a paragraph of warm nothing, who knows it, and who has been putting off rewriting it because they do not know what to put instead.
Most readers of this post are one person. The post is written on that assumption, and a one-person about page is easier than people expect once you stop trying to sound like a company.
Who actually reads an about page, and what they want from it
Almost nobody reads an about page casually. People arrive there for a reason, and the reason is usually one of three.
They are about to spend money and want to know who they are dealing with. This is the main audience. They have decided the product looks right and they are now doing a small verification pass. What a stranger checks before buying sets out the same pass from the buyer's side.
Something felt slightly off and they are checking. A price that seemed low, a site that looked generic, a shop with no name on it. They are looking for anything concrete to settle the question.
They are deciding whether to work with you, hire you or stock you. A different kind of scrutiny, but the same mechanism: they want falsifiable detail.
All three are sceptics. None of them wants your story for its own sake.
Why warmth reads as evasion to a stranger
Here is the reading order a sceptic actually uses. They do not read from the top. They skim the page hunting for anything that could be checked, and their eye lands on names, places, numbers, dates and specific objects.
If the page contains none of those, the skim finds nothing to grab, and the reader draws a conclusion that is unfair but predictable: this page is made of statements that cannot be wrong. "We're passionate about quality" cannot be wrong. "We believe in doing things properly" cannot be wrong. A page built entirely from unfalsifiable sentences reads, to a suspicious person, as a page written to avoid saying anything.
The fix is not to be colder. It is to make sure that between the warm sentences there is something a person could go and verify. One checkable fact does more for trust than three paragraphs of tone.
This is also why you should not solve the problem by inventing something. An invented founding year, a team page with people who do not work for you, an award nobody gave you, a client list you cannot evidence: these are precisely the details a sceptic goes to check, and they are the only kind of failure on the page that does lasting damage. If you have no history yet, say what you have.
Paragraph 1: what you do, concretely
Start with the plain sentence. What you make or do, who for, and where or how.
If that sounds like the sentence that belongs at the top of your homepage, it is, and it should be on both. A person can arrive on your about page first, from a link somebody sent, without ever seeing the homepage. Assume every page is somebody's first.
Concrete means nouns a person could buy. Materials, services, sizes, categories, what you deliberately do not do. "We do not do commercial fit-out" is a genuinely useful sentence, because it tells a reader what kind of operation this is.
If the ten-item checklist has already made you write that sentence, reuse it.
Paragraph 2: who is doing it
Name a person or name the entity. This is the paragraph most one-person businesses get wrong, in one of two directions.
The first mistake is the corporate "we" applied to a single human. "Our team of specialists" when the team is you. It is not a lie exactly, and a reader who works it out feels mildly deceived, which is worse than a small business admitting it is small.
The second mistake is hiding entirely. No name anywhere, no sense of who is behind it, on the theory that anonymity looks more professional. It looks like a reseller.
"We" is fine as a house voice if the business trades that way and you are not claiming staff you do not have. What a stranger wants is a first name, a role and some sense of the shape of the operation. "I'm Ruth, I do all the framing myself and my brother helps at weekends" is a complete answer and takes one line.
The invented examples in this post are exactly that: invented, written to illustrate a pattern. We never publish a teardown of a real business's pages, good or bad.
Paragraph 3: something checkable
This is the paragraph that does the work, and it is the one most pages are missing.
You are looking for at least one fact that a determined reader could go and confirm, or at minimum could catch you out on. Options, in rough order of how easy they are to produce:
- How long you have been doing this. Only if true, and a rough figure is fine.
- Where you physically are. A town, a region, a building, a street if you have commercial premises. Not a home address.
- What you make it from, or with. Materials, suppliers, equipment, the make of the machine, the process.
- Volume or scale, honestly. "Two or three commissions a month." "A batch of forty a week." Small numbers are more believable than vague large ones.
- Qualifications, memberships or registrations you actually hold. Named, and only if you hold them.
- Work anyone can go and look at. A building you worked on, a shop that stocks you, a public project. Only with the other party's agreement where that matters.
- The constraint you work within. "We only take work within an hour's drive." "Everything is made to order, so nothing ships the same week."
Constraints are underrated here. A limit is inherently checkable, because you can be caught breaking it, and a reader senses that.
Two invented illustrations, both composites written for this post:
An invented one-person upholstery business: "I've been upholstering for about eleven years, the last six from a unit on the industrial estate behind the station. Most of what comes in is mid-century seating and pub furniture. I don't do caravans or boats."
An invented two-person software tool: "There are two of us. We've run this since it was a side project, we have no investors, and we support the product ourselves, which is why replies come from a person and sometimes take a day."
Neither contains a superlative. Both give a sceptic several things to catch.
Paragraph 4: what happens if they contact you
End with the mechanics of dealing with you, because that is the reader's actual next question.
Cover what to send, who replies, roughly how long it takes, and what the first step looks like. If there is a minimum order, a lead time, a deposit or a waiting list, say so here rather than letting someone discover it after they have committed emotionally.
An invented illustration: "Email is best. I read it in the mornings and usually reply within two working days. For a commission I'll ask for measurements and a photo, then send a rough figure before anything else happens. There's usually a four to six week wait."
This paragraph makes an ordinary reader more likely to write to you, and it makes the wrong enquiries stop before they start. It also gives you something specific to point at when someone asks how long things take.
What to leave out
- The founding myth, unless it is true, short, and contains a fact. Nobody needs the kitchen table unless there was a kitchen table.
- Values as a list. Integrity, quality, honesty. Every business claims these, so they carry no information. Show them by being specific instead.
- Stock photography of people who are not you. A sceptic who recognises a stock image discards the whole page.
- A team page for a team that does not exist.
- Awards, certifications and memberships you do not hold, and vague versions of ones you do.
- Client lists you have not been given permission to publish.
- Superlatives. Leading, premier, best. A reader discounts them automatically, so they cost you space and gain nothing.
- Your entire career history, unless it explains why you can do this particular thing.
A note on privacy: what not to publish about yourself
Being believable does not require exposing your household, and it is worth being deliberate about this before you write.
Do not publish your home address, including when your home is the registered address of the business. Do not publish your personal mobile number or your personal email. Do not publish anything that identifies the people you live with, including children, and be careful with photographs taken at home that show the street, the door number or the view.
If you work from home and want to state a location, a town or a district is enough for a stranger's purposes. If you need a postal address, that is what a separate business address arrangement is for. What a business must display varies by legal form, sector and location, and this site does not answer it; what your site has to say about who you are is the post that handles that question properly.
What never goes on a contact page covers this in full, including the routes that let people reach you without publishing a personal number.
For our part, we never publish a residential address in the register, including where it is the registered business address.
In Plain English
A stranger reading your about page is doing a small check, not enjoying a story. They skim for anything that could be verified, and if there is nothing, the warmth reads as avoidance.
Write four paragraphs. What you do, in plain nouns. Who is doing it, with a name. At least one thing a person could go and check, such as how long, where, what from, or what you refuse to take on. And what actually happens if they get in touch.
Leave out the values list, the invented history and the stock photographs. Do not publish your home address or personal number to look more legitimate. And none of this affects whether we would list your business, because nothing does except the entry bar.
Questions about about pages
I genuinely have no history. What do I write?
Write the present tense. What you make, who you are, what you work with, what happens when someone contacts you. A new business that describes itself precisely is more convincing than an old one that describes itself vaguely, and inventing a past is the one move here that can actually hurt you.
Should I use "I" or "we"?
Whichever is true. A single person writing "I" is entirely normal and reads as confident. "We" is fine if the business trades that way and you are not implying staff you do not have.
How long should the page be?
Four paragraphs is a good target. Long enough to contain something checkable, short enough that a sceptic reads all of it.
Get the fact sheet that feeds this page. It collects the raw material for an about page once, so you stop reassembling it, and it explains what each field is for. It is free, ungated, and has no bearing on register consideration. The section index is being findable, and the page-by-page companion is shopfront basics.