Tell how the business started in one or two short paragraphs, keep the details only a real history would have, and end each part on what it means for customers today: the skills, standards or habits it left.

Two ways to get it wrong

Open the about page on most small business websites and you find one of two things.

The first is almost nothing: founded in 1987, committed to quality, then a list of services that repeats the menu.

The second is everything: twelve paragraphs beginning with a grandfather's arrival in 1952, the first truck, the second location, each anniversary in turn.

Both miss what the visitor came for. They wanted to know who they would be dealing with, and whether that history means anything for the job in front of them.

What a visitor wants from it

The third turns history into a reason to call. Thirty years means little on its own; thirty years repairing one make of boiler means the part you need is probably on the shelf.

The story in two paragraphs

Most founding stories fit in two short paragraphs: how it started, and the turn along the way that still shapes the work.

The first needs concrete facts: who, where, roughly when, and why. Started by two electricians who had worked for the same contractor for ten years, from a rented bay behind a feed store, says more than humble beginnings.

The second covers what made the business what it is: the job that taught a lesson, the decision to specialise, the move to bigger premises because customers kept asking for one thing.

Everything else, the anniversaries, the awards, each new vehicle, can go. If it matters to the family, it can live on a separate history page nobody has to read.

End each part on today

Each paragraph should finish on something a customer gets now. That is the test of whether a detail belongs.

A founder who began fixing equipment because nobody nearby would is a pleasant detail. It becomes a useful one when the next sentence says every model the shop sells is still repaired in its own workshop.

The history explains the service, and the service justifies the history. A detail that leads nowhere for the customer is decoration, fine in small amounts and tiresome in large ones.

Where it belongs on the site

The about page is the obvious home, and the story should sit near its top, not beneath a mission statement.

A version of one or two sentences belongs on the home page, where most visitors decide whether to read further.

Pieces of it can also sit where they explain something: the line about repairing every model on the service page, the founder's training on the page for the work it applies to.

That last use is the most valuable and the most often missed. The story does its job beside the decision it supports, not only on a page few people open.

Getting it out of the founder

Founders usually tell the story best out loud and worst on paper. Written down, it tends to become a list of dates or a speech.

Better to talk it through for twenty minutes, with somebody taking notes or a phone recording, and to write from that.

The useful questions are about specifics: the first premises, the first big job, the mistake that changed how things are done, and what has not changed since the first year.

Then cut hard. A first draft of a founding story is nearly always far longer than it should be, and the cutting is where it gets good.

A worked example

A small family sawmill on the edge of a farming valley cuts cedar and fir to order for builders, timber framers and people putting up their own cabins and fences.

Its about page told the whole history in eleven paragraphs: the grandfather's arrival, the first saw bought second-hand, three generations, every expansion, all above the contact details.

Callers still asked the same two things: will you cut an odd size, and will you sell a small quantity.

The page was rewritten as two paragraphs. The first says the mill started by cutting for neighbours who needed sizes the lumberyard did not stock, and still cuts to order, down to a single beam.

The second says the family still runs the saw, so whoever answers the phone knows what a log will yield. The rest of the history moved to a page of old photographs, linked at the bottom.

The phone still rings, but callers now start with a size and a quantity rather than asking whether the mill will do it at all.

What to leave out

Some things weaken the story however true they are.

Hardship told at length reads as a request for sympathy. Every award since 1994 reads as a list. Details about relatives who are not part of the business belong to them, not to the website.

Leave out anything that dates badly too, such as the founder's plan to retire next year or a price from the old days.

Claims nobody can check, such as the best service in the valley, add nothing the story has not already shown.

When the business is new

A business that started two years ago still has a story; it is just shorter. Why the founder left a steady job to start it is often the most persuasive paragraph on the site.

The rule is the same: what happened, briefly, and what customers get because of it.

The counter-case

Some businesses can keep the story to a sentence: a franchise location, a company whose customers buy on price and speed alone, a trade where nobody asks about the past.

And some histories are long for good reason. A business that has served three generations of the same families can say so, and let a page of old photographs carry the rest.

Neither changes the rule for the main page: one or two paragraphs, specific, ending on what the customer gets today.

This month

  1. Read your about page as a stranger would.
  2. Find the two moments that shaped the business.
  3. Write each one in a short paragraph.
  4. End each paragraph on what customers get now.
  5. Move the rest to a separate history page.
  6. Put one line on the home page.
  7. Place relevant pieces on the service pages.

Step four is what makes the story earn its space. A history that ends in the past is about the owners; one that ends in the present is about the customer.

Giving one product line the same specific treatment is covered in a page for a single product line.

Frequently asked questions

How long should the business story be?

One or two short paragraphs on the main page: how it started, and the turn that still shapes the work. Longer histories belong on a separate page.

What makes a founding story useful?

Each part ends on something customers get today. Thirty years in business means little; thirty years repairing one make of boiler means the part is probably on the shelf.

Where should the story appear?

Near the top of the about page, in a sentence or two on the home page, and in pieces on the service pages it helps explain.

How do I get the story from the founder?

Talk it through for twenty minutes with notes or a recording, asking about specifics such as the first premises and the first big job. Then cut hard.

What should be left out?

Hardship told at length, lists of awards, details about relatives outside the business, anything that dates badly, and claims nobody can check, such as the best service in town.

Does a new business need a story?

Yes, a shorter one. Why the founder left a steady job to start the business is often the most persuasive paragraph on the whole site.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

About page longer than your services page?

Send us the page. We will cut the story to two paragraphs that end on what customers get.

Start a Conversation