How to write a compelling about us page for your outdoor business
Most outdoor recreation businesses treat their about page like an afterthought. A paragraph about when the company was founded, a stock photo of a mountain, maybe a line about loving the outdoors. Then they wonder why nobody books.
Here’s the thing most outfitters miss: your about page is one of the most-visited pages on your entire website. A KoMarketing study found that 52% of visitors say the about page is the first thing they look for when they land on a new site. Not your trip pages. Not your homepage. Your about page.
That should change how you approach it. This page isn’t filler and it’s not a place to park your mission statement and move on. For an outdoor business where customers are handing over money to do something physically demanding with strangers, it’s a trust page. And trust is everything.
Start with your origin story, not your mission statement
Every outdoor business has an origin story. Maybe you started guiding raft trips in college and never stopped. Maybe you moved to Montana, fell in love with fly fishing, and decided to make a living on the river. That story is the single most valuable thing you can put on your about page.
OARS has been operating since 1969. When you read their about page, you can trace how one guide’s obsession with rivers turned into an operation that National Geographic Adventure eventually called “The Best River & Sea Outfitter on Earth.” That kind of narrative gives someone confidence before they ever pick up the phone.
Your story doesn’t need to be that grand. Colorado Adventure Guides has run trips out of Silverthorne since 1994. Their about page works because it connects the founders to the specific mountains and rivers where they guide. The place and the people feel inseparable.
Write yours with specific details. The year you started. The river or trail that hooked you. The first trip you ever guided and what went wrong on it. Specificity builds trust because it’s verifiable, and because it sounds like a person talking, not a brochure. A vague paragraph about “passionate outdoor enthusiasts” does nothing. The reader has already seen that line on six other websites today.
Show your credentials without making it a resume
Your visitors are deciding whether to trust you with their safety. They want to know you’re qualified, but they don’t want to read a wall of certifications.
Weave your credentials into your story instead of listing them in a sidebar nobody reads. If your guides are Wilderness First Responder certified, say so when you’re explaining your safety record. If you’ve been permitted to operate in a national forest for 20 years, mention it when you’re talking about your relationship with the land.
Absaroka-Beartooth Outfitters in Montana does this well. They’ve spent over 30 years in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, and their expertise comes through in how they describe their operations, not in a bullet list of acronyms.
The credentials that matter most to customers booking outdoor trips are years of experience, safety certifications, permit status, and guide-to-guest ratios. Work those into the narrative. A sentence like “We’ve run permitted trips through Browns Canyon since 2003 with a perfect safety record” does triple duty: it states your credentials, anchors you to a place, and tells the reader how long you’ve been at it. Compare that to a line that just says “Safety is our top priority.” One is evidence. The other is a claim anyone could make.
Put real faces on the page
Stock photos of smiling hikers on a ridgeline won’t build trust. Your customers want to see the actual people who will be guiding their trip or running their rental shop.
Research from Invesp found that solving trust-related issues on a website can produce conversion increases between 9% and 47%. Putting real faces on your about page is one of the simplest ways to close that gap.
This means photos of your guides on the water or the trail. Candid shots from actual trips. A team photo taken at the put-in, not in front of a white backdrop. If you run a small operation and you’re the only guide, put your own photo up there with a short paragraph about who you are and why you do this.
Etowah Adventure Company in Georgia runs kayak rentals and climbing excursions on the Etowah River. Their site works because you get a sense of the real people behind it. Real photos consistently outperform stock images when it comes to the kind of trust that leads to bookings.
Write for the customer who is about to book, not the one who already has
The biggest mistake on outdoor business about pages is writing for the wrong audience. You’re not writing for your industry peers or your friends who already know you. You’re writing for someone who just found your website, has never been on a guided trip, and is trying to figure out whether you’re legit.
That person has questions. How long have you been doing this. Who are the guides. Is this a family-friendly outfit or more of an adrenaline crowd. Are you a real local business or a faceless booking platform. What happens if it rains. What happens if someone gets hurt.
Think about what your customers Google before they ever reach your site. They’re searching for reassurance, not marketing copy. Understanding what customers search for before they book should shape everything on this page. Your about page is the answer to “can I trust these people with my vacation.” Write it for that person, the one who’s still on the fence, not the one who’s already paddled with you three times.
Include social proof that means something
Saying “thousands of happy customers” is meaningless. A specific quote from a real person about a real trip is worth ten times more.
If you have Google reviews, pull the best ones onto your about page. Not the five-star reviews that just say “great time.” Find the ones where someone describes the experience, mentions a guide by name, or explains what made the trip special. A 2024 KoMarketing survey found that 29% of website visitors consider client testimonials “very important” for establishing credibility. For outdoor recreation, where the product is an experience you can’t return, that number is almost certainly higher.
If you’ve been featured in local media or won an award, mention it. But do it briefly. One sentence that says “Named Best Rafting Outfitter by Colorado Outdoors Magazine in 2024” does more than a whole section of logos nobody recognizes. Same goes for partnerships with local conservation groups or state tourism boards. Those affiliations signal that you’re a real, established operation.
Getting more Google reviews is one of the most effective things you can do for both your about page and your online presence overall. A steady stream of recent reviews also tells visitors that you’re actively operating, not coasting on a reputation from five years ago.
Make sure people can actually contact you
This sounds obvious, but 44% of website visitors will leave a site if they can’t find contact information quickly. Your about page should include or link directly to your phone number, email, physical address, and operating hours.
For outdoor businesses there’s another layer. Customers often want to call before they book. They have questions about difficulty levels, what to bring, whether a trip works for their group. If your about page tells a great story but offers no way to reach you at the bottom, you’re losing bookings. Every outdoor website needs a few core pages working together, and your about page should connect clearly to your contact page and your trip pages.
Put a phone number on the page. If you’re a one-person operation and can’t answer every call, add your hours and say when you’re on the water versus available by phone. That kind of honesty builds more trust than a generic contact form ever will.
Tie your story to the place you operate
The strongest about pages in outdoor recreation connect the business to a specific place. You’re not just a rafting company. You’re a rafting company on the Arkansas River that has watched the water levels change over 25 seasons. You’re not just a fishing guide. You’re a fishing guide who grew up wading the same creek where you now take clients.
This matters for two reasons. First, it shows local knowledge that a fly-by-night operator wouldn’t have. Second, it helps your site rank for local searches. When you mention specific rivers, trails, mountains, and towns, search engines understand what your business is and where it operates. That’s the same principle behind a local keyword strategy and it works just as well on your about page as on a trip page.
Name the rivers. Name the mountain ranges. Talk about what spring runoff does to your schedule or how fall colors change the experience. A visitor reading your about page should finish knowing exactly where you are and feeling like you belong there. That sense of place is something no chain operator or third-party booking platform can fake.
