Websites for SME’s and sole traders
When someone asks me to help plan the user experience for their website, there will inevitably be a discussion about representation – who or what do I represent myself as? The answer is of course, ‘as yourself’.
There’s a temptation for individuals to create websites that look more like a company than a person. Maybe they’re shy, maybe they want to look bigger than they really are. However, no one is fooled by these chimeras though they must raise doubts.
The real weakness of these faux corporate sites is that they’re missing their greatest asset which is of course you: your personality, your vision, your voice. People buy products and services from people, not flipping pages. But what if you are a partnership or a collective? The same principle applies; be yourselves.
Coming out as you
Social media have had a powerful influence on the web as a marketing channel. Taking the lead from our children who gamed and chatted uninhibitedly with kids all over the world, we got a taste for networking ourselves and realised it’s okay to reveal our friendships on Facebook or to have a personal profile on Linked In short, we felt more confident to come out as ourselves. However, it’s important to avoid having multiple personalities. If you read the average profile on Linked In and then go the associated website you sometimes wonder if it’s the same person. You can exploit the business potential of these networks by cross linking and group messaging so maybe it’s time to consolidate your various personalities.
Give your site a distinctive voice
Another reason for coming out as you is that it allows you to engage with your visitors at a more personal level. Giving your website a distinctive voice encourages engagement and trust. If you are a partnership, give each of your partners a voice. The obvious extension of having a voice is to use it, to engage in a dialogue with your visitors. One way is to achieve this is have a blog.
Web versus Blog
For many people, their sole representation on the web is now in the form of a blog. Some are highly impressive and require enormous dedication to maintain. Does that mean that SMEs and sole traders should close down their billboard websites and start blogging? Not while the majority of their customers expect to find the solutions they are looking for on a website. There will always be a place for the concise, structured marketing message – a website.
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| Static, proposition led, narrative experience | Dynamic, content led, interactive experience |
Web plus Blog
Thanks to Content Management Systems (CMS) such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, a blog can now be incorporated into a website (this site being an example). Web plus blog makes a powerful combination as it allows you to deliver your concise marketing message and extemporise around the theme with articles and observations. Now add Twitter to the mix and you have three scales of communication; macro, micro and mini.
Twitter feeds
One benefit of having a presence in the social space is to use it to feed traffic to our blogs and websites, creating a virtuous circle. An important lubricant for this traffic is Twitter. People tweet their blogs and those of others and the number of visitors can quickly multiply. Twitter provides a perfect way to keep suppliers and clients up to date and Twitter feeds on websites are now becoming the norm.
To be or not to be
Another issue is whether to put up a picture of yourself. I believe they offer a valuable way to build trust, but be honest; we all looked great when we were younger and slimmer. Above all, do not substitute a picture of your darling child or cat – it’s mawkish and trust averse.
Conclusion
The best way to create a credible and trustworthy online presence is to be yourself. Give your website a distinctive voice and be open for dialogue. Use all the social networking tools to attract visitors to your site. If you want your website to the next level and turn it into a narrative experience, please read my blog, Creating the Customer Journey. I recently produced a website for a business advisor Roger Gugen which is based on the principle of web + blog + tweet.
June 21, 2010
Very useful and thought-provoking post, Jonathan.
Agree with you that a sole trader’s website should ideally have a distinctive voice, but for some this is easier, and more relevant, than others (as with large organisations). It depends too on what the website is offering. Often web visitors are more interested in the product or service than the supplier – but overall need to feel they’re in safe hands (trust / reliability). There are a lot of blogs out there that add little value and are ignored. So I’d say it’s a question of standing out distinctively from the crowd, to show you’re both interesting and reliable, certainly being open to dialogue, but not adding needless cacophony.