The “About Us” Page Mistake That Kills Trust
We see it happening all the time. You have a brilliant product. Your homepage looks slick. Your checkout process is smooth. But there is a silent conversion killer sitting right in your navigation bar, quietly undoing all your hard work.
It is your "About Us" page.
For many small business owners, this page is an afterthought. It is often a generic block of text that says something like, "We were founded in 2015 and we are passionate about excellence." Or worse, it is written in the third person, sounding stiff, corporate, and completely detached from the human beings actually running the show.
If this sounds familiar, do not panic. We are here to fix it. The truth is that people do not buy from faceless entities; people buy from people. And if your About page reads like a Wikipedia entry instead of a handshake, you are missing a massive opportunity to build trust.
The Third-Person Trap
The biggest mistake we see business owners make is trying to sound "bigger" than they are by writing in the third person.
Imagine walking into a local bakery. You ask the owner, "How did you get started?" and they reply, "Mr. Smith founded this bakery because he believed in quality bread." You would back away slowly, wouldn't you? It feels robotic and insincere.
Yet, thousands of UK businesses do exactly this online. They hide behind phrases like "The Company aims to…" or "The Founders believe…" hoping it makes them look professional. In reality, it just creates distance.
When we started Content Colin in 2024, Antony and Nick—our founders—knew that authenticity was the only currency that mattered. After two decades of helping businesses sell online, they realised that the companies winning the biggest market share were the ones that weren't afraid to show their personality.
Your customers want to know you. They want to know why you wake up at 5 AM to open the shop, or why you obsess over the specific stitching on your products. When you switch your language from "The Company" to "We" and "I," you instantly bridge the gap between a transaction and a relationship.
Why Your "Why" Matters More Than Your "What"
Another common stumbling block is focusing entirely on the logistics of the business rather than the soul of it. Yes, customers need to know you are competent, but competence is the baseline. Connection is the differentiator.
When we analyse websites for our clients, we often find About pages that are just lists of dates and achievements. While milestones are great, they don't tell a story.
A powerful About page answers the question: Why does this exist?
For us, the answer was simple. We saw brilliant business owners struggling to get noticed because they didn't have the time or expertise to write content that Google loved. That frustration was the spark. We didn't just want to build software; we wanted to solve a headache that was keeping entrepreneurs awake at night.
Your story likely has a similar spark. Maybe you started your eco-friendly cleaning business because you couldn't find products safe for your pets. Maybe your accountancy firm exists because you saw your parents struggle with tax returns.
Dig for that story. That is what hooks a reader. When a potential customer understands your motivation, they start rooting for your success. They stop looking at the price tag and start looking at the value.
Trust is Built on Transparency
In an era of AI and automation (tools we love and use daily, by the way), the human touch is becoming a luxury item. Transparency is your best asset here.
If you are a team of two working out of a spare room in Manchester, own it. There is a huge segment of the market that specifically wants to support small, local challengers rather than massive corporations. If you try to pretend you are a multinational conglomerate, you will eventually get caught out, and that trust will shatter.
Our core values are built around the R.I.S.E framework, with a massive emphasis on "doing the right thing." Part of doing the right thing is being honest about who we are. We are a team that combines deep e-commerce experience with smart technology. We aren't a faceless algorithm farm; we are real people using smart tools to help other real people grow.
Review your About page today. Does it sound like you? If you read it aloud to a friend, would you feel silly? If the answer is yes, it is time for a rewrite.
Turning Your Story into Strategy
Writing about yourself is hard. It is often easier to describe a product spec than to articulate your own passion. This is where many businesses get stuck. They know their current copy is dry, but they stare at the blinking cursor, unsure how to inject that warmth and personality without sounding unprofessional.
This is exactly where we step in.
We understand that you are busy running the operational side of your business. You might not have the hours to craft the perfect narrative or the SEO know-how to ensure that narrative actually gets found by search engines.
At Content Colin, we take the pressure off. We look at your business, your industry, and your unique spark, and we help you turn that into content that works. Whether it is fixing a stagnant About page or generating blog posts that drive consistent traffic, we are here to ensure your digital voice sounds just as confident and friendly as you do in real life.
Don't let a stiff, outdated bio be the reason a customer clicks "back." Open up, tell your story, and watch how it changes the way people interact with your brand.