S4 Media

The About page is the second-most-visited page on almost every contractor website we look at, and it is almost always the worst one. Which is strange, because a contractor about page template is not hard to fill in — you already know all the answers. The problem is that most owners think the page is supposed to sound like a company brochure, so they write three paragraphs about integrity and end up saying nothing a homeowner in Rigby or Ammon can use.

We are S4 — Bryce and Gabby, two working builders out of Rigby. We ran jobs across Eastern Idaho before we built websites for anybody. Here is what belongs on the page, why each piece is there, and what to leave off.

Why homeowners read the About page at all

Nobody lands on your About page out of curiosity. They land on it because they are about to let a stranger into their house and they are looking for a reason to feel okay about it.

That is the entire job of the page. Not to impress, not to establish a brand — to reduce the specific anxiety of hiring somebody you have never met. Once you understand that, the writing gets easy, because you stop trying to sound impressive and start answering the questions people actually have.

Those questions are consistent: Is this a real business or a guy with a truck who may vanish? How long has he done this? Will the person I talked to on the phone be the person at my house? Does he do jobs my size, or am I too small to matter? And — particularly in a market like Eastern Idaho where drive time is real — does he even come out to my town?

The contractor about page template, section by section

1. Who owns and runs this, by name. Open with it. “I’m Dave Miller. I’ve run Miller Concrete out of Shelley since 2014.” A name and a year answers more anxiety in one sentence than a full page of company voice. If it is a partnership or a family operation, say who does what.
2. How long, and how you got here. Two or three sentences. Where you learned the trade, who you worked for before, why you went out on your own. This is the only place a story belongs, and short is better. “Framed for eleven years for a builder in Idaho Falls before starting my own crew” is plenty.
3. Who actually shows up. Crew size, whether they are employees or subs, whether you personally are on site or running the business. Homeowners assume the worst when this is vague. If you sub out your electrical, say so — being straight about it reads far better than being caught.
4. What you take on and what you do not. The most underrated section on the page. “We do full bathroom and kitchen remodels. We don’t do service calls or small punch-list work.” That sentence saves you three phone calls a week and makes you look like a shop that knows what it is, rather than one that takes anything.
5. Where you work, in town names. Rigby, Idaho Falls, Rexburg, Ammon, Iona, Ucon, Shelley, Blackfoot — whichever are actually true. Add the honest edge: how far you will drive, whether there is a trip charge, and what makes a longer drive worth it. Plain text, not a map widget.
6. Licensing, insurance, and how long. One line, stated plainly. “Licensed and insured in Idaho since 2014; certificate available same day on request.” Nobody needs a paragraph, but everybody wants the sentence.

Six sections, roughly 400 to 700 words, and you are done. Longer is not better here.

Put a real photo of yourself on it

This is the single highest-return element on the page and the one most contractors skip, usually out of mild embarrassment.

A homeowner deciding between three contractors is trying to picture who is going to be standing in her kitchen. A photo of you — actual you, in work clothes, in front of your own truck or on a real job — does that instantly. It does not need to be professional. Phone camera, decent light, hold it straight. The crew standing in front of the trailer at the end of a job is perfect.

What does not work: stock photos of models in hard hats, a generic image of a house you did not build, and AI-generated images of anything. Homeowners recognize all three faster than you would expect, and getting caught with a fake photo on the page whose entire job is trust is worse than having no photo at all. If you are camera-shy, a photo of your truck with your name on it beats a stock image every time.

Write it in first person

Most contractor About pages are written in third person — “Miller Concrete has proudly served the Eastern Idaho community since 2014” — because that is what people think a business is supposed to sound like. It reads like a press release for a company nobody works at.

Write it as I, or as we if there are genuinely two or more of you. “I started this because I was tired of watching corners get cut on jobs I was framing.” That is a real sentence from a real person and it does what the whole page is trying to do.

The test we use: read it out loud. If you would not say it standing in somebody’s driveway, do not put it on the page.

The words to cut

Open your current About page and delete every sentence containing these: quality, craftsmanship, integrity, dedicated, passionate, customer satisfaction, attention to detail, and the phrase “we treat every home like our own.”

The reason is not that those things are untrue. It is that every single competitor says them, which makes them zero information. A homeowner reading four About pages sees the same six adjectives on all four and learns nothing that helps her decide.

Replace them with facts. Instead of “attention to detail,” write what you actually do differently — that you flood-test every shower pan, that you send a photo update at the end of each day, that you sweep the site before you leave. Instead of “dedicated,” write that you answer your phone until eight and return every voicemail the same day, if that is true. Specific and checkable beats warm and generic.

What to skip

• Company mission and values blocks. A three-person trade shop with a mission statement reads as borrowed language from a company ten times its size.
• A long history section. Nobody is reading about your 2018 expansion. Two or three sentences of background is the ceiling.
• Stock photos of any kind. Covered above. On this page in particular they actively cost you.
• Association logos with nothing behind them. A row of badges is fine if you are actually a member. If you joined once in 2019 and lapsed, take it down — it is checkable.
• Burying your phone number. The About page converts better than people expect. Put a number and one link at the bottom.
• Making it a second homepage. Do not re-list every service. Link to the service pages and let this page do its own job.

Why this matters more in a small market

In a metro area an About page is one signal among many, competing with review volume, ad spend, and brand recognition. In Bonneville, Madison, Jefferson, and Bingham counties, the homeowner comparing three contractors often knows somebody who knows one of you. Reputation moves by conversation, and your About page is the version of you that people who have not heard of you yet get to meet.

That cuts both ways, and it is mostly upside for a small honest shop. You do not need marketing polish to beat a bigger competitor here. You need to sound like a real person from around here who does what he says. A page that names your town, your years, your crew, and the work you do not take on will beat a slicker page from an out-of-area company almost every time, because the local one is the only one that reads as true.

FAQ

How long should a contractor about page be?
Roughly 400 to 700 words. Long enough to cover the six sections honestly, short enough that somebody reads all of it on a phone.

Should I put my photo on my about page?
Yes. A real phone photo of you or your crew in work clothes outperforms a polished stock image, and it is the single element a competitor cannot copy. If you will not be photographed, use your own truck.

Should the about page be written in first or third person?
First person. Third person reads like a press release, which is the opposite of the trust the page is supposed to build.

Do I need to list what jobs I do not take?
It is optional but it is one of the highest-value lines on the page. It filters out calls you would decline anyway and signals that you know what your shop is good at.

Does the about page help with search rankings?
Indirectly. Naming your towns, counties, and years in business in plain text gives search engines and AI answer tools real information about who and where you are. But its main job is converting somebody who already found you.

What if I am brand new with no track record?
Say so, and lead with where the experience came from. “Started my own crew this year after nine years framing for a builder in Rexburg” is honest and reassuring. New is fine; vague is not.

If you would rather have somebody who has actually run a crew write this page for you, that is the sort of thing we do. Here’s how we work →