Like the remainder of your web site, your About web page is a robotic. You load it up with info, give it directives, and ship it out to symbolize you on the earth. Though boards, blogs, and different two-way types of on-line communication assist carry people again into the equation, you’re just about caught with the robotic mannequin for comparatively static necessities just like the About web page—however you do get to resolve what sort of robotic you need to use.
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Why the About web page issues#section2
The About web page exists to:
- present guests with important info they should work together along with your firm,
- give guests context for the knowledge they discover elsewhere on the positioning,
- differentiate your group from others prefer it, and
- give guests a motive (a number of causes, ideally) for doing no matter it’s you need them to do: contact a gross sales lead, be a part of a marketing campaign, ship cash, purchase a widget.
Essential stuff, and never too tough, however whereas most organizations now acknowledge this web page as an essential alternative to speak, many nonetheless don’t. However why not?
As a result of they’re utilizing the fallacious form of robotic.
Meet our heroine, Ms. Endurance. She’s choosing service firms to ship an RFP to; as a part of her prep work, she must get somewhat details about the Knock-Doodle Company. Little does she know that her quest will lead her by means of the gallery of ineffective equipment. First up: a bucket of bolts we prefer to name Dumb-bot.
Dumb-bot meets info requests with a frozen steel smile and a blank-eyed stare. Dumb-bots is usually a little unnerving, and positively don’t serve anybody’s advertising targets. Let’s have a look.
Ms. Endurance: Excuse me, I’m searching for somewhat details about your organization.
Dumb-bot: [Stares straight ahead]
Ms. Endurance: For starters, I have to know what you do.
Dumb-bot: The Knock-Doodle Company is a world providers and options supplier.
Ms. Endurance: All proper… However what, precisely, do you do?
Dumb-bot: [Falls over]
Ms. Endurance: [Blinks]
Dumb-bot in motion#section4
Ask.com has a pleasant sufficient About web page. The copy is somewhat obscure, nevertheless it’s helpful—till you choose the Firm Overview hyperlink and get shunted to what seems like a distinct web site (new brand within the nook, new firm identify, identical area…) with solely the next to information you:
IAC Search and Media delivers world-class info retrieval merchandise by means of a various portfolio of Web pages, portals and downloadable purposes. IAC Search and Media’s search and search-based portal manufacturers embrace: [list of companies]
We all know you’re in there, Dumb-bot. The blandness of the copy is much more jolting if you’ve simply come from Ask.com’s heat, pleasant bubble, however the true killer is that it offers nothing just like the “firm overview” we had been promised.
You may additionally have run into the Dumb-bot 2000, a extra refined mannequin that holds up an indication studying “over there” earlier than returning to its mechanical stupor. This superior model is seen on pages like Continental Airways’ About web page, the place the corporate apparently has room to hyperlink to resume-writing suggestions, however to not embrace even a quick description of who Continental is, what it does, and what makes it totally different from different firms. Distinction it with Delta’s About web page, which offers a concise overview and a extra considered number of hyperlinks.
So what’s the story? Does Dumb-bot’s menacingly bland exterior conceal a malicious intelligence devoted to world domination? Is it the results of somebody (or a committee of someones) failing to acknowledge the significance of serving person wants? Maybe… however I consider I’ve found the key: these bots are literally Roombas which have been unintentionally “repurposed” right into a advertising function. Provided that, I feel they’re doing a fairly good job.
Not so with our subsequent mechanical menace. If you happen to’ve ever had the tutorial expertise of ordering service from a U.S. cable or phone firm, you’ve in all probability run into one in all these. Someday within the final 5 years, a bright-eyed enterprise prodigy realized that lengthy hold-times on customer support traces supplied a captive viewers—the proper probability for tacky recorded gross sales pitches that drone on and on whereas your neck cramps from holding the cellphone along with your shoulder and an hour of your life drizzles into the slime-encrusted maw of the telecommunications beast. Ew.
Much less egregious, however nonetheless irritating, are the answering methods that require you to attend by means of a ten-second recording of the corporate’s tagline earlier than explaining how one can get the knowledge you want. An About web page cluttered with subjective superlatives and self-congratulatory descriptions is nearly as efficient: your customer asks for actual info and also you delay them with advertising fluff as an alternative.
Let’s take a look at it on Ms. Endurance.
Gross sales-o-matic: Good afternoon! You’ve reached the worldwide headquarters of the Knock-Doodle Company, the place world-class enterprise options create real-time benefits! We’re dedicated to offering you with the very best service by dwelling our mission of the very best service!
Ms. Endurance: Ahh, hello.
Gross sales-o-matic: Do you want to save cash? In case your reply is sure, I’d prefer to inform you extra about our—
Ms. Endurance: Truly, can simply you inform me what number of workers you could have?
Gross sales-o-matic: Knock-Doodle Company is the primary options supplier to really embrace the worldwide economic system. 46,874 subject-matter consultants sturdy, Knock-Doodle Company affords a deep pool of mental capital grounded in our worldwide—
Ms. Endurance: [Drowns the sales bot in a pool of its own intellectual capital]
Net customers are usually not a captive viewers. Don’t deal with them like one.
And now, the alternative of the gross sales bot. This one exhibits up nearly solely on the web, presumably as a result of anybody who tried it offline would get kidney-punched. In response to requests for normal info, the lawbot spits out the authorized equal of machine language, overwhelming the reader with info that’s irrelevant or unimportant to the overwhelming majority of holiday makers.
I’ve been choosing on counting on Deloitte for examples for the reason that days when their About web page included portraits straight out of a funeral parlor. Right here’s the best way the primary paragraph of their About web page begins:
Deloitte refers to a number of of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a Swiss Verein, its member companies, and their respective subsidiaries and associates.
Not likely a rip-roaring begin, nevertheless it will get higher, proper? Properly, they do provide a couple of chunks of helpful info within the subsequent sentence, however right here’s how that very same paragraph ends:
Companies are usually not supplied by the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Verein, and, for regulatory and different causes, sure member companies don’t present providers in all 4 skilled areas.
And the following two paragraphs:
As a Swiss Verein (affiliation), neither Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu nor any of its member companies has any legal responsibility for one another’s acts or omissions. Every of the member companies is a separate and impartial authorized entity working beneath the names “Deloitte,” “Deloitte & Touche,” “Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu,” or different associated names.
Within the U.S., Deloitte & Touche USA LLP is the member agency of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, and providers are supplied by the subsidiaries of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP (Deloitte & Touche LLP, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Deloitte Monetary Advisory Companies LLP, Deloitte Tax LLP and their subsidiaries) and never by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP.
That’s the entire web page. As you’ll be able to see, they will barely include their very own enthusiasm. Let’s simply let Ms. Endurance lie on the divan with a cool material over her eyes, we could?
The humorous factor is, again in 1999, Deloitte’s About web page copy wasn’t so dangerous (and had a greater URL, too). They used quotes from actual individuals and talked about concrete achievements; an up to date model of that duplicate (with higher images) can be worlds higher than their present trance-inducing authorized litany.
An About web page ought to present context and essential info, however must also give the reader compelling causes to do what you need them to do. Authorized textual content doesn’t try this. It may possibly go by itself web page—or at the least get shoved right down to a spot the place it may be safely ignored.
Now that you simply’ve been launched to essentially the most irritating of web-bots, have one other take a look at your About web page. Does it obtain all of the targets outlined above—with out making any distressing noises or turning your guests away screaming? If not, allow us to think about the qualities that can make your About web page one thing helpful to you and to the customer:
Intelligence and consideration#section8
In every of those above examples, the true drawback is a scarcity of consideration to the person’s wants and the best way that the group’s communication targets might be met whereas serving these wants. The primary and most essential approach to enhance your About web page is to assume very fastidiously about what your guests—members, shoppers, potential workers, members of the press, buyers, present workers, donors, or followers—want and wish out of your About web page. Personas are a great tool for this type of factor, however even a fast brainstorming session ought to produce outcomes higher than those we’ve seen above.
As soon as you recognize what your guests need, make it simple to seek out. Need to maintain your “press room” in its personal part? Advantageous, however hyperlink to it out of your About web page anyway. Don’t conceal issues or power customers to respect your inside organizational divisions. Give them what they want.
Distinct persona#section9
Resist the temptation to be bland. It is advisable convey essential info clearly and concisely, however be sure you additionally speak concerning the precise people who make up each your group and the group it serves. Quotes are nice and good photographs are useful. A pure, pleasant, assured writing voice does a lot to humanize your website, and the About web page is a perfect place to show nice writing expertise, even when the remainder of your website must be fairly technical.
Then again, resist the urge to be irritating. Think about your self utilizing the textual content of your About web page in a dialog with a pointy colleague from one other firm. Would you actually say it that approach? Puffed-up language that might be misplaced in an clever, one-on-one dialog in all probability doesn’t belong in your About web page—or actually, wherever else in your website. (However let’s dream small for now.)
A laser gun#section10
As a substitute of clogging your About web page with subjective fluff, use verifiable accomplishments to make your case. Don’t say that your organization is a frontrunner—present it main, by way of acknowledged awards, case research, or helpful statistics. As a substitute of claiming that your non-profit helps individuals, level to concrete accomplishments and recognition.
However what in case you don’t have proof? In case your group is comparatively new or if it operates in a sector by which concrete accomplishments are exhausting to outline, you could have a trickier job, however the idea nonetheless holds. Actual leaders don’t have to wrap themselves in banners proclaiming their management; clear, assured, user-focused communication goes a good distance towards establishing credibility. Incomplete, ill-considered communication does the alternative.
And the winner is…#section11
So now now we have a wise, thoughtful, well-armed robotic with a definite persona. Oh, and nice language expertise are essential… assume much less Information, extra Bishop. Choose the fitting robotic and tune it up somewhat, and your About web page will appear much more, nicely, human.
After which Ms. Endurance can lastly ship you that RFP and take a well-deserved trip.