Creative Commons Licensed - Courtesy RogueSun Media
Ok, time to get back to the 5 part series addressing the whole issue of exactly what constitutes “quality content” from an SEO perspective, and more importantly, from a visitor perspective. Don’t get me wrong, this is a pretty vague and elusive topic due to the ambiguity surrounding the definitions, but one universal truth is that when you get a ton of positive feedback and as few complaints as possible about whatever you put up on your site, then you know you’re on your way to nailing the quality content target.
Previously I covered finding some quality content zen on the home page and then over to the pages for your products or services. Go have yourself a read and head back when you’re ready to roll again. Go on, I can wait….
If you went and read that stuff I just mentioned, then you rock. If you didn’t, then you have sealed your own fate and are doomed to wander the Earth in your final days wishing you would have read it. Your choice. Anyways, today we get to focus on a page that never really gets the credit it deserves, and man let me tell you; this page gets treated like crap by site owners 9 times out of 10. The About page. The place where you tell the world who you are. The place where you can really tell people what your company culture is like. Your customer relations. The whole reason why you put this site up. Your vision. Can you see what I’m getting at here?
Be You
Think about this for a second; after you get on a site and you dig what you see, you sometimes get curious about who is responsible for it right? So you take the extra time and head over to the About page to learn more. Now at this point, you have no idea what you’re gonna see, but in the least, you’re hoping that it’s gonna be something that reaches out to you in some way where you feel a little more connected or interested in coming back again. Like a blogger you really like for example. Those about pages get consistent traffic because people want to know who wrote this kick ass article they just read. Well, if you got a service or product that’s generating buzz, then you’re About page becomes vital to sealing the deal on your cool factor.
You already impressed them once, now you gotta really strut your stuff. Some great examples of sites that tie in their attitude to their service would be the one found out Slide.com. It’s uniform with the site’s writing style, theme and general presentation. Same for the developers of Songbird. Again, fluid in presentation, sticking with the whole formula. They both were able to get essential info in place about the company, service, the people responsible and best of all… not be totally freakin boring about it. And that right there is a key element. Share your personality as if you’re there to entertain, inform and impress.
Be True
I got a personal grudge against corporate About pages. They were written in the premise of business to business consumption and they almost always leave out consideration to the fact that a normal person is reading it. People like you and me, who might be working for a company or a client who sent us out to check out some company website to learn about them. All we walk away with is nausea from their self-congratulatory statements and the vague sense that they secretly love themselves in some strange way. Enough I say! I want to know who you are, not what you want us to think you are!
And this is where being true comes in. Talk about who you are as a company. Talk about the human factor that made you what you are. Talk about the pride you take in the individuals who work for you, with you and around you. That’s what tells the world about your culture in the workplace. And that right there translates into how your culture is with the people coming to your site. You’re human, you’re accessible.
Conclusion
There has been a clear shift in recent years about how companies have been presenting themselves out here on the net. It started out with someone transferring the ”About copy” found on their print marketing materials and was translated into the digital realm. It was redundant across the web. It was the same lingo, the same style, the same mentality, the same corporate mumbo jumbo about how nifty they were without ever really telling us why. Then the younger aspiring professionals, the ones that were more net savvy, more trendsetting for the development of the web as we know it rapidly introduced a new way to present yourself by breaking out of the tired copy printed on antiquated flyers and brochures. It’s a small revolution on how companies are redefining initiation with the public. And it’s showing us that the internet is the preferred medium that the public is turning to before making contact with every company out there it seems.
So the bottom line is this; if you only get one chance to tell me who you are, how are you gonna do it?
