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Website personality

Article 4 in the series ‘What does your website do for you?’

The business world can be an impersonal place; its need to remain professional often belies what is really behind it: people. People with knowledge, opinions, beliefs and all the other things that make us human. These people are the personalities that will attract customers to your business and keep them as clients.

Traditional forms of marketing or advertising often end up hiding the people within the business. Whilst they may reflect the business’ premise, including the solution it can provide, these methods often share little of the business’ ethics, beliefs or more objective opinions, made up of the people behind the company. This is where a website comes into its own; its ability to connect the user with the people behind the website.

This doesn’t mean that on each page of the site a photo of a member of staff or personal opinion is required, but it does mean a business needs to think about the content on the website and make sure that it has a personal opinion behind it. It means that a business should regularly think about the messages its website projects and make sure that it believes in them.

Many websites become an entity that the business does not feel represents them and its customers are steered away from it like an embarrassing uncle. It is very important that your business’ personality is projected and people behind the business represented, as this is what will strengthen relationships with clients and bring new business.

A good example here is a blog integrated into the website, which allows people within the business to easily manage content and project opinion. A blog can also allow users to leave comments, which enables you to start a dialogue and answer the user openly.

In short, a website needs a personality if it is to engage with the people who use it.

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