Your site`s ‘About Us` page can make or break your credibility

A website can act as a portal to your business, especially if you are an online company and rarely get customers coming into your offices. It is imperative to ensure that the impression they receive of your organisation is solid, credible and likable. An ‘about us` page is one that allows others entering your site to learn about your business and its story. This page could be the difference between a potential client deciding to use your services or bouncing off to the next site that they were considering.

You need to ensure that you have control of your online identity. There are certain credibility guidelines that are recommended when publishing information about your business on your site. These guidelines focus on building trust and displaying your expertise in that particular industry.

The guidelines instruct that you make it easy to validate the accuracy of the information that you place on your site, by providing third-party support with references to any outside information that you present. A good idea is to actually link to this evidence, which proves that you have confidence in your material. You should also ensure that your site`s content is updated regularly. People tend to trust sites more when they can see that it is reviewed often.

It also needs to be evident that there is a real organisation behind your site. The legitimacy of your company can be portrayed through simple acts such as, listing a physical address and posting a couple of photos of your offices with your signage outside. It is a good idea to display biographies of yourself and your employees, and maybe include photos on your site to show that there are honest and trustworthy people working together in your organisation. This display of information increases your credibility.

You should highlight the expertise that exists in your organisation by giving the credentials of your service providers, including any other respected organisations that you are affiliated with. Also make sure that you don`t link to outside sites that aren`t credible. You can also lose credibility through small typographical errors, broken links and by not ensuring that your site remains up and running.

It is vital that you make it clear where your visitors can contact you by making your contact information (including phone number, physical address, email address) visible. Ensure that your site is easy to use and that it is useful. Credibility points can be won by having a site that is easy to navigate your way around. The information that a customer is looking for should be easily accessible.

It is also pretty obvious that a professionally designed site makes a much better impression than a site that was just thrown together in a couple hours. Attention to layout, typography, and relevant images is important. The visual design of a site can be what visitors use to judge the company; thus the site`s design and the organisation`s purpose should coincide. Ideally, there should be consistency throughout the website.

You can take many different approaches to compose the story of your business on your site. When it is done in such a way that it gets the message across to your target audience, namely the potential customers you aim to attract and secure, you can then receive conversions from the traffic that your SEM campaign has encouraged.