When a business or person begins creating or updating their website, they often focus on its content, design and features. What should the logo look like? Color scheme? How will the site interact with social media? Will it have a blog? What about SEO?
All of these things are important but there is one critical element that is often left out of the brainstorming process: personality.
More than ever, customers receive their first impression of a business through its website. To connect with your business, potential customers didn’t open up the yellow pages then chat with a friendly receptionist. Instead, they somehow stumbled upon your site through their search engine, an ad or other means and want to get to know you.
Smashing Magazine identified these four key benefits to expressing personality in your website’s design:
So how should you add personality to your site?
Imagine you are speaking to your customer as you would in a face-to-face conversation. Not only do your words matter, but font sizes, use of bold or italics and colors also convey your tone.
Follow this checklist from Crazy Egg as you think about your site’s desired voice and personality:
Including photos of your staff and business in action can help the customer envision your brand at work. This builds trust and credibility and “puts a face to the name.”
Osteria Rossa, a restaurant, includes a photos page on their site where they feature candid photos of their team, food and kitchen. Taking a look “behind the scenes” allows visitors to feel like they are receiving a less filtered view of your business.
Likewise, including an “About Us” page with friendly team photos and bios conveys your staff’s unique qualities which may not be published elsewhere. Here's an example team page from a CPA firm. Enjoy skydiving? Tell us! How about playing the banjo … why not share your enthusiasm? People want to get to know the real you. Every business can have a site where they list team members' accolades and fancy credentials. Your website should show more!
Sharing what drives your business and team “beyond the paycheck” is also essential to showcasing your personality and differentiating your brand from competitors. Is your company socially or environmentally conscious? Do you value and empower your employees? Including your brand's mission and values on your site may help to make the difference in converting a visitor to a customer.
As Bruce Lee said, “always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” The same goes for your website.
We're here to help you think beyond the functionality and design elements of your site (even though we’ve got those covered too). Need to add some pizzazz and personality to your website? We're here to help!
Featured image from Flickr
