The About page is the most neglected page on most small business websites, usually a paragraph of vague history written years ago and never touched since, yet it's quietly become one of the more important pages for both Google's trust signals and AI search. Fixing it properly is one of the highest-value, lowest-effort changes we make for clients, and it rarely takes more than an afternoon of genuinely focused work to put right.
Why the About Page Matters More Than Owners Assume
Google has talked for years about experience, expertise, authority and trust as ranking considerations, and the About page is where a lot of that gets demonstrated concretely, who runs the business, what qualifies them, how long they've been operating and what makes them credible in their field. A thin or generic About page undermines trust signals that a strong service page alone can't fully compensate for.
AI models draw on this same page for much the same purpose, using it to establish who you actually are before deciding whether to recommend you confidently. A vague About page gives an AI model very little to work with, which often means it either skips a confident recommendation entirely or, worse, fills gaps with information from a less reliable third-party source.
We've tested this directly, comparing how confidently an AI assistant describes clients with a detailed About page against those with a thin one, and the difference in framing is noticeable almost every time. A detailed page tends to produce a description with genuine substance behind it, while a thin one produces something generic that could apply to almost any competitor.
Starting With Genuinely Specific Facts, Not Marketing Language
The single biggest change we make is stripping out vague claims, "passionate about quality", "family-run values", "dedicated to excellence", and replacing them with specific, verifiable facts: the year the business was founded, the actual qualifications held, the specific areas served, and concrete numbers where they exist, like years of experience, staff numbers, or projects completed to date.
This isn't about making the page dry or unpersuasive. Specific facts are actually more persuasive to a human reader too, because vague superlatives have become background noise that most people scroll straight past, while a concrete detail catches attention precisely because it's uncommon.
We usually run a simple exercise with clients: read the current About page aloud and cross out every sentence that could apply equally to a direct competitor without changing a word. What's left is almost always thinner than expected, and rebuilding around genuinely distinctive facts fills that gap far better than adding more adjectives ever could.
Naming Real People, Not Just "Our Team"
Both Google and AI models increasingly favour content with identifiable authorship and expertise behind it, so we push clients to name the actual people running the business wherever appropriate, with real qualifications, real experience and, where relevant, a genuine professional background that establishes why customers should trust their judgement on the subject at hand.
This matters especially for regulated or safety-relevant industries, where trust and expertise signals carry real weight. A tradesperson's actual certifications, a healthcare provider's actual registration details, or a financial adviser's actual qualifications all belong prominently on the About page, not buried in small print elsewhere on the site.
We understand some owners are genuinely uncomfortable putting themselves forward this way, particularly in more modest trades where self-promotion doesn't come naturally. Framing it as simply stating fact rather than boasting usually helps, since a customer choosing between two similar businesses is genuinely better served by knowing who they're actually dealing with.
Making Location and Service Area Explicit
A surprising number of About pages never actually state where the business operates or which areas it covers, an oversight that hurts local search rankings and gives AI models nothing solid to work with when someone asks for a recommendation "near Colchester" or "in Essex" specifically.
- State your primary location and trading address clearly and plainly
- List the specific towns or areas you actually serve, not just "the region"
- Mention how long you've operated in that specific area
- Keep this information consistent with your Google Business Profile
This sounds obvious once stated plainly, but we regularly find About pages that mention the business's origin story in detail while never once naming the towns actually served. Fixing this is often a fifteen-minute change that meaningfully improves how confidently the page gets matched to a local query.
Backing Up Claims With Verifiable Detail
Any claim on an About page is more convincing, to both a human reader and an AI model, when it's backed by something checkable: a specific accreditation, a membership in a recognised trade body, a link to genuine reviews, or a mention of a notable project or client where permission allows. Unverifiable claims carry very little weight either way.
We also make sure these claims are corroborated elsewhere, in your Google Business Profile, on relevant directories, in any press coverage you've earned, because a claim repeated consistently across multiple credible sources carries far more weight than the same claim appearing only on your own website.
Where a claim genuinely can't be verified externally, it's usually better to soften it or leave it out entirely, since an unverifiable claim sitting next to several verifiable ones can quietly cast doubt over the credible information surrounding it, undermining the very trust the page is meant to build.
Structuring the Page So It's Easy to Extract
Beyond the content itself, we structure the About page with clear, scannable sections, who we are, what we do, where we operate, why we're qualified, rather than one unbroken block of text. This mirrors the same extractability principles we apply across a whole site, because an AI model needs to isolate specific facts quickly and accurately.
We also add appropriate schema markup to the page, organisation and person schema where relevant, which gives search engines and AI systems an explicit, structured version of the same facts stated in the visible text, reducing any ambiguity about who you are and what you actually do.
This markup work happens behind the scenes and never changes how the page looks to a visitor, but it quietly reinforces every fact stated in the visible text with a machine-readable equivalent, closing the gap between what a human reader understands and what an automated system can confidently confirm.
Keeping the Page Current as the Business Changes
An About page written when a business had two staff and one van, and never updated since it grew to a team of twelve, actively works against you, because both Google and AI models weigh current, accurate information more heavily than something that reads as obviously stale. We treat this page as something to revisit at least annually, not something written once and forgotten.
This is a standard part of the ongoing content work within our broader SEO service for Colchester businesses, since an outdated About page quietly undermines trust signals we're otherwise working hard to build elsewhere on the site. A quick annual review, checking staff numbers, service areas and any new accreditations, keeps the page working as hard as the rest of the site.
The Bottom Line
A properly built About page does real work for both Google and AI search, establishing exactly who you are, where you operate and why you're credible, in specific, verifiable terms rather than vague reassurance. It's one of the fastest, cheapest fixes available to most small businesses, and consistently one of the most overlooked pages on the entire site. If your About page still reads like it was written in a hurry five years ago, it's worth revisiting through our Colchester SEO service before it quietly costs you trust and enquiries you didn't even realise you were losing to a competitor with a properly written, up-to-date one.
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