About pages are often the 2nd most important page on a website.

Potential clients come to this page for a brief history of your company and to see what separates you from the competition.

Despite this, some companies put little effort into it.

I’m going to break down Paradox Interactive’s about page and show you how to make an effective one for your company. 

Mission Statement and Blurb

It starts as any about page should start. With a mission statement. However, the formatting of this mission statement is weak. It’s in normal font with general font size. It just blends in with the rest of the page.

That is NOT what you want from your mission statement.

It needs to give the impression that you’re saying it with conviction. This is the goal of your company after all. Look below. What makes you think a powerful statement?





Making Social Proof Visually Appealing

The 2nd paragraph gives great social proof and talks about the 100+ games in the Paradox game portfolio. But, and this may be a personal gripe, I RARELY like lists that don’t come in a bullet point format. 

They have no impact and I often skip them over entirely.

Un-Smothering INCREDIBLE Social Proof

This paragraph is fine. Other than the fact it completely smothered an incredible stat.

“OVER 5 MILLION PLAYERS AND 18 MILLION ACCOUNTS”

Those are some big-boy numbers. If I was Paradox I would be shouting that from the rooftop.

More than 5 commas in a Paragraph Should be a Crime

This is another paragraph that should be a list. Simply because it has an absurd amount of commas.

Call To Action and their Next Step

The page ends with a sentence containing 4 links. These links lead to forums and their social media

Then it gives you 3 other links in big blocks with obscure names.

These left me scratching my head.

  1. What does “paradox formula” mean?
  2. Is “our business” money and investing stuff?
  3. Wait “ then what is corporate governance”?

The reason it’s so confusing at the end is that they are missing the big picture. 

Big Picture

So let’s get to the big picture problem with this page. Paradox Interactive is both a publisher and game studio that is traded on the stock market. This means the page is meant to serve both investors and consumers.

These groups have varying different needs.

To use a Cooking metaphor.

  • Consumers want to know what the food tastes like and how it’s prepared.
  • While investors want to know margins on produce and total revenue.

For both groups; this page does a poor job of telling them to go next.

The Makeover:

Our vision is to make worlds that our players can call their own.

The Paradox group today consists of both publishing and internal development of games and brands. Our shared goal is to provide deep and challenging games and experiences, with hours of gameplay and endless variety, to our ever-growing community.

OUR STUDIOS

Over FIVE MILLION gamers play Paradox games each month, and the number of registered Paradox users exceeds 18 MILLION.

The Paradox game portfolio includes more than 100 titles with Paradox owning the most important brands.

Including;

Our development studios are located in Stockholm, Malmö, and Umeå, Sweden, in Delft, The Netherlands, in Seattle, Washington, in Berkeley, California, in Barcelona, Spain, in Tampere, Finland, and in Paris, France.

See what makes our studios some of the best in the industry.

Copy break: The above CTA gives the consumers places to go. Now we can address the investors. 

OUR PUBLISHER

Paradox’s head offices are located in Stockholm, Sweden. Since the company was founded in 2004 we have published our games all over the world, initially through physical distribution but since 2006 primarily through digital channels. 

Paradox games are developed primarily for PC and console platforms, but we also release games on mobile platforms.

Our largest markets include;

  • US
  • UK
  • China
  • Germany
  • France
  • Russia
  • Scandinavia

Find out more about our business model here:

For more information, please visit paradoxplaza.com, join our forums and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Copy Break: The section above gives basic information that an investor would like. Then they are directed to the pages with more in-depth info. 

Conclusion:

A well-made about page can jump-start your relationship with a customer. A poor one can make them jump ship.

Here are some easy tips to avoid these mistakes and others

  1. Formatting is the easiest change to make. Get all your thoughts on paper then go through and change things.
  2. If your about page services people with different motivations. Make sure they all get to where they need to go. 
  3. Never leave an about page as just 3 paragraphs.
  4. Emphasize your social proof. Don’t let it be smothered on the page.

Do you have any suggestions I missed?

Let me know below and have a great day.