Team page: introducing the people behind your business

A team page answers a question every customer has before they let someone into their home, hand over their dog or sit in a dentist's chair: who exactly will I be dealing with? A good one is short. A clear photo of each person, their first name, what they do for the customer, and two or three sentences that sound like them. Here is how to put one together, what to write, and what to keep private.

Do you need a team page at all?

Not every business does. If it is just you, a "meet the owner" section on your About page does the job better than a page with one face on it. A separate team page earns its place when:

• Customers meet different people. A salon with five stylists, a dental office with hygienists, a cleaning company with crews, a law office with two attorneys and a paralegal.
• People choose who they want. Clients ask for a particular stylist, trainer or groomer by name. The team page is where they learn the names.
• Your staff go into homes. Seeing the face of the technician before the doorbell rings makes a customer more comfortable opening the door.
• Your people are the reason to choose you. Long-serving staff, a family business across generations, specialists with real training.

If none of those apply, a single group photo on the About page may be all you need.

The photos: same style, real faces

The photos matter more than the words. Most visitors look at the faces and read one line.

• Use the same setting for everyone. Same wall or doorway, same time of day, same distance from the camera. A page of matching photos looks organized. A mix of vacation snapshots, a wedding photo and a blurry crop from a group shot looks like nobody cared.
• Shoulders and up, looking at the camera, smiling a little. That is what people want to see before they meet someone.
• Work clothes. The scrubs, the polo with your logo, the apron. It tells the customer what the person will look like when they arrive.
• Plan for new hires. Write down where you took the photos and how, so the next person's photo matches. Otherwise the page drifts out of style within a year.

A plain trick: take every portrait on the same day, in the same spot in open shade, with the phone at eye level. For more on getting good shots without a photographer, see how to take good photos for your website with a phone.

Roles: say what the person does for the customer

Job titles inside a business often mean nothing to the people outside it. "Operations coordinator" or "Level II tech" leaves a customer guessing. Write the role as what that person does for them:

• "Answers the phone and books your appointment"
• "Leads our installation crews"
• "Cleans your teeth and takes your X-rays"
• "Grooms dogs of every size, especially the nervous ones"

You can keep the formal title too if it matters, like a license level or "Office Manager". Put the plain description right under it.

Short bios that sound like a person

Two to four sentences per person is plenty. Long life stories on a team page get skipped. A simple pattern that works for almost any trade:

1. What they do here and for how long. "Maria has been cutting hair with us since we opened."
2. One thing they are good at or love doing. "She's the one to see for curly hair and short cuts that grow out well."
3. One human detail, if they want to share it. "Outside the shop she coaches her daughter's softball team."

Let each person read and approve their own bio. Better still, ask them the three questions and write down what they say, then tidy it up. It will sound more like them than anything you write about them.

Avoid the copy-paste bio where every person "is passionate about customer satisfaction" and "brings a wealth of experience". If you can swap the names and nobody would notice, the bios are not doing anything.

Credentials that belong on the page

For some businesses, the team page is the right place for qualifications customers care about:

• Licensed trades: the license type, like a journeyman or master electrician, if that is how your state licenses them.
• Health and care: degrees, board certifications, the letters after a name.
• Specialties with real training behind them, such as a groomer's certification or a technician's manufacturer training.

List only what is current and true. If you show company-wide licenses and insurance, those usually live on their own page or in the footer; showing licenses, insurance and certifications on your site covers that part.

Privacy: what to leave off

A team page should help customers trust your people, not expose them. Some plain rules:

• Ask before anyone goes on the page, and respect a no. Some people have good reasons not to be findable online. A role and a first name with no photo, or no listing at all, is fine.
• First names, or first name and last initial, are usually enough for staff who go into homes. Owners and licensed professionals often use full names, because customers check them.
• No personal phone numbers or personal email addresses. Route everything through the business line and a shared inbox.
• No home towns, children's names, schools or anything that tells a stranger where to find someone, unless the person is happy to share it.
• Take people off promptly when they leave. A former employee's face on your site confuses customers and can bother the person. Make removing them part of your goodbye checklist, along with their keys.

How to lay out the page

Keep it simple and easy to read on a phone:

• A one-line intro at the top: who you are as a group and how long you have worked together.
• Owner or lead first, then everyone else in an order that makes sense to customers, such as by department or by what customers meet first.
• Photo, name, role line, short bio. One person per block, stacked on a phone.
• A clear next step at the bottom, such as "Book with any of us" or your phone number as a tap-to-call link.

If people book with one person in particular, link each person's block to their booking page or calendar.

What to do this week

• Decide whether you need a full team page or just a group photo and an owner section.
• Ask each person whether they want to be on the page, and in what way.
• Pick one spot and one time of day, and take everyone's photo there.
• Ask each person three questions: what they do here, what they are best at, one thing about them outside work.
• Write the role line in customer words for each person.

If your current site has an outdated staff page, or none at all, you can see your site rebuilt first and then add your team in the panel as photos come in.