About Page That Builds Trust: What to Include and Skip

A good About page answers one question for a nervous first-time customer: “Who am I about to trust with this?” It does that by showing the real people, what you do for customers, how long you have genuinely done it, and how to reach you, in a few honest paragraphs rather than a corporate speech. For most small businesses in Singapore, the About page is among the most visited pages after the homepage and services, because visitors who are almost ready to enquire often stop to check who is behind the site.

What visitors are really looking for on an About page

A person who lands on your homepage and likes what they see will often click About before they message you. They are not looking for your life story. They want reassurance that you are real, that you are established enough to be reliable, and that you will treat them properly. For service businesses that enter people’s homes or handle money, health or children’s learning, that reassurance matters a great deal. It is also where a one-person business can compete with a bigger one: people often like dealing directly with the owner.

The page also supports the rest of your site. It gives search engines and customers a consistent picture of who you are, which fits with the advice in our local SEO checklist about keeping your name, address and phone number consistent everywhere.

Open with what you do for customers

Many About pages begin with the founding story, which makes the visitor wait for the part they care about. Flip it. Start with a sentence or two on who you help and how: “We service and repair aircon in HDB flats and condos across the east. You get a written quote before any work starts.” Then move into the people and the story. Visitors who stop at the first paragraph still leave with the key message.

Show the people

If your business is a person or a small team, show them. A clear, natural photo taken on a phone is better than a stiff studio shot, and far better than a stock photo. Add names, roles and one or two lines about what each person does. If you are a solo consultant or tutor, write in the first person. Include the details a customer would ask when they meet you: where you trained, how long you have worked in the field, what kinds of customers you usually help.

Take care with personal details. Do not publish your home address, your children’s names or anything that could put you or your team at risk. For service-area businesses, it is normal to describe the neighbourhoods you cover instead of an exact address. If you show customers or their homes in photos, ask for permission first, and check the PDPC guidance on personal data if you are unsure. Our guide to PDPA for website owners explains the basics.

Tell your story in a few honest paragraphs

A short story can be persuasive if it explains why you do the work the way you do. “I worked in a large renovation firm for ten years and saw homeowners confused by long quotations, so I started a business that explains each line” gives a customer a reason to trust your approach. Keep it to two or three short paragraphs. Include years only if they are accurate, and avoid inflated language about being a “leading” company unless you can support the claim.

If you are newer, say so confidently and focus on what you do offer: direct attention, careful work and clear communication. A recently started business with a clear promise often reads better than an older one that cannot say what makes it different.

Add proof that a stranger can check

Trust grows when a visitor can verify a claim. In Singapore, a small business can show its registered name and UEN, mention relevant licences or professional memberships it genuinely holds, link to its Google Business Profile, and show real work. Make sure anything you show matches what appears on public records and on your profile. If you are not sure how to set up or verify your profile, see our Google Business Profile guide for Singapore.

Customer comments help when they are real and used with permission. If you want to build up genuine feedback, the steady habit is to ask each customer after the job. Do not buy reviews, and do not ask only your happiest customers. Our guide to Google’s review policy for small businesses sets out what is and is not allowed.

What to leave out

Skip anything that is about you but not about the customer’s decision. Long lists of values, mission statements that could belong to any company, and awards you cannot prove all weaken the page. Leave out unverifiable superlatives and any comparison that attacks other businesses. Do not copy another firm’s About page, even loosely. Not only does it read generically, but visitors who compare sites can spot the similarity, and search engines tend to ignore duplicated content.

If you are a small team, avoid describing yourself as a large organisation. A visitor who later discovers you are two people may feel misled, even if the service was good. Being honest about size is an advantage: “You deal directly with the people who do the work” is a promise larger firms cannot always make.

Mini example: a small tuition provider (illustrative)

Imagine a two-person tuition centre that wrote an About page full of phrases such as “nurturing future leaders”. A parent visiting sees no names, no levels, no sense of class size. The owners rewrite it: a photo of each tutor, a short line on subjects and levels, how trial lessons work, where the classroom is, and a WhatsApp link. Nothing in the new page is flashy, but a parent can now picture who their child will meet. That is the point of the page. For more on this type of business see our tuition centre website guide and the page on website design for tuition centres.

Your next step

Open your current About page and read only the first paragraph. Does it tell a stranger what you do for customers and where? If not, rewrite it using the customer-first lines above, then add your photo and contact details. For wider planning, the website brief template helps you gather these facts in one place, and our website design approach shows how the About page fits with the rest of the site.