—It’s Not About Us; It’s About You!
Do you have an About Us page on your website? If you’re like most businesses, I’m betting you do.
How about an About You page? I’m betting you don’t.
One of the biggest mistakes most businesses make in marketing is focusing on themselves. The About Us page epitomizes this mistake. Most companies use it as a place to spout off about one of more of the following:
1. How great they are.
2. How fantastic their employees are (at least their management teams).
3. How their widgets are the best widgets around.
4. Their incredible mission statements, which say how great they are, what fantastic employees they have and how their widgets are the best widgets around.
That’s all well and good, but there’s just one problem.
No one cares!
People care about themselves. They want to know what’s in it for them. They want to see how your company, your employees and your widget can improve their lives.
When done right, the About Us page can help a business connect with prospects and turn more of them into customers. (A little secret about the About Us page is that the most effective ones actually focus on the customer, not the business. A good About Us page paints a clear picture of the benefits a customer receives when doing business with the company.)
I’d like to propose taking things a step further. If you’re going to dedicate a web page to "us" (your company), then dedicate one to "you" (your customers).
Without customers, you don’t have a business. So why not give them their very own page on your website?
What Goes On An About You Page?
Use the About You page to tell prospects and customers about themselves. Detail their problems and frustrations. Describe who they are. Describe who they’re not.
On my website, www.wordsthatclick.net/, the About You page has a bulleted list of qualities that describe my ideal prospects.
It tells them who they are: small-business owners, entrepreneurs and the heads of not-for-profit organizations.
It tells them about my clients’ common problems that I can help solve: not having enough customers, being in the dark about Internet marketing, or staring at a blank screen that needs to be filled with words for an article or marketing copy.
It tells them who they are not—affiliate marketers and multilevel marketers (MLMs).
What Can An About You Page Do For You?
An About You page can provide a few main benefits:
1. It forces you to focus on the ideal client for your business. Most small businesses make the mistake of trying to be everything to everyone. That generally leads to chasing leads and serving clients who can suck the life out of your business.
Writing down a clear description of your ideal client puts your focus on attracting prospects who are perfectly suited to your business’s core competencies. (This is a worthwhile task even if you don’t want to put it on your website.)
Attract these types of clients and you’ll be a lot happier.
2. Clients who aren’t a good fit for your business can quickly disqualify themselves. If you’ve posted the attributes of your ideal client on your website, prospects who don’t fit the bill can see that for themselves and move on to find a better fit. This keeps them and you from wasting valuable time trying to figure it out later.
3. It ensures you have at least one page on your site that puts the focus squarely on your customers’ favorite topic: themselves.
4. There’s a powerful psychological aspect to having an About You page on your website. When a prospect comes to your site and finds a description or checklist that describes her perfectly, it gives her a feeling of having found the mother ship. A place where she belongs. This can help convince her that becoming a client of yours would be ideal.
5. It makes you stand out from the crowd. I did exhaustive research (i.e., a Google search) and found that almost no websites have an About You page. In a web full of sites with Home, Products, Services, Blog, About Us and Contact Us pages, the About You page is a great way to get noticed.
Take the idea of focusing on your prospects and customers to every page of your website. Then incorporate it into all your other sales and marketing activities. Because focusing on your customers will ultimately benefit you.
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Adam Kreitman is an entrepreneur, a Google AdWords Qualified Individual and a dad. His company, Words That Click, provides Internet marketing and copywriting services for small businesses. While he could tell you more about himself, he’d rather find out more about you.
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by Adam Kreitman
Why Most Websites Have It Wrong