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Most business people recognize, building strong relationships with your customers is essential to your success. The same is true online. While we as people now connect behind a screen, it’s the human engagement we all crave. Humanizing your website is a key to building a strong online presence. That may sound like a simple task however it can actually be difficult to achieve. First of all, you need to determine what ‘humanizing’ means and more specifically, what it means for your website.
Humanizing You Brand
To humanize an online brand and website means to make your website visitors realize there are real humans at work in your business. People find it easier to trust brands and websites that have a human touch. They feel like they can establish a closer relationship with the employees and that there’s someone who genuinely cares about their needs.
How to Humanize Your Website
Spontaneity
Humans crave spontaneity and surprise. If you keep doing the same things online, people will get bored. Your website visitors like to engage with new and exciting ideas that show your human side. To achieve this, post different types of content including surveys and polls or even giveaways and contests that engage with people’s emotions. It’s a great way to learn more about your customers and what their perceptions are so you can better serve them.
Show your customers you care. For instance, if somebody used your services, send them an email to ask if they’re satisfied. Depending on your industry, this may be normal practice so you need to find a way to take it to the next level and give your business a competitive advantage. Maybe you could call your customer 2 or 3 months later to see how their purchased item is going. It will depend on your industry when, how and how often you engage with your customers. The key is to make it heartfelt and caring, it’s not about selling more stuff (although that will likely happen).
Appeal to their emotions
Humans are emotional beings. If you want to give your user experience (UX) a human touch, find a way to engage your customers emotions. For some businesses this will be more challenging than others. The easiest way to find out what ways your customers engage with your business in an emotional way is to ask them. Here’s a few questions you could try to uncover emotional buying reasons:
- How were you feeling before making the purchase?
- How did it make you feel once you made the purchase?
- How did it make you feel using the item for the first time?
Appealing to your visitors emotions doesn’t mean that you have to make them sad or happy. It can also mean being passionate about your products and services. This way, your readers will perceive you as a real person who is really into their business.
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Here are a few things you can do to appeal to your readers’ emotions:
- Write stories. Real-life, personal stories about your company’s plans or accomplishments are great to demonstrate passion and enthusiasm.
- Videos are a much more effective way of evoking emotions that written texts. For instance, you can make a video of a project you’ve worked on recently or of your employees to show how passionate you are about your business.
- Analyze the people who are already visiting your site and are interested in your products and services. Based on their location or demographics, think about what else they would be interested in. Creating content around common interests is a great way to establish a connection with your readers.
Be consistent
Being consistent is an excellent way to make your site more human. Consistency gives the impression that your company is stable and trustworthy.
Have a great ‘About’ page
Even though the ‘About’ page isn’t the whole site, the content on it is crucial. Instead of simply offering plain information about your business, take the chance to introduce the founder and employees. But don’t stop at writing a sentence or two about each of them; write about their success stories and skills, as well as a bit of personal info. Adding a photo of everyone is also a big plus.
Be responsive
Monitor what people are saying about your company on social networks, which of your articles have most likes or views, what people write in their comments, or any questions they have about your products and services. Make sure to respond to each and every one of these comments or questions, both positive or negative, or to thank people that liked your posts/articles. This way, people will know that there really is a human being behind the brand who actually cares about what they’re saying.