14 Easy ways to Improve your ‘About Us’ page

EasyWeb Recruitment 2016Researched and written by:

Adrian McDonagh, Founder/Chief Ideas Officer & Becky Cellupica, Marketing & Events Executive

In a recent blog post we highlighted 49 examples of everyday Organisation’s making a good effort to tell their story with the aim of improving their Employer Brand. To continue with this theme we wanted to highlight some great examples of Organisations with innovative ‘About Us’ pages. Once again, we ignore the massive goliath corporations and the uber-cool start-ups and try to provide examples and insights from “Everyday” Organisations. We hope that the examples in this blog post will inspire you to freshen up your ‘About Us’ pages.

http://www.easywebrecruitment.com/features/2013-03-18-09-22-50/blog-template/item/103-49-examples-of-employer-brand-storytelling

If you want short and sweet and to create a hard-hitting impact then PureGym’s page is a great example of this. Simply listing the benefits of your company gets straight to the point, allowing candidates to make an informed decision about your company. What’s better? If you can use testimonials from Ambassadors or even current customers, you can create a greater impact to ensure that candidates want to work for you after they’ve visited your page.

#1. PureGym, https://www.puregym.com/about-us/

Using images and colour for your About Us page can be the simplest thing you can do, but also the best thing. It’s creative, eye-catching and draws in the attention of your audience.

#2. Lily’s Kitchen, http://www.lilyskitchen.co.uk/about-us

Icons. Icons everywhere!Not everyone wants to use a lot of text to tell their story, so why not use icons? These small additions to your page can create a huge impact on your audience and it’s easy to keep the information current with quick editing! Just look at Brewdog’s About Us page. Simple icons, short explanations, very effective.

#3. Brewdog, https://www.brewdog.com/about/history

If you want to find free icons to use on your own website, then here at EasyWeb we use IconFinder who have over 1 million icons to browse!

https://www.iconfinder.com/

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Tell your story and leave the rest up to the candidate. Giggling Squid have a great page telling their story from concept to completion. It’s possibly the easiest way of convincing your candidates that you’re a good company to work for because you’re being honest with where it all began.

#4. Giggling Squid, https://www.gigglingsquid.com/our-story/

Possibly one of the best ways to show your candidates who you are and your company culture, is to create a video with your employees. Don’t use videos you can find easily online - create one. Yes it’s a bigger effort, but yes it can get you even more applications. You’re inviting your audience in to your ‘family’ making it much more personal.

#5. Heck!, https://www.heckfood.co.uk/our-story

Mapping your story is a great way to ‘sell’ yourselves. Pin point who you are, what you do and why you do it. Give them visuals and a better insight to who you are. Just don’t make it too long – you don’t want to send potential candidates to sleep!

#6. AlphaSights, https://www.alphasights.com/about

There’s not much more that can be said about this really. Clear bold claims can make all the difference. If you don’t feel like you have a lot to say about your company, just point out the good bits.

#6. AlphaSights, https://www.alphasights.com/about

#8. AerFin Limited, http://www.aerfin.com/about/background/ #9. Tusker Ltd, https://www.tuskerdirect.com/about-tusker/

Sub-pages! It’s all about the sub-pages lately!Break things up a bit, let them navigate through your team, background and careers. They may even venture to navigate around the rest of the site too and become so engrossed in your company they just can’t not apply.

Two good examples of splitting your About Us page come from AerFin and Tusker…

…Continued#8. AerFin Limited, http://www.aerfin.com/about/background/

…Continued#9. Tusker Ltd, https://www.tuskerdirect.com/about-tusker/

This is not because the real pictures of our staff are so amazing. We have the normal mix of average/good looking people you find in most organisations (just don’t tell them we said that). But when we show real photos, it presents a level of authenticity and transparency to our website visitors.

Alongside this, everyone can recognise Stock Images nowadays. So when you use them it either suggests you’re too lazy to take photos of your own staff or even worse that you have something to hide. So please do avoid at all costs. Just see below for an example of one model who appears in so many marketing images you start to question whether some obscure scientist has mastered human cloning!

If you’re going to use images on your page, try taking them yourselves instead of using Stock Images. As you can see from Tusker, it’s sort of obvious theirs have come from online and although we use stock images in our blogs and other marketing material, we would never try and use the beautiful models found in Stock Images on our website.

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If you want to go down an alternative route because you have something you want to scream and shout about, then do as Grenade and many other companies do. It’s simple, it’s quick but can have very positive outcomes. Listing your achievements will not make you look big-headed, it’ll just make you look that much better. Because who

 

#10. Grenade, https://www.grenade.com/uk/about/

who doesn’t want to work for an award-winning company?

A great layout will always give your audience and prospective candidates a reason to visit your page again and again (you know, just to make sure you’re the right company). But if you really want to draw people in, doing what Pacific Produce do and having in big and bold your mission statement, will let them know straight away your overall aim. That way, they can determine whether they want to work for you, or not.

 

#11. Pacific Produce, http://www.pacificproduce.co.uk/us/

Have an office you’re proud of? Show it off. Have a cheeky celeb from the area you want to bring in to help show off what you do? Do it. That’s what ACT has done. I mean, you may not have a celeb that you can use, but that doesn’t really matter because it’s all about showing off what you do and why you’re proud. Even using a member of staff, or several, will make the perfect video to include on your site. You’re showing your transparency as a company to your audience and future employees.

#12. ACT, http://www.acttraining.org.uk/about-us/

Something Natoora do really well, is use visuals like the ones below. A new, innovative way to showcase your story is to provide your viewers the best type of news since you started. If you’ve won an award, include it, if you’ve hit an important milestone in your company, include it. It’s that simple.

#13. Natoora, http://natoora.com/inside-natoora/our-story.php

Last but not least. You don’t have to go down the modern route for your About Us page. Staying traditional like Cult Wines is still acceptable nowadays and can still have the same impact as all the examples above. Especially with the great use of your logo and a headline.

#14. Cult Wines, http://www.wineinvestment.com/about/

Most of all, your About Us page should be an honest explanation of who you are, what you do and how you came to be. There are so many start-up organisations that present their “Eureka” moment of how they had their initial vision for their new business in the most fantastical way (see Funders and Founders*). Most companies are “me too” organisations (see Marketing 91’s** post) that are just trying to offer an excellent service to their customers. Regardless of whether you have an amazing founder story or not, every company has a story and you should tell it in the most engaging and authentic way possible. We hope that the examples above will speak for themselves and give you ideas on how you can improve your About Us Page.If you’d like to find out more about how you can tell your Organisation’s story and build your Employer Brand, why not register for some of our upcoming free training sessions:  Milton Keynes: Building your Employer Brand Workshop*** – Tuesday 20th December Webinar: Managing your Employer Reputation on Glassdoor & Indeed**** – Tuesday 17th JanuaryWebinar: Building your Employer Brand by simply telling your Organisation’s Story***** – Thursday 19th January

References

http://fundersandfounders.com/aha-moments-for-entrepreneurs/

http://www.marketing91.com/marketing-explained/

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/milton-keynes-building-your-employer-brand-including-glassdoor-workshop-tickets-29671790123

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/webinar-managing-your-employer-reputation-on-glassdoor-indeed-registration-28505684269

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/webinar-building-your-employer-brand-by-simply-telling-your-organisations-story-registration-28524298946

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