If Your About Page Has No Value Then Delete It

Posted Saturday, February 10th, 2018 - 3,510 views

Over the past few years we’ve started moving away from doing about us pages because they are usually quite redundant. You’ll generally find that the content on the about page is almost always quite similar to the content found on the home page or services page or the mission page too.

Readers note: for the rest of this article I’ll be referring to the about us page as “the AU page” or “the A page”, and for obvious reasons.

These days if we come across an AU page on a website we’re optimizing or redesigning, we make a determination as to it’s inherent value to users, and 99% of the time we get rid of it, move much of the content to the home page, and redirect the the page to the home page too.

If we’ve moved much of the content to the page we’re redirecting to, we can safely say this is a valid redirect in the sense that users are going to get to read the same or similar information on the page they’re being redirect to.

The last time you visited an about page

I fully understand that some business owners would like to give their visitors an overview or history of their company but if you can remember the last time you visited an about page, you’ll probably note you went there for one reason – it wasn’t to find out the year the company was established; it wasn’t to find the company’s phone number because it’s on the contact or home page (or header or footer); it wasn’t to find out how many employees the company has, and it wasn’t to find out whether they’re a home-grown-family business or not – it was to find out what the heck the business does and most likely because there wasn’t enough informative content found on the home page. Try to remember, you’ll see that I’m probably right.

There are definitely going to be a lot of business websites with about pages that actually do provide value to users and do provide unique and non-spammy content but I believe those are quite rare and that in most cases, the information on the AU should be slightly edited to sound more professional and moved to the home page.

One of the main reasons many website and business owners publish an UA is because they’ve been led to believe it’s important to have one. Another reasons is because their web developers or SEOs also think that having one is a sensible convention to adhere to. There’s also the developer/SEO that creates an about page for his client because he believes his client will require one – and on to the keyword stuffing he or she goes.

Frankly, when we’ve removed the AU page from any of our client sites or refrained from creating one in a new design, they don’t even notice or mention it. It’s as simple as that.

SEO benefits of removing the about page

Any SEO can conjure up some potential benefits of removing the AU page. After glancing at a few paragraphs of any random AU page, mosts SEOs would agree that the content is usually redundant and is usually a perfect example of a a page on a website that any SEO strategist would actually consider removing – but many don’t.

You still get the benefits of using the original aspects of the content if you place it on the home page, and you reduce the number of pages that need to be crawled, analyzed, and scored.

Moving the content, or distributing it to other pages does well to give those pages a boost in several areas like potential relevancy scores. If the content on your about page is particularly long, adding it to the home page may even guarantee to give it a boost in the search results especially considering your crawl budget has been slightly optimized by deleting the redundant page too.

What about Google Panda and Google saying not to delete content but instead make it better? The answer to this is simple: you can’t make the content on an AU page any better unless it contains information that doesn’t mirror content on other pages like the services or home page.

When an about page may be acceptable

I examined 14 random about pages in various industries and listed them below. If you go through the list, you’ll see perfect examples of acceptable AU pages, and sites without one.

What’s relevant? 

The content on an AU page has to technically be much different than pages on the rest of the site and to a degree contain content similar to the following:

• it should explain the company’s aims, goals, history, affiliations, partners and investors et al, without the need to use keywords or industry buzz words (save that for the home page)
• it should convey a relevant past and current history of the business

Here is a list of some sites that use an About Us page appropriately:

• nike.com (AU page with specific sections, i.e. news, careers, investors)
• goldmansachs.com (AU page with specific sections, i.e. awards, alumni, standards)
• apple.com (AU page with specific sections, i.e. jobs, events, leadership)
• homedepot.ca (AU page with specific sections, i.e. news, investors, awards)
• microsoft.com (full AU page because they don’t have content about the company on the home page, only products)
• exxonmobil.com (AU page with specific sections, i.e. investors, officers, by-laws, ethics)
• samsung.com (AU page with specific sections, i.e. careers, vision, university relations)

Here are websites that don’t use an About Us page:

• sleeman.ca
• cbs.com (no AU page, but a link to an AU site)
• warnerbroscanada.com
• toyota.ca
• walmart.com (no AU page, but a link to an AU site)
• ge.com
• coca-cola.ca

The list above drives my point home. If you visit some of the sites above you’ll see examples of using an AU page appropriately, and you’ll see sites that don’t use one – sites you would probably assume would have one but don’t. The bottom line is it’s not always needed and sometimes having one could reduce the overall value of your content.

Take a look at yours

Does your about page make your company look wishy washy? Maybe a bit desperate? Are you providing too much information or does it make you look unprofessional? I have to be honest: I’ve almost never felt comfortable with the content on most of my client site about pages – practically never. There’s almost always no unique content on these pages and most of the time they should probably be removed.

If you’re having doubts about your own AU page or your client’s AU page, do yourself a favor; take examine the sites the lists above, and compare them to the one you’re working with. Go through the page and make a final determination.

And note, one of the best benefits of removing an about page is that it opens up a spot in your main navigation which will enable you to add another page with with relevant content – content people will actually use and benefit from reading.