5 Easy Ways to Increase YOU on Your Web site

Your customers are obsessed with social media. They’ve discovered that it’s through social media that they can get to know more about your brand. They’re able to peek behind the curtain and see what you believe in, what your team looks like, and if you’re passionate about the same types of things they are. And believe it or not, it matters. We want to do business with companies we believe in, who believe like we do. But no one knows what you believe in until you take the time to show them.

How can you increase the “you” on your Web site to bring people in? Below are six easy wins.

1. Talk About How You Do Business

Sure, you need to talk about what you do and how customers can benefit from it. But spend more time talking about how you do business and why you do it that way. That’s what’s going to set you apart from your competition. Because oftentimes you’re not competing on price. You’re competing on your level of service, on your trustworthiness, on your values, on your culture, on what you believe in, and the story you’re telling. This is what you need to show off to help you put more “you” in your business. This is the information people want to hear.

2. Focus On Your About Page

I know. I’ve written about your About Page a couple of times here at SmallBizTrends. Your About Page has the distinct honor of being both one of the most important pages on your Web site and one of the most ignored. Instead of using this area as a place to tell the story of our brand, we use it as our personal Wikipedia page. Unfortunately, not too many customers are interested in the unabridged version of your life.

Instead, use your About Page for more interesting purposes:

• Tell a story about your company that draws people in and gets them excited.
• Post pictures of you and your team through various times in the business’ history. [Bonus points for embarrassing haircuts.]
• Include videos of yourself and your employees talking about what you’re passionate about.
• Show pictures of what your business looks like on the inside. Let Google help you.
• Include links to the company’s social media profiles and the profiles of key personnel.

Use the page to show your personality, your company culture, and what you believe in. That’s what a user is looking for when they visit your page. Not your biography.

3. Show Off Your Assets

See this woman?

She doesn’t work for your company. She doesn’t work for anyone’s company. So stop using generic images to show off your staff, your building, and your customers. Instead, show off real people and places. The benefit of this is two-fold.

First, you give yourself more interesting images to work with. Your customers are bound to be more colorful than the faces of people you can buy on the Internet – let them shine. Maybe even leave a cheap camera lying around and encourage customers to take their own photos. Get images for your site and create a photo wall in your store. Two birds with one stone and you get to make customers feel more invested and more part of your business.

The second thing this is going to do is attract prospective customers. When we’re looking for information, we don’t want to see stock images. We want to see what your business really looks like. This helps us find it when we’re lost, but it also gives us a sense of what it’s going to feel like when we walk through your doors. Having this information up front puts any customer at ease.

4. Adopt Video

Create a video that shows off your business, your employees and what company culture is like. Once you have it, put it on your Web site and encourage your customers to share. Facebook it. Tweet it. Stumble it. Include it in company newsletters. Do your best to get it out there and to let people see what everything looks like behind the scenes. Video creates a more intimate experience between you and your customer. They’re able to see you and to hear you and make note of your mannerisms. Break down that wall with them.

5. Show Social Conversations

Working hard to build your Twitter following and engage with customers? Awesome! So don’t hide it! Put your feed directly on your home page and let people see and hear these conversations in real time.

Use Facebook plugins to show off the size and depth of your community. Embed company YouTube videos on your Web site. Link off to your favorite Pinterest boards even if they’re not related to what you do every day on your Web site.

Show your social conversations and add your voice to your Web site in new and dynamic ways. Your home page copy can only do so much. Giving a user the opportunity to see you having a conversation with real customers does a heck of a lot more.

If social media has led us on to anything it’s that our customers want more of us on your Web site. They want to see you and hear from you. By adopting some of the tactics above you’ll highlight the “you” in your brand.

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