How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

by Katie Sawyer, 10 minutes read
HOME blog how to write a company description for your business

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

What is a company description?

A company description (sometimes referred to as an “about me” or “bio” section) is defined as a general overview of your company as well as who you are as a business owner. Anyone who reads your company description should get a clear idea of what your business does as well as the hole you’re working to fill.

Why do I need to know how to write a company description?

Whether it’s for a business plan to get the support of investors or for the bio section of your website, writing a proper company description is crucial for promoting your business. When people visit your business website, social media page, etc. they want to be greeted with a short passage that details what your company stands for along with what the brand hopes to accomplish.

Without a proper company description, your brand will come off as unprofessional and will give your readers the idea that you’re not consistent. So although the idea of writing up a company description may seem daunting or time-consuming to a lot of business owners, it’s a necessary step they must all do at one point or another. Along with writing a great company description, another necessary step is offering your managers and supervisors with an easy to use software platform that makes creating and sending employee schedules quick and effortless. To see Deputy in action for yourself and to see why it’s trusted by brands like Amazon, Nike, and Ace Hardware, click on the link below to start your free trial.

START FREE TRIAL

Company description examples

Now that you’re aware of the importance of having a strong company description, let’s touch on a handful of company description examples that do a great job of upholding the values and principals of the company as well as holding the readers’ attention.

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

The best way to understand how to properly write a company description is by analyzing real-world examples by companies. This way, you can understand how they’re supposed to be constructed along with being exposed to the different forms they can take. Because at the end of the day, there are all different types of companies out there with their own unique take on company descriptions. Pay attention to the following examples that demonstrate how to best write a company description for your website that properly serves your brand.

1. Google

Google company description

The above statement by Google demonstrates a perfect example of a brand creating a company description that corresponds with the values of their company as well as capturing what the brand stands for. Google is known for its clean, straightforward design and for not cluttering their visitors’ screens with needless information. And as you can see from their company description, they carried that idea over to the creation of their company description.

2. McDonald’s

This example from McDonald’s shows how one of the most identifiable restaurant brands in the world handles their company description. They know their history is too expansive and rich with history to really explain in a single paragraph, so they kept it short and to the point by giving a glimpse of how their founder originally started the company that grew to be the conglomerate it is today.

McDonald's company description

Another interesting aspect can be seen towards the bottom where you see they tell readers to continue reading to learn more regarding the history of the company. This gives companies with an expansive history, similar to McDonald’s, a chance to take a bigger dive into the history of the company and to learn more on how they got to where they are today. While your company may not be at this level yet, it’s never too soon to get an idea of what’s to come.

3. Whole Foods

Whole Foods company description

Adding a bit more spice (literally) to their company description is Whole Foods and their ability to convey the feeling of being at a progressive, sustainability-focused food distributor to every one of their readers. While Google was short and sweet and McDonald’s gave people a taste of their long history, Whole Foods takes on a more entertaining tone that’s still able to hit home regarding what they stand for along with what they hope to accomplish. This company description gets the job done and if you’re a retailer that offers a progressive line of products and offerings, you should pay close attention to what they were able to accomplish.


Rules for writing a company description for your business

While the above examples are great for having a clear visual of what an effective company description should look like, you still need guidelines to ensure the description you’re writing is accomplishing exactly what it’s supposed to. Pay close attention to the following rules for writing a company description that will have you up and writing great content in no time!

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

1. Match the tone & voice of your brand

The company description for a tattoo parlor isn’t going to match the description for an office supply store and the description for a dance studio isn’t going to match the description for a furniture shop. What I mean by this is you need to figure out how to best express the culture and energy of your company through text if you want your company description to be effective. And when I say effective, I mean that a curious potential customer should get a glimpse of what you all stand for just from reading the company description.

To give you an idea of what I’m referring to, let’s say you own a boxing gym that specializes in coaching inexperienced people on the fundamentals of boxing. You’re aware that some people may be intimidated of going to a boxing gym and that this fear causes some people to not come to the gym although they may be genuinely interested in the subject.

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

So in your company description, you should be sure to convey to readers that your gym is a “judgment free zone” and that everyone is welcome there, no matter their experience level, age, or general level of fitness. This way, readers are assured your gym hosts an open environment and they won’t feel unwelcome. In this circumstance, you’ll need to convey your gym’s culture of openness and acceptance to your readers so they know not to be intimidated about joining the gym. This is just one example of how companies should go about matching the tone & voice of their brand with their company description.

2. Keep it as short as possible

Whether you’re a multinational billion dollar retailer or an ambitious entrepreneur just starting out to make a name for yourself, do yourself a favor and keep your company description as short and to the point as you can. While you may be a writer at heart and want to lead your readers on a Shakespearean journey on how your company came to be…do yourself a favor and save it for your autobiography.

Remember these readers didn’t visit your site or social profiles to read a novel, they did it to learn more about your [business](http://Fiverr vs. Upwork – How to Use Them for Your Small Business) and its offerings. When they start on your company description and are met with a multiple paragraph long passage, there’s a strong chance they won’t read the entire thing and may end up leaving the page or the entire site altogether. So do your best to keep it short and not bog readers down with unneeded details.

3. Show some enthusiasm!

This is your business. You poured hundreds if not thousands of hours into it, missed out on important social obligations, burned through your life savings…you get the idea. This business has been your entire life for however long you’ve been working at it, so it’s only right you do your business (as well as yourself!) justice by showing your enthusiasm and passion within the company description. Now, I know everyone isn’t a writer, so pay attention to the following tip that can greatly help you show off your passion for your company through words.

4. Make it personal

If you’re running an auto-shop, include a tidbit on how you always dreamed about working with cars since you were a child. If you own a gym, include a story on how fitness was your key to getting your confidence back after you were picked on in high school. You get the idea. When you include this type of information, your readers will start to grow an emotional connection with your business which means they’ll be more likely to purchase your products and even become loyal customers.

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

5. Only include the important information

Now that you know a company description should be short & sweet, you may be thinking, “Well, which information should I write about?”

You have a close relationship with your business and are exposed to each aspect that keeps it running, so it’s understandable that you may be stumped on which piece of information should be stated first. But let me help with that, you should only include the most important & relevant information in regards to how your business is run. So if you’re running a restaurant centered on pizza delivery, then your company description should touch on your dedication to cooking great pizzas as well as ensuring they’re delivered in a timely manner.

Take some time to really think about the essentials that make up your company, then write them down so you can reference them within your company description. If it helps, try to think of your company description as an elevator pitch where you have very limited time to speak about your company and can only bring up the most important facts.

6. Edit, edit, then edit some more

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

This one may seem obvious but you’d be surprised by how often professionals release written content to the world without even doing a spell-check. This is why I highly advise you to double check your written work for any mistakes with grammar, spelling, or if you just forgot to include certain information. If you need some help, take a look at Grammarly as well as the Hemingway app. Both platforms were built from the ground up specifically for helping writers catch little mistakes they missed, as well as being able to suggest terminology that may be a better fit for the sentence.


Writing a company description for a business plan

How to Write a Company Description for Your Business

While company descriptions are pretty similar wherever you plan on placing them, writing one up for a business plan should be given extra precaution because it’s meant for the eyes of investors and will help decide whether or not your business receives funding. If you’re creating a company description for a business proposal, make sure you’re including the following tidbits of information:

  • Whether it’s a sole proprietorship or an LLC
  • The location of the business
  • All of your product offerings as well as your services
  • Who the managers of your company are as well as the other important people
  • Your company’s mission statement
  • What you hope your business to accomplish in its immediate future, as well as a realistic timeline for each goal.
  • The history of the business which includes when it was founded, how long it’s been around, etc.

Closing thoughts

You don’t have to be an amazingly skilled writer in order to piece together a great company description. You just need to keep each of the key components in mind when writing it to assure you hit all of the important points and convey all the important information to your reader. If you run into any more trouble while writing your company description, then make sure to keep this page close by so it can be easily referenced!

And don’t forget that a great company description is useless unless you also have great employees willing to do what it takes to make your business profitable. Why not make it easier for them to work by offering an employee scheduling platform that gives them the ability to swap shifts when they need to as well as makes it easy for managers and supervisors to create the schedules. Take a look at Deputy, a software platform that does all of the above and even offers customers the opportunity to try out the platform before they buy so they understand what they’re getting themselves into. Click here to Start your free trial.