Why Your About Page Is Driving Buyers Away

Most business owners I meet have spent serious money building a website. Good design, decent photography, clean layout. But when I open their About page, I see the same thing every time. A paragraph about when the company was founded. A list of certifications. A photo of the founder in a formal shirt. And a line that says something like 'We are committed to quality and customer satisfaction.' That sentence has never convinced a single buyer of anything.

Here is the truth about your About page. Your visitor lands there because they want to know if they can trust you. They are not looking for your company history. They are asking themselves a quiet question: 'Is this the right person or business for my problem?' Everything on your About page either answers that question or wastes their time. Most About pages waste their time.

I have audited websites for manufacturers in Pune, service businesses in Chennai and retail brands in Bengaluru. The pattern is the same everywhere. The About page is written from the inside out — what the founder is proud of, what milestones feel important, what awards were won. None of that is wrong. But it is all written for the founder, not the buyer. The buyer does not care that you were established in 2009. They care whether you have solved a problem like theirs before.

The first fix is simple and most founders resist it. Start your About page with the customer's problem, not your company story. One manufacturer I worked with opened his About page with: 'We started this company because we were tired of watching small fabrication units get rejected by large buyers due to inconsistent quality standards.' That one line did more work than his entire previous About page. It showed he understood the industry from the inside. It made his ideal customer feel seen. If you are not sure how to frame this for your business, a one-to-one consultation can help you find the right words quickly.

The second mistake is what I call the résumé trap. Founders list everything — years of experience, number of clients served, countries exported to, team size, software used. These are not bad facts. But a list of facts does not build trust. A short story does. One well-told example of how you helped a specific type of client, what was broken before you stepped in, and what changed after — that does more than any bullet list. Think of your About page less like a LinkedIn profile and more like the first five minutes of a conversation with a potential client.

Photographs matter more than most founders realise. A blurry founder photo from a conference three years ago, or a stock image of people shaking hands, signals that this business does not take its own presentation seriously. If you would not show up to a client meeting in wrinkled clothes, do not show up on your website with careless visuals. I cover this in detail during business growth workshops because it is one of those things that is obvious once you see it, but invisible until someone points it out.

Social proof belongs on your About page, but in the right form. Not just logos of clients you have worked with — though those help. What works better is a short quote from a real client that describes a specific result. 'They delivered the consignment two days early and saved our retail launch' tells a story. 'Excellent service' tells nothing. If you have testimonials sitting in your WhatsApp inbox or your email thread, pull them out, clean them up and put them on your About page. Most businesses are sitting on social proof they have never used.

One thing I always check during a website review is whether the About page has a clear next step. Most do not. The visitor reads the page, maybe feels good about the business, and then has nowhere to go. No call to action, no link to services, no prompt to get in touch. This is a direct loss of enquiries. Your About page should end with a sentence that points the visitor somewhere useful. It could be as simple as: 'If you are looking for a reliable partner for X, let us talk.' Then a button. That one change alone has helped businesses I work with see a measurable uptick in contact form submissions.

Your About page is not a formality. It is often the page that tips a hesitant visitor into a confident enquiry. Rewrite it this month. Start with your customer's world, not your company timeline. Add one real story. Replace vague claims with a specific result. Fix your photograph. End with a call to action. If you want a second pair of eyes on it before you publish, you can reach me through the contact page and I will tell you exactly what is working and what is not.