A Little Human Touch Can Go A Long Way Toward Increasing Your Website's Appeal

The web is a cold and impersonal place. That's the good news, because it allows the few personalized spaces to stand out from the crowd. The bad news is that your site may be one of the impersonal masses.

Make sure you're different and show visitors that you care by adding personalizing touches to your site. Let visitors see that your team understands the importance of treating clients as people - even through an impersonal medium like the web.

Photographs

The fastest way to personalize is through the use of photographs. But not just any photos will do. Some photos can actually add to your site's coldness. Here are a few tips:

• Say cheese!
  Our eyes are naturally drawn to smiling, engaging faces. When adding photos that only have one or two people, make sure they're smiling. Looks of concern may be okay depending on the context, but beware faces that show discomfort or anger.

• Real people.
  Avoid relying on stock photos. Instead put your own photos, and those of your employees, on your website. This puts a real human face to your business.

• Captions.
  After photos, our eyes are next drawn to the captions underneath. Don't overlook the opportunity to use them to forward your sales message. For example, under your agent photo, insert the caption: "Call me, Jane Smith, to learn how you can increase your health insurance coverage."

• Buildings are boring.
  Unless you've got a visually impressive or noteworthy building, you can still do better with photos of people.

• Process with a photo.
  If you take the time to include information about specific insurance processes that your office handles, add a photo of the employees involved in that process. This breaks up the copy and again personalizes the copy.

About You

The "About Us" section should not just be about the company. Personalize it by describing the people who make the company what it is. And don't skimp on the details. Generalities, fluff and short "About Us" pages can make visitors suspicious that you're hiding something.

If you're a one-person office, make sure that you include lots of detail about yourself. Describe the personal skills, principles, training and experiences you have that show visitors why they can trust you to handle their insurance needs.

Finally, your signature and photo should be on that page, along with your personal email. If you have a page for each agent, make sure to also include their photo, signature and office email.

Testimonials

As Bette Midler's character said in the 1988 film, Beaches, "Enough about me…what do you think about me?" It's dangerous to spend too much time tooting your own horn. The solution is to have other people do the talking for you.

Testimonials are powerful tools. It doesn't matter that the reader doesn't know the person giving the testimony. Just their presence on the website creates a degree of trust.

But don't hide them in solitary pages. Put them in visible spots on key pages; and include their photos if they're available.

Humor

Finally, a little humor is a strong method for personalizing the page. But you have to be careful. The operative word here is "little."

Too much humor can turn your website into a joke. The wrong type of humor can just turn visitors off. Be safe and stay away from anything relating to religion, sex, race, ethnicity or class.

Before you throw in a joke or humorous line, think of the most conservative, prudish and sensitive people you've ever met. If they'll blush or be offended by that joke, it's not worth it. A good maxim is: "If in doubt, leave it out."

Personalizing Your Page Now

Finally, it doesn't cost anything to insert personalizing touches into your website - and done right, they can result in additional leads and prospects.

I recommend that you review the CrazyEgg article to see if this free online tool can guide your personalizing changes in the right direction.

Note that if you don't have good photos or have trouble writing good copy, that's when you'll need to hire a photographer and/or freelance writer. It shouldn't cost a lot, and it's a worthwhile investment.

Not making the improvements that will help attract and turn visitors into prospects is what can actually cost you - in potentially lost business!