TLDR:

• Everyone says you should do video because it shows that you are real.

• If you can’t do video, you can still be real using photos.

• Photos help establish trust.

• Your website’s bounce rate is a good measure to see if people are interested in you.

• So, don’t hide yourself.

• Use repetition to drive conversions.

• Be honest about what your business is and who you are.

• You don’t need to hire an expert to design a good website.

• You do need to use photos of yourself and use them repeatedly.

• This builds commonality, trust, and ultimately, generates sales.

THE FULL ARTICLE:

Why does everyone tell you that you need to do video if you want to take your business to the next level? They tell you this because video shows that you are an actual person. It establishes that you are real and not too different from your viewers. That connection is critical to doing business because business is about building relationships.

Despite what technology evangelists will tell you, the internet has actually created more distance between people than ever before. Social media is a misguided term, because it’s all about communicating without being social, that is without meeting in-person. So yes, for all the technological innovation they bring, websites, social media and even cell phones have made us strangers to one another far more than before those technologies existed.

You might think that you have hundreds or even thousands of connections, but how many of those people would you trust? This is a crucial consideration because trust is what business is built on: when you purchase that new vitamin, you need to trust that the person selling it to you isn’t selling you a sugar-pill. Likewise, if you are advertising designer clothes, your customers need to trust that you are not selling them junk and charging a premium price.

Business is based on trust and trust is based on a human interaction. On the internet, that human interaction cannot easily be made, so you need to build trust by humanizing your presence. Video is one way, but if you can’t do video, then you need to show yourself through pictures.

So that’s why I ask: where are YOU on your website?

Let’s start by considering your bounce rate

If your website stats show a high bounce rate you need to pay attention. You don’t know what a bounce is? It’s when people arrive at your page but then leave again right away – they bounce away. One of the primary reasons for this is that you are not connecting. You are not connecting because you are not building trust. And you are not building trust because you are not showing yourself.

The first thing your visitors see doesn’t need to be a video clip of yourself, but if you’re not going to do video, you should at a minimum have a smiling image of yourself. This is the first impression your are making to your visitors. Therefore, you want to immediately take this opportunity to connect, establish trust and encourage more activity.

Unfortunately, that is not the case with most small business websites and their owners. Perhaps it because of a distrust of the internet, perhaps it’s stage-freight, or it’s simply a lack of knowledge. Whatever the reason, the fact is that a website that does not establish trust is likely the reason for the high bounce rate.

I have interviewed hundreds of new business owners and so many of them tell me that they are disappointed in their website sales. They complain that they spend on Facebook and Instagram ads to direct people back to the website, but this doesn’t seem to pay off either. When we then look at their bounce rates, it becomes clear that people are leaving the site without going deeper.

You should also consider secondary bounce rates. This is when people do click on one of the links on the site but then leave. This is most likely because that second page does not match message of trust that the first page created. Yes, once you establish trust, you also need to keep it by staying consistent. This is another common issue for many small business websites.

As anyone who sells products online will tell you, it’s the entire experience that matters and so the site has to be consistently engaging, interesting, and trust-affirming. If it is not, then even if you have visitors who hang around a bit, they eventually don’t become customers.

So how do you get them to buy your product?

Don’t hide yourself

I know I’m going to be offending some businesses here by posting their sites below. Out of respect for the businesses I have interviewed in the past, I am not going to use them as examples. Instead, I am going to google a few and see what comes up – unfortunately, it’s not hard to find bad examples, but there are also good examples out there. So let’s compare some websites.

Now this isn’t a knock on this business or its owner, but the website leaves you wondering who Mike is. The name is rather common, and there isn’t anything on this webpage that builds trust. Training is a very personal activity, so building trust is important. To take an example from a different industry, here’s a much better approach:

We immediately know who we are doing business with. Alison Marie apparently provides life, dating and personal coaching services. Obviously, it’s important that she establishes trust right from the start.

It should also be pointed out that this is a well-thought-out posed photo. She provides coaching about very personal and maybe even intimate issues, so it’s good that the photo isn’t right in your face. Instead, she implies discretion by facing her body away, but turning her face to the camera. The muted/faded look adds a sense of discretion.

Repetition is the key to conversion

Conversion rates are a measurement of how many people proceed to buy something. A high conversion rate should be your goal, and the way to get there is to creatively include many repeating elements, and this is especially true with a first impression. It should be the first thing visitors see on your website, but not everyone gets it right.

While I am sure they make very nice candles for intimate occasions (especially important before Valentine’s Day), the message gets lost. Not only is the first image too generic to establish trust, but there are too many different elements here that don’t match to make the problem worse.

The pop-up does not match the background, that background is grayed out, and I didn’t have a chance to read the text underneath or appreciate the picture of the candle before the pop-up covered it up. Sure, I could close the pop-up, but will I then remember to sign up? If I do proceed with entering my info on the pop-up, will I remember what it is that I am signing up for?

The bottom line is that the trust that is needed for a conversion is lost. Even if I persist as a customer, I am now uneasy about the transaction because the process was too confusing. Instead of being satisfied and ready to refer this site to someone else, I will be anxiously waiting for the product to arrive.

No, I am not saying that this is the conscious thought process of the typical visitor, but that is the very point. These are the things that are being perceived subconsciously and this is just as bad, if not worse. So much potential is lost in the complexity and inconsistency of the first impression. Fortunately, all these things can easily be remedied, as in this example:

This is a completely different experience. When the site loads, I see a smiling picture of Christine Hassler that establishes trust. When the pop-up appears, it doesn’t cover her up, but instead she is now leaning forward encouraging me to proceed. Her picture is repeated, but not covered up and almost gives a sense that it is animated.

All the elements on the page seem to match each other as well. There is a vivacity to the experience, and it feels real. A connection has been made and trust has been established. This is brilliant use of repetition to encourage trust and a conversion.

As the old rule of marketing says, it takes seven repetitions to generate a sale. With this pop-up, Mrs. Hassler has already made two right as the website loads. Five more, and she has her customer. Sure, this is not going to be the case for every visitor, but statistically, this is how marketing psychology is used to generate conversions.

You should be honest about who you are

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make is that they pretend to be bigger than they are. I guess this is a symptom of fake-it-until-you-make-it thinking. However, the reality is that this thinking doesn’t apply so well on a website – your visitors aren’t going to be fooled.

Now I’m sure that the website below if for a company that makes beautifully crafted phone cases. I say I assume so, because at first glance I don’t trust that this is true. When I click further into the site, I am not convinced either. Their About Us page, doesn’t really talk about them:

To begin with, the image in the background of this webpage is blurred. This is never a good thing because it implies that there is something they are hiding. Then, the story isn’t really about them. Instead, it’s about something far less personal, it’s about the product.

It’s nice to know that they use the finest materials and have excellent craftsmanship. Then again, isn’t that what every business will say? There is nothing here that tells me who is behind the product or the distributor. There is nothing here that helps establish trust.

Once you arrive at the bottom there is little relief from that uneasiness, with just a very standard template-like footer. Even the help chat does not convey trust – it provides AI-automated answers and there isn’t a real person responding on the other end. It also looks template-driven, boring, and has no connection to the product or the photos.

The suspicion is that this is a one-person operation or even AI-automated entirely. It’s quite possibly located abroad, too, which would imply that these phone cases could be made by some factory completely unrelated to the reseller. Not only does this not convey trust, but it calls into question the whole idea that this is a quality product in the first place, thus undermining the value/cost proposition.

So who is Mujjo? Why the strange name? Even the title of the page, Our Story is misleading because it isn’t their story at all, whoever they are. It’s quite possible that I am completely wrong and that this is indeed a high quality product from a reputable business. The problem is that subconsciously, there is nothing here that suggests this.

So be honest about who you are. If you are a one-person operation, that’s OK. Own it. Speaking of owning it…

A few years ago, I stumbled on a life coach named Pooja Dang. What struck me about her approach was that she was always smiling and positive. People that are searching for a life-coach are likely going to be doing this when things aren’t going so well in their lives. Mrs. Dang’s positivity helps turn that around, and it’s contagious. Her website uniquely shows you who you are hiring and what you can expect.

Using bold colors, repetitive photos, and a simple, no-nonsense design, Pooja doesn’t just own her image, she dominates it. Here is her About page:

She also has a great origin story to back it up, but instead of filling the page up with paragraphs of text, which can be alienating, she uses the fewest words possible and clever leading elements to present a story that is quickly understood, relatable, trust-inducing, and remains light-hearted:

Note that she doesn’t use terms like our company or we or our team. Honestly, she’s been in business long enough that I’m quite sure she has a team, but she doesn’t need for you to know that. When you hire Pooja, you are hiring her.

She also doesn’t use titles or mention what kind of company she manages. I’m guessing it’s a corporation, or at the very least an LLC, but all these titles take away from the message of trust that she is looking to build. So, she avoids those things as they can create barriers and artificial hierarchies that again, could alienate her clients.

Small businesses owners should take a cue from Mrs. Dang. I have some across so many businesses that are small, even part-time. Yet, when visiting their website, you’d think you are dealing with a large corporation. Most small businesses are sole-proprietorships and don’t have many employees. So, when the website refers to teams of people and different departments and speak of the corporation, it doesn’t align with reality.

Likewise, when you are a one-person operation, don’t call yourself the CEO or President. Even the word Founder will, in my opinion, do more harm than good. Another thing that is off-putting is insisting that people call you doctor when you have a PhD. Sure, it may be the norm in academia, but in business this is just putting on airs and turns people off. If you are trying to generate sales, that is the last thing you should be doing.

Look, you aren’t fooling anyone with these terms and titles. What you are doing is creating distance and distrust. If you are looking to sell products and services, you need to establish that you are just like your customers and clients. Trust is built when people are on the same level, and that is when conversions are made.

Conclusion

Building a website requires careful planning. This isn’t always something you can do on your own. The examples above of people who do this very well are probably created by skilled graphic designers. Small businesses can’t always afford to hire skilled experts, so they fall back on templates and what they’ve seen others do.

The problem with this approach is that they end up being just like everyone else and with the same mistakes. That leaves their websites to compete using other things from complex SEO formulas to a never-ending spiral to lower prices. If you are in a saturated field like coaching, iPhone cases or candle-making, then this is going to make it extremely difficult to generate sales.

On the other hand, there is one important thing you can do: present yourself front & center on everything you show the world. Be consistent about your design and your photos – remember repetition is the key to conversion. This makes you stand out above the competition.

You can still use popular template-based tools like Canva to design your graphics, Wix or SquareSpace to design your website, or Buffer for Facebook and Tailwind for Instagram. Just remember to put yourself front & center with everything you put out there with these tools. Do it consistently and repetitively.

Remember, what you are selling is you, not your product.