Your About Page Is Talking to AI Now. Here's What It Should Say

Your About Page Is Talking to AI Now. Here's What It Should Say

Let's be honest. Most of us wrote our About page once, felt a bit awkward about it, and haven't looked at it since. Mine had a photo I'd rather not discuss.

Here's why it's worth a second look. According to SEO consultant Ann Smarty, writing in Practical Ecommerce, About pages are now part of most SEO audits. She says AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini also crawl About pages to judge whether a business is credible enough to cite or recommend. She regularly sees About pages turning up in AI answers.

So your About page now has two readers: potential customers and the AI tools those customers are asking for advice.

What both readers are looking for

Smarty makes a useful point: people and AI tools have probably heard of you before they land on your About page. They're not there to be dazzled. They want confirmation that you're proven and reliable.

That changes the job of the page. It's less "here's our story" and more "here's the evidence".

Swap the hype for facts

This is the big one. Smarty says AI models may ignore aggressive claims like "we are the best" and give more weight to factual statements like "trusted by 20,000 consumers since 1990".

For a small business, that looks like:

• Instead of: "We're passionate about delivering exceptional bookkeeping solutions."

• Try: "We've done the books for more than 60 Geelong trades businesses since 2014."

The second version gives AI something it can actually repeat. The first one gives it nothing, and to be fair, it gives your customers nothing either.

What to include on your About page

Pulling together Smarty's advice on About pages and her related writing on AI visibility, here's the short list:

1. A plain opening line. Start with a non-promotional explanation of what you do and the products or services you offer. No "welcome to our journey".

2. Who you help and what problem you solve. Be specific about both.

3. Hard facts. Years in business (the launch month and year is even better), your physical address, partnerships with well-known organisations, and any awards or milestones.

4. Honest testimonials. Keep them factual and specific, and link to where the claims can be checked, such as your Google reviews.

5. Connections with trusted organisations. Industry associations, certifications, partners and suppliers people recognise.

Use the same words everywhere

Smarty also recommends using the same wording on your About page as everywhere else: across your website, social media and directory listings. In her experience, one of the biggest AI optimisation mistakes is an inconsistent, vague description of the business.

If your website says "marketing consultant", your LinkedIn says "brand strategist" and your Google Business Profile says "advertising agency", AI has to guess which one you are. It may guess wrong, or skip you entirely.

She also notes that About pages tend to be outdated and missing essential details. If yours still mentions the team member who left in 2022, it's time.

A prompt to do the heavy lifting

Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude and paste in your current About page:

Here is my current About page: [paste it]. Rewrite it so it opens with one plain, non-promotional sentence explaining what my business does, who it helps and where. Replace any vague or hype claims with specific, factual statements, and list any claims that need a fact from me to back them up. Keep it under 300 words, in a friendly Australian voice. Then give me a one-sentence business description I can copy onto my Google Business Profile, LinkedIn and directory listings so they all match.

Two rules when you use this. Don't let AI invent numbers for you. If it writes "trusted by 500 clients", that figure has to be true. Then read the result out loud. If it doesn't sound like you, tweak it until it does.

Your 20-minute About page check

1. Does the first sentence say what you do, for whom and where?

2. Have you replaced every "best", "leading" and "passionate" with a fact?

3. Does it list your launch year, location and any memberships or awards?

4. Do your testimonials link to somewhere they can be verified?

5. Does it match your Google Business Profile and LinkedIn word for word?

Five yeses and you're in better shape than most About pages on the internet. That's a low bar, but still.

If you want to work out where AI fits in the rest of your business, the free AI Readiness quiz is a good place to start. You'll find more practical prompts at Small Biz Prompt Shop.

Source: Ann Smarty, 'About' Pages Shape AI Visibility, Practical Ecommerce, 18 August 2026