3 Easy Ways to Make Your Company’s Website More Personable

Being a successful businessperson isn’t just about balancing books and generating sales. Being a successful businessperson has a lot to do with being personable. Personable people are friendly and easy to talk to, and those qualities can translate into better customer relations and more sales.

But when marketing their products online, businesses don’t have the advantage of a face-to-face interaction. They can’t rely on a friendly employee or salesperson in order to win over a prospective customer. So what can businesses do to make their website more personable? Here are our three favorite and easiest ways to do just that:

3) Add pictures of smiling people to your site

Studies have shown that when people see other people smiling, their mentality changes. Although the science behind the process isn’t clear, it’s been suggested that smiling – and seeing pictures of other people smiling – reduces the amount of cortisol in the body. Cortisol is a stress hormone, and some people believe that lowered levels of cortisol increase the likelihood a customer will make a purchase.

Of course, the science behind smiling pictures could also be a whole lot less complicated than that. People are generally more willing to approach someone who is smiling, and a website with no pictures of smiling people appears less inviting and personable than one with at least one smiling picture.

Be careful not to go overboard with this tip: the effect doesn’t stack, and having hundreds of pictures of smiling people on your company’s website will not only look unprofessional, but it can also look downright creepy. Posting one or two pictures of smiling people showcasing your product or service should be enough to increase conversion rates.

2) Be creative with the ‘About Us’ page

Every company has a story. Some stories are more entertaining than others. Some companies are created after somebody fills out a bunch of paperwork at a government office. Others were created after three best friends combined their efforts into a common passion. Whatever your company’s “creation” story may be, the way you present that story to customers could change the perception of your company – and your website.

So be creative with the “About Us” page or the “Our Story” section of your company’s website. Don’t just list the dates your company formed. Explain why your company was formed in a way that will be interesting to prospective customers. If it’s a good story, your customers will read the whole thing while learning a little more about your brand.

1) Add Google Authorship to your website

Google+ has been facing mixed reviews as a social network. However, there’s one thing that is certain about Google Plus: Google wants people to use it as much as possible.

One way Google is doing that is by encouraging users to add the authorship feature to their site. The full instructions about how to do that can be found here, but the general point of Google+ authorship is to place a small picture of the writer beside particular articles in search engine rankings.

If you want to add a personable touch to your website, then why not do that before users ever visit your site? Visitors tend to pick a search engine listing with a picture beside it over one with no picture, so this can have a phenomenal effect on your company’s conversion rate.