‘About Us’ Pages Are Really About Them | Ep 57 | Trades Secrets: Contractor Marketing

Amanda Joyce:

Great. Hi, guys. Welcome back. We are excited to dive in today on the exciting topic of About pages.

Devon Hayes:

Fascinating, riveting stuff.

Welcome to Trades Secrets, where we demystify digital marketing to help contractors get the most bang for their marketing bucks.

Amanda Joyce:

This is for you if you’re a contractor looking for actionable marketing insights.

Devon Hayes:

Learn from home services industry experts to elevate your business through simplified marketing strategies.

Amanda Joyce:

Let’s dive into today’s trade secret.

Devon Hayes:

So we felt compelled to talk about this. We’ve had a number of clients who follow Marcus Sheridan, they’re part of Breakthrough Academy, or BTA, and I think BTA had Marcus Sheridan come talk to everybody at their winter summit. And Marcus Sheridan is really brilliant. It’s the old they ask, you listen. He’s got a book. And he actually, I think he started a PriceGuide.ai, which a number of you guys are using now for instant estimates online.

So he talks pretty extensively about About Us pages and how they’re a waste of time. And what he means is poorly done About Us pages, which really did inspire me to look at our data. We’re lucky enough to work in a niche down space of contractors and home service providers, so we have our own massive data set. And it made us say, okay, how are people currently using About Us pages that we create? We know how they impact users from an SEO perspective, but it made us do a deep dive on conversions, dwell time, how much engagement there are on those pages looking at our own sample set. And it made us realize Marcus Sheridan, he does have a point. You don’t want to have a poorly done About Us page, but how are About Us pages being used currently? And that’s what we took a look at.

So our data says that year-over-year, we looked at ’23 versus ’24, and we actually saw a 66%, I believe, increase, it was 66 or 67% increase in the amount of visits to our clients’ About Us pages. So this is from our own data set. So it’s not across millions of websites. It’s just from our set. And that’s a huge increase from 2023 to 2024.

Now, we’re not saying that’s the first page they visited. Sometimes it was because, of course, the page is highly optimized for the brand, but sometimes it was just part of the buyer’s path once they got to a website. They started at the home page, and then the second page they went to was your About Us page, or sometimes the third from, and then the fourth page is onto the contact page. So that’s telling us people actually care about who you are as a company, who’s on your team, who are the owners, and how you’re going to solve their problem that’s unique to how somebody else is solving the problem.

Amanda Joyce:

And we already know as well that Google Business profiles play such a big role. People want to know who you are as a company. They want to see who’s swinging the hammer, who’s going to step in their door, who’s maybe going to come sell to them. And so it’s really not a surprise, but it’s also, it’s fun to see that buyer behavior change, or maybe they’re not as focused on the service pages. At the end of the day, they know if you’re a roofer, they’re probably comparing you to three or four other roofers that maybe even have the same manufacturer status. So you’re all telling them the same thing, but what makes you different is your team and your people. And if you’ve taken the time to really tell that story and allow somebody to get to know who you are as a company and what you aim to do for them, it’s going to go really far as they’re narrowing people down on that buyer’s journey.

Devon Hayes:

They want it when they come to the page, I love this perspective of it is the About Us page, who you are as a company and as a team, but it’s about how you solve the customer’s problem for them. It’s about how you demonstrate to them that you understand their pain points, that you understand what they’re looking for in a contractor, and how you and your company do it differently, and it’s a chance to build up trust.

So I think there’s the misconception that About Us pages don’t matter. That’s not what was being said. Crappy About Us pages don’t matter. They’re not helping you. They’re not pushing your buyer further down the funnel. They’re not building trust. When you have an About Us page that’s like me, me, me, I’m the best. I’ve got an A plus with the BBB, you’re a pick-me girl when it’s just about you. It’s like a brochure. I’ve got an A+ with the BBB. I’ve got 500 5-star reviews. I’m a preferred platinum black card holding member of the James Hardy Number One Contractor Society. I was magna laude with my… If it reads that way, you’re not building trust, you’re just talking about yourself.

You want to use your About Us page to talk about how you’re solving a pain point, you understand their problem, and this is what makes your company unique in the way that you solve the problem. Use it to proposition yourself as an expert, as understanding their pain points, and really your unique selling proposition should be abundantly clear on this page. Whether that’s we’ve got a client who has a fixed price model, this is a chance to tell somebody why that benefits them. Because you understand when you see a customer who’s shocked at a new number at the end of a remodel project because they didn’t have this fixed price model going into it, talk about how that’s unique for the customer and how it solves that scary pain point. And there’s different ways to do it. That’s just an example that comes to mind.

Amanda Joyce:

And having video on that page is a really great opportunity to do exactly what you’re talking about. Being able to say, we know you’re here because you’re seeking a trusted remodeling contractor who’s going to manage the project from beginning to end and have a fixed price. Or maybe you’re a roofing contractor who specializes in storm damage, and whatever it is, if you can really talk to understanding why they’ve arrived where they have, and then you can do a little bit of the me, me, me once you’ve set the stage that you get where they are, and then you can talk about the benefit outcome to them. But even then when you’re talking about why it is that you’re so great, that benefit outcome should be like, okay, what’s it mean to them, not just me, me, me.

Devon Hayes:

Yes. And when she’s saying benefit outcome, she’s saying in your language, say what’s the benefit of choosing you, and what’s the outcome they can expect when they choose you as their provider? It’s just… Yeah. So I love that, video, video, video. We’ve talked about it for months. We’ve talked about it all year. You’ve probably heard it. You know you have to do video, but that’s one of the best ways to showcase you understanding the customer and building trust. And maybe that’s a little bit talking about your hiring process and who the contractors are and how you communicate to them. But as long as you’re positioning it as we do it this way because we know that it’s terrible when X, Y, and Z happens. So really the language on this page is really a chance to sell yourselves in a meaningful way.

Amanda Joyce:

Yes. And then additionally, I always like it when companies do take the time to feature their key team members on that page as well. Of course, you’re going to tell you a little bit about your company history and who you are. Hopefully you have a video on there speaking to pain points and why you’re great, but also featuring your team members on there with bios about their past experience and why they’re in the role they are can go a long way if someone maybe has had some really good conversations with one of your key salespeople or a project manager and they want to hop on there and check them out. And then they add a little SEO nugget is then being able to also link to their LinkedIn profile where they have ideally listed you as their employer and are letting Google know, just sending that additional signal that, yes, we’re real people. Here’s our LinkedIn profile to prove it, and just again, humanizing the brand.

Devon Hayes:

Definitely. And I guess, I think that’s it. I think this is a great place-

Amanda Joyce:

Short and sweet.

Devon Hayes:

Yeah, short and sweet. We could geek out on how to optimize it on SEO, but I think we’ve talked about that in other podcasts and choosing a header image that you think is unique and tells the story of your brand a bit more and making sure that it tells the story of the brand as a whole, not just the individual owners because you really want to enforce that it’s the whole team. I think that’s something to consider when you’re looking at this page and what you want to try to convey.

So I think short and sweet, that’s it. The About pages, they do matter, and they should address the customer’s pain point, even though it inherently seems like you should be talking about only yourself. You do, but you’re talking about how you understand how to solve their problem. So that’s it. Short and sweet. As Amanda said, thanks for tuning in and drop your questions below.

Amanda Joyce:

Thanks, guys.

That was today’s Trades Secret. Thanks for listening.

Devon Hayes:

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Amanda Joyce:

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Devon Hayes:

Until next time.