Does Your Website Lack Personality?

The other day I was reviewing a site that had been developed for one of my clients (previous to engaging me!). This B2B site had a few thousand products, was relatively easy to navigate around and offered clients the ability to pay through a variety of means – their terms and conditions were spot on, too.

However, one glaring omission was the fact that the site didn’t tell the visitors who they were, what their experience was or even how their service was different. This was not a start-up company either. These people had many years of industry experience, knew the industry and their clients intimately, knew their products and their applications inside out and had clients across the length and breadth of the UK, from small sole traders to large multinationals.

With this sort of background you would have thought that they would be SHOUTING it from the rooftops, or at least their Web site!

But not one single page, paragraph or sentence mentioned the company’s pedigree.

This is not an isolated case, either – I have probably dealt with around 3 companies in the last month who have developed sites which lack, what I would call, personality. 

Who’s to blame? I think that both clients and Web developers are to blame – though Web developers, who do this work day-in day-out, should shoulder most of the responsibility. At the end of the day they are the ones who make a living out of building Web sites.

What companies must remember is that there are a lot of hurdles between the visitor/buyer and the finish line. When a site is constructed you must anticipate that the visitor/buyer will view a number of hurdles and, as a seller, it is your job to identify them and create support mechanisms which make the buying process easier.

At the top level you MUST have these pages:

• Company Background/Profile

You should consider creating these pages:

• Typical Solutions
• Industries We Support
• Our Clients
• Case Studies
• FAQ’s
• Testimonials
• Buyer’s Guides

Within the site you should consider these support tools:

• Phone Numbers
• eMail Addresses
• Downloadable PDF’s
• Product Tours (screenshots, video/audio demos, flash demos)
• Tutorials

Looking around at your business and its clients, I don’t believe it’s too difficult to translate the essential character/personality/ethos of a company to the Web.