Your Site Should Be as Unique as Your Company

The other day someone asked me if User Interface Engineering (where I work) had any standards on what the “about us” section of web sites should contain. I answered her that we did not, because the decisions that go into a good “about us” section aren’t all that generalizable.

More specifically, every web site exists to conduct some sort of unique transaction. You may be selling unique goods, providing unique web site design, or simply writing a blog with unique content.

If what you provide is not unique, it will either become unique or fail to survive. If you do it better than others, then you will stand alone in your uniqueness. If others do it better than you, then you will fail to survive.

I could have answered the woman that every “about us” section would do well to include contact information, information about the site, and some sort of mission statement. That may have made her feel better, and perhaps been what she was asking for.

But that’s not what makes anybody unique. Sure, people may be looking for that sort of stuff, but that’s not doing good business, it’s doing average business. What makes a web site successful is exactly what is done to be better than the standard, not what is done to follow it.