How to Write the About Us Page of Your Online School

Every page on your site has an important role to play. Just like every person is unique, has different things to say and offer to the rest of the world, the same way each landing page is designed to serve a different purpose. And since you cannot fit everything into a single page, you need multiple pages to help present your business in the best light possible.

After explaining the significance of the ‘Thank You’ page, in the present article, we turn our focus to the About Us page, which is another integral part of a successful business site.

So, here it goes…

What is an About Us page?

The About Us page of your site is the page where you get to talk about yourself and present how awesome of a person you are. It’s the place that gives you the opportunity to talk about what you do and why it matters.

Every successful entrepreneur knows that a well-designed About Us page brings ‘all the boys and gals in the yard’ which means that it acts as the first point of contact between the ‘creator’ and the ‘receiver’ or else in marketing terms, the ‘seller’ and the ‘buyer’.

Why is it important?

A recent survey from KoMarketing, revealed that the first thing 52 percent of participants want to see on a website’s home page is the About Us/Company Information section. On a comparison table the ‘About Us’ page comes at third place following the Product/Services (top priority) and Contact Information (second place).

What’s great about this discovery is that all three company elements can be combined into one page constituting all the content you should care most about and need to present. By making the best use of the space (on the site) and the time visitors stay on your page, it provides all the information they need to decide if they want to engage with you or not.

What does it do?

The purpose of an About Us page is to draw people’s attention and help them understand who you are and what you have to offer. With the ‘About Us’ page, as an online instructor you offer to students the opportunity to meet you by presenting some essential information about your personal and professional profile.

Apart from that, an About Us page also gives you the chance to establish a relationship with people you haven’t met yet, providing you with an extra competitive advantage over other course sellers who are promoting the same product, but fail to become well-known to the public.

In simple terms, here’s what an About Us page can do for you:

• Introduce your brand: this gives you the opportunity to put a face on your ‘business’, to communicate the story behind it and why you started it in the first place. It’s where you tell people ‘We are X team and we do this and this’ or if you are solopreneur ‘I am a [Your Job Title/Role] and I can help you with this’.
• Establish a relationship: it helps visitors understand your brand and learn more about how it works and build a solid ‘common ground’.
• Present persuasive content: resources that encourage visitors to stay on your site and eventually convince them to buy from you.
• Strengthen SEO: offers the potential to increase site traffic from customers looking up for you on Google searches. This requires that you use the right keywords and that you effectively customise the text and the visuals you use e.g. photos, videos etc. Also, you have to think about what you want your site visitors to do (e.g. what page to visit next) and create appropriate CTAs for that.
• Answer basic enquiries: explain how you or your business can help site visitors solve their problems.
• Offer authenticity: site visitors or people hoping to invest in you in any way want to make sure that your business is legit.
• Check availability: gives the opportunity to site visitors to check if your business/school serves their niche – interests, and can serve them geographically.
• Attract future employees: provides the chance to site visitors to find more information on career opportunities with your online business if you offer any.

What’s crucial to know about the About Us page is that it becomes necessary for ecommerce sites. Selling a course isn’t the same as selling a physical product – and not to mention, is far less-common and unique. Hence, the About Us page can offer more detailed information and an in-depth explanation into what you are promoting and selling online.

In the end, it’s all about the layout…

The Structure of the About Us page

A page that intends to present essential information regarding the company or the school needs to talk about the history, its goals and aspirations. This means that the text on this page should reveal some aspects of the business/school describing the way it operates, its culture or other practices that are more difficult for people to know about, unless they are part of the team or organisation themselves. In other words, the About Us page is a reflection of the personality and the purpose of your business.

In short, this is what an About Us page should contain:

Professional profile

This includes an autobiography of yourself. Create one or two paragraphs where you talk about yourself – who you are (your name, nickname), what are your interests, how long you have been in the business, explaining why you have created and maintained the specific site. If you need help, you can take a few examples from your elevator pitch. Another way to start ‘talking’ is to come up with an opening statement e.g. a question that gets them right into the context e.g. ‘Do you want to lose weight while still eating ice-cream every day?’. Now that’s something I personally would like want to get more info about!

Contact details

Right after your introductory text – or at the very bottom of the page, you can write down your email, your telephone info or include links to other relevant sites. Don’t forget to add links to other online profiles and social media. You can add Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ or LinkedIn etc. It’s really up to you how professional or personal you want to make it – and what kind of information you want to share with people.

Organizational details

Write down the most basic details regarding the launch of your business including date of launch (year), its goals and objectives, the story behind it, its mission and purpose. While it’s obvious that an online school wants to educate people, you will need to expand on more details.

The following questions answer the 5Ws that guide you on what you need to say:

• Why did you start your business? Talk about the problem that you identified in the market – if any, and the vision behind your business. Otherwise, you can talk about your interest in the particular subject area.
• What are your products or services? Relate them back to the problem and demonstrate how they resolve it. Include links to product pages and information.
• Who are you (and your business)? Describe your team presenting some insights. How many people are there? You can briefly elaborate, but only if the details are particularly relevant to your business. You can also include photos of the people from your team and workplace.
• Where are you located? Mention this if it’s relevant to your target audience or your brand. Even if you are not selling physical products, people need to know where you are based.
• When was your business founded? Highlight this point, if it’s notable in your industry and show how much progress you have made since then.

“Behind the scenes” content

This content could take the form of short articles discussing your business/work ‘behind the scenes’ – for example, showcasing photos from within the office/workplace. This could be the office corner where you work, your favourite reading chair or the place where you shoot your instructional videos. People are always fascinated when taking a peek at how successful people work and live. Videos and images or anything more creative – are also great tools for doing this!

Site credits

Present a list of awards or mentions on other noteworthy sites along with their logo. People will always look for more reasons to do something and they are going to check and duple-check their choices before doing so. If you manage to feature your site on another – preferably a popular one in the industry – e.g. through quest articles or mentions, you get an invaluable advantage over others.

Site directory

Not many entrepreneurs do this but, including a site directory can ease site navigation difficulties for visitors. A list of FAQs or to community sites could be the starting point of an exciting journey with you. The more information you can cover on the page the better. Just make sure that it isn’t flooded with text and all key sections are clearly visible.

Employment opportunities / careers

This is optional as most entrepreneurs choose to create a separate page for this under the name ‘Careers’. If you can afford hiring more people to work with you, you can welcome them on board your team through a carefully located CTA and a reference to another landing page.

While you are working out the structure, keep the following tips in your mind:

• The content design needs to be relevant to the industry and other landing pages: keep the ‘brand line’ consistent and stay true to colours, fonts, structure and design.
• Personalise the page “as you go”: provide insight into your company e.g. introduce key people from your team e.g. who is working with you and in which position. You can add some funny elements to these if that’s what you are going for. Use the 1st person in your writing, keep it conversational and relatable.
• Tell your story: guide them through your journey of success and explain how you came to the decision to set up an online school.
• Choose your photo and other images carefully: a recent flattering photo of yourself that represents who you are in real life.
• Keep it short and sweet: avoid using long paragraphs. Instead use bullet-points and write down the basics to help visitors understand what your school is all about in a nutshell. Too much of it may encourage them to leave the site in an instance.
• Double-check text: make sure it’s error-free. You don’t want to risk losing potential customers because of grammatical or spelling mistakes.
• Ask for feedback: get other people check out the page and take in their comments before it ‘goes live’.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Be careful so that you don’t fall to the other side of tracks…

When you are in the process of writing the content of the page, you need to be cautious of not going ‘over the line’ or underrepresenting yourself. Some of the most popular misconceptions regarding the About Us page can easily make everyone mistakenly believe that it isn’t important.

The following information though may prove otherwise:

• “The About Us page is a cliché” – Wrong. In fact it is just as important as your homepage and we have proven that previously on this article and it’s not something you can ignore.
• “Be as descriptive as possible” – No, because this requires you write long and boring paragraphs. Too much information can work the other way around and usually, up to 300-400 words are more than enough.
• “Use a formal language” – No, it’s better to ‘be yourself’ and prefer to use your own writing voice. You can be geeky, techy or funny – refer to ‘fun facts’ if you can pull it off or show other interesting aspects of your personality e.g. your hobbies, your pets etc.
• “The ‘About Us’ Page is all about you” – Nope. The About Us page is about the people who visit your site. Talk about what they are interested in and how you can help them out. In other words, you should talk in the context of how you serve your readers. Present a problem they face, provide a solution and explain to them how it works out for them.
• “All text with no visuals” – This never works. Throw some colors in there and some interesting workplace insights alongside your main profile photo.
• “No contact information needed” – If you want to be accurate, you need to write down your contact details accompanying your name and the name of your business.
• “I don’t care about social proof” – No, you should care about social proof as it helps you build credibility, trust and authority. Inserting links in your profile site is a must and gives site visitors the chance to follow you around.
• “No one will read it” – Wrong. As research showed the About Us page is among the most visited pages on a website.
• “A generic text will do” – No, it won’t work because it needs to provide glimpses of your personality. If you sound bland and boring, you won’t be visitors’ first choice, or anyone for that matter. Prefer to show the real ‘you’, be authentic, honest and don’t be afraid to be different. That’s how good plans work!
• “Outdated Information” – Avoid this as much as you avoid spiders. Make sure you regularly (every two or three months) update your site information regarding product details, offers, old contact details or outdated photos.

Paying attention to these points is crucial. The About Us page offers an overall evaluation of you and your business/school and it needs to look as ready and professional as possible!

How to Create Your About Us Page:
A Step-by-Step Guide

When designing your About Us page on your LearnWorlds School, you will need to take the following steps:

In case you have already created your school’s About Us page, please skip the first two steps and jump directly to the designing phase(step 3).

Step 1: Navigate to All pages and click “Create Page”

Step 1: create a Page in the Pages Builder

Step 2: In the pop-up window, add the respective “Page name” and “page slug”. You can also publish the page before its editing, by checking the respective box. However, we suggest doing it after your page is ready. Do not worry, you can change it later (through “All pages Manager”)!

Save the settings and go back to “All pages manager” or click “Save & Edit” button to proceed with the designing of your new page.

Step 2: Choose a page name, slug and Save.

Step 3: Once more, Learnworlds Pages Builder will help you to style your page in the easiest way. Find the most modern and captivating templates in the Templates Library, by clicking on the [+] button and choosing the most fitting template found in the accordion sidebar.

Step 3: Add templates from the Templates Library.

Apart from Text and Images Layout templates, make your About page more cheerful with Images…

You can add templates with Images…

…and add Testimonials with your students’ opinion or with some words from your Staff members.

…and templates with customer testimonials.

Here is a template with some user reviews.

Present to your new students the core values and mission of your Team and make them trust your school, by using a “Text Columns” template.

A slick-looking template with Text Columns.

Looking good!

Do not neglect to give the chance to your users to connect with you by adding a Contact Form and your school’s Social Media links.

Adding a native “contact us” form is an absolute breeze with LearnWorlds.

Step 4: Now that everything is set and your About Us page is as stylish and informative as you like it, “Save” by clicking the respective button at the top left part of the page.

Step 4: make sure to Save your creation.

Step 5: Now that everything is set and your About Us page is as stylish and informative as you like it, “Save” by clicking the respective button at the top left part of the page.

Step 5: and Preview how awesome it looks.

Our About Us page in all it’s glory

Step 6: Now that your About Us page is ready, let’s connect it to your School’s menu’s, making it easily accessible to your school’s visitors (Logged out and Logged in users).

a. Let’s connect the page to Topbar and Footer, which will help you lure new students to your school, since the Logged out users will be able to find more information about you and your Team within seconds.

Navigate back to All Pages-> Topbar or Footer and “Edit the respective button by clicking on it. After having written the proper button title click on the “chain” button from the element’s menu.

Connecting the About Us page in your Topbar menu.

b. In the pop-up Links Manager window, choose for the user, to “Go to Page” (after clicking on the “About Us” button) and then choose the respective page among the pages’ drop-down menu, as shown below.

Choose the About Us page.

Step 7: Then, you can connect the About Page to the school’s After Login menu (visible only to Logged in users), simply by navigating to After Login and adding (in case you have not already added) an After Login/Navigation zone.

Step 7: You can also connect the About Us page in the internal school menu, if you like (optional).

After having edited the About Us button appropriately, just follow the step 6b, in order to connect it with the page.

Just edit one of the buttons and link it to the About Us page.

Your school’s astonishing About Us page is ready and available to all users! Well done!

As you can see, it all comes down to creating an About Us page that is informative, impactful and encourages the site visitor to learn more about your school and what it has to offer. In return, this increases the likelihood of making your online school stand out from the rest within the industry.

Just make sure to twist answering the site visitor’s question – ‘what’s in it for me?’ Judging from what you have currently on your About Us page, what would you change to make it better?

For more information on creating online courses, check our blog resources that offer a complete step-by-step guide on how to do so and much more!

Kyriaki Raouna

Content Creator at LearnWorlds

Kyriaki is a Content Creator for the LearnWorlds team writing about marketing and e-learning, helping course creators on their journey to create, market, and sell their online courses. Equipped with a degree in Career Guidance, she has a strong background in education management and career success. In her free time, she gets crafty and musical.