If someone asked you to describe your five best qualities, would you be able to do it? What if they asked you to list off the 5 best attributes of your company? That’s even harder, isn’t it? It’s safe to say that even though most of us love talking about ourselves and our accomplishments in theory, when we’re asked to have an outright brag-fest, we are at a loss for words.

The ability to generate interest in your company via adjectives is an acquired skill. Often times though, business owners’ success relies solely on their ability to network and boast about their company to potential clients and customers. What most of us don’t realize is while the spoken word is important to the success of a business, the words written about your company on your website often hold equal weight.

I was surprised recently when Google Analytics for the BBB website revealed that our About Us page was viewed by nearly 1500 unique visitors in just one month, which makes it the seventh highest ranking page on the BBB site. Of the tens of thousands of pages our website offers, our About Us page is clearly important to the thousands of visitors the BBB website hosts each month.

Soon after making this discovery, I realized that this statistic is probably not unique to the Better Business Bureau. If fact, I would wager that most businesses host substantial amounts traffic on their About Us page without realizing it. Considering that page can give so much rich information about your business to consumers, I would also venture that all of our About Us pages could use a facelift.

Again, talking about yourself can undoubtedly be awkward and take time and practice to be able to execute with ease, humor, and humility, but try the following tips for a successful About Us page, and give your potential customers what they want: the reassurance that they are dealing with the crème de la crème of businesses.

· Know your audience. Just as with the rest of your interactions with customers, your About Us page should be targeted. Before you start writing a mission statement and a history, consider to whom this is aimed, and what that audience wants from you. If you think your customers are looking for extraordinary customer service that’s what you should talk about. But if all they want is a low margin of error and punctuality, then don’t invest space bragging about your great customer service.

· Situation-Action-Result. Writing an About Us page is incredibly similar to writing a resume; you want to establish credibility with your audience. Give them specific examples of why your company is ahead of the rest, and be sure to include the results of all of your hard work.

· Keep it updated. Once is never enough. While your slogan or values may not change every month, your capabilities, features, and clients do. Keeping your information up to date won’t just keep your readers interested, but it can help your Search Engine Optimization, as well.

· Customers don’t put much stock in fake photos. It’s fairly easy for us all to tell whether a photo pictures your employees or a group of models in business casual attire. Drop the stock photos, and try snapping a few shots of your staff working hard. A picture says a thousand words, and you might find that a picture of a happy staff says words like credible, relatable, or hard-working.

It doesn’t need to sound like a sales pitch. Just stick to the facts and accolades, and your About Us page will look new and improved in no-time. For more information about the BBB, visit our About Us page.