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When running an ecommerce store, it’s easy to forget that visitor #3456 is a real, live person. A person subject to cognitive biases, persuasion techniques, psychological theories, etc.

Having a basic understanding of some of the most popular persuasion techniques can put you ahead of the competition. You’ll have more insight into why visitors abandon their carts, why they buy and how they’re persuaded.

More importantly, you’ll have insight into how you can turn theory into practice, science into cold, hard cash.

Here are 13 persuasion techniques that will give you an unfair advantage in the most important battlefield of all: the human brain.

1. Reciprocity

Reciprocity is a social norm that states that if I give you something, you’ll feel obligated to return the favor. Essentially, this allows me to ask for something in return rather than wait for a voluntary act from you.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. The two values don’t necessarily need to be equal. For example, if you hold the door for me, I’m more likely to say yes to buying you a coffee.

In her book, The Art of Asking, Amanda Palmer recalls working as a living statue. Painted white and dressed in a wedding gown, she handed out flowers on the street. She earned enough to pay her rent for over five years.

Now, she’s applying the technique to her ecommerce store:

As you can see, customers can choose what they want to pay for the album. She provides the value, they choose how much they want to reciprocate.

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Offer a tripwire, an irresistible and low price product designed not to make money, but to change the relationship from casual visitor to actual buyer.
• Offer a free gift or discount, including: free shipping, a welcome discount for first-time buyers, product samples, an unexpected free gift to go along with an ordered product, etc.
• Send appreciation cards and notes to existing customers.

2. Consistency

Consistency states that once you commit to something, especially in writing, you are more likely to follow through or maintain the stance. People like when their thoughts and actions are aligned.

Once you get someone to make a commitment, they begin to engage in self-persuasion. That is, they begin to justify related actions to themselves and others.

Chubbies plays on consistency in an interesting way:

By listing their beliefs, they’re actively calling for people who share similar beliefs. If these beliefs resonate with a visitor, they’re more likely to buy because that would align what they think and what they do.

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Push visitors to subscribe to your email list or download a relevant free resource. Once they’ve made the small commitment, they’re more likely to make a bigger commitment.
• Encourage social sharing at every stage. The more public the commitment, the better.

3. Social Proof

Humans are naturally social (yes, even before social media came along). As a result, we’re heavily influenced by those around us, especially if we hold them in high regard. Social proof states that you base your actions and beliefs on those around you.

You’re most likely to follow the lead of someone who is similar to you or in situations where you’re very uncertain. Often, there’s comfort in just doing what everyone else is doing.

Ratings, reviews, share counts, testimonials… social proof is all around you.

Here’s an example from Poo-Pourri:

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Have an influencer or expert endorse or provide a testimonial for your product.
• Show the number of people who have purchased recently or how many people are currently viewing the product.
• Add trust icons, like media logos and mentions.

4. Likeness

Likeness simply states that you tend to say “yes” to people you like. That comes down to two factors:

1. Physical Attraction: Studies have shown time and time again that people who are physically attractive are more persuasive.
2. Similarity: You are more likely to be persuaded by someone you deem similar to yourself.

This translates quite easily to store design and voice of customer copywriting. For example, which of these sites would you rather buy from?

I’m willing to bet it’s the bottom one with the cleaner, more attractive design (Happiness Abscissa).

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Come across as a friend, not a big corporation. The more human and similar your brand seems, the better.
• Support the same causes as your customers. Some stores do this by donating a portion of profit to a relevant charity.

5. Authority

Authority states that you have a tendency to believe that if any expert or person of authority says something, it must be true.

There is a very famous study, the Milgram experiment, attached to this persuasion technique. It was conducted in 1961. Basically, two participants (a teacher and a learner) were placed in two different rooms. The learner was hooked up to an electric shock machine, which the teacher controlled.

A supervisor, wearing a lab coat, was also present. He told the teacher to ask the learner questions and shock him when he answered incorrectly. After every incorrect answer, the voltage increased (up to 450 volts).

The catch? The learner was an actor, making fake pain noises after each shock. The study explored how much pain the participants were willing to inflict on a completely innocent person if instructed by a person of authority.

As it turns out, a lot. Most teachers were willing to give 450 volts if instructed.

Gary Vaynerchuk capitalizes on his authority through his shop:

If you follow him on social media, you see him wearing these shirts. If you watch his videos, you’ve heard the lyric “hustle like my name is Gary Vee”.

How to apply it to your store:

• Build authority by highlighting qualifications (job title, product awards, etc.)
• Avoid cliché, vague awards and claims (e.g. “World’s best doughnuts!”)
• When in doubt, borrow authority from someone else via an endorsement, a product review, etc.

6. Scarcity

Scarcity states that when something is limited in quantity, you assign more value to it.

Remember when Johnny Carson helped create a toilet paper shortage in 1973? During his opening monologue of The Tonight Show, he made a joke about an upcoming toilet paper shortage. People rushed out to buy it, creating an actual nationwide consumer toilet paper shortage.

Scarcity, too, is all around us in ecommerce. Anyone who buys plane tickets online will recognize this:

Here it is on Hammock Town, too:

The closer that number gets to 0, the more persuasive.

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Offer limited-time only discounts and deals. A countdown to when the discount or deal ends can spur purchases.
• In the cart, show how much the visitor saved with a call to action to checkout before the savings expire.
• Offer free express shipping or something similar to those who purchase before a certain time of day.

7. Price Anchoring

Price anchoring states that the first price presented plays a big role in the decision-making process.

For example, the price is regularly $129.99, which is noted first. But it’s currently on sale for just $59.99. That first price, $129.99, serves as an anchor, making the discounted price seem like a total steal.

Here’s how Natural Force does it:

And here’s how Greats does it:

The first, higher price sets the stage and becomes the anchor that makes the second price so much more appealing.

Let’s say Greats didn’t use price anchoring. $89.10 might seem like too much to spend. But the $99 original price clearly indicates that it isn’t. You might actually find price anchoring limits comparison shopping as well.

8. Familiarity

Familiarity states that you prefer the things and people you are familiar with. Yes, seriously. Studies have even found that you’re more likely to fall in love with someone the more often you see them. Your happiness is actually correlated with how many things you’re familiar with.

This fondness for familiarity is why you’ll often find the cart in the top, right-hand corner of a store. Or why you’re so attached to the neighborhood you live in. Or why you tend to order the same one or two meals at your favorite restaurant.

Familiarity comes down to three factors:

• Cognitive Fluency: How easy is it to think about something?
• Prototypicality: How similar is it to others in the same category or industry?
• Habit: How well does it match previous, similar experiences?

This is why knowing your audience is so important. Being familiar with the experiences and language they’re expecting can be incredibly useful for increasing conversions.

Chubbies is known for voice of customer copy:

And so is The Oatmeal:

They both simplify as much as possible, follow existing prototypes and even sound familiar.

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Use a simple design that’s low complexity and low on clutter. Don’t rage too hard against the machine. Stick with a prototypical design that works as expected for the ecommerce industry.
• Use words and phrases your visitors will find familiar and scannable. Speak as they would speak, if you will.
• Take a cue from the types of calls to action your direct and indirect competitors are using. How do they match up? You don’t want to copy them, but you want to make sure you’re meeting expectations.

9. Attentional Bias

Attentional bias states that you pay more attention to emotionally stimulating factors and downplay other factors. The more intense and touching something is, the more attention you pay to it. Makes sense, right? That’s why fear and sex tend to be so persuasive.

We all remember that Sarah McLachlan commercial.

So, when WWF is trying to raise money to save and support animals, they tug on the heartstrings a bit with emotion-evoking visuals:

A happy, thriving baby polar bear who could keep cool all thanks to you? That’s a pretty positive emotion. It’s no surprise this type of messaging is conveyed over and over again through copy and images.

BioLite does something similar:

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Conduct some qualitative research to determine what emotional state people arrive in. Do they come to you stressed, desperately seeking a solution? This will help you determine whether you should take advantage of the natural emotional state or try to change it.
• Font, color and images all have emotional values. Be purposeful when choosing them.
• Writing copy that tells a story can help you make an emotional appeal.

10. Visual Cueing

Visual cueing states that your attention and focus while visiting a site can be managed and directed by design.

CXL Institute recently conducted an interesting study on visual cueing. They compared six different visual cues against the control (no visual cues):

1. Human looking away
2. Human looking towards
3. Hand-drawn arrow
4. Triangular
5. Line
6. Highlight

The results? Visual cues don’t impact how quickly something is spotted, but they do impact how much attention is paid to something. In this case, a signup form. The hand-drawn arrow performed the best, for anyone interested.

Pipsnacks is certainly no stranger to visual cueing, using it to draw attention to the product (and its benefits):

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Use visual cues to direct visitors down the page, especially if you have valuable product information below the “fold”.

11. Loss Aversion

Loss aversion states that you strongly prefer to avoid losses than to acquire gains. According to Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist, we typically fear loss twice as much as we enjoy success.

So, to put that into perspective, your visitors fear not liking your product twice as much as they think they’ll enjoy the benefits of having your product.

Perhaps that’s why some stores so prominently display their return policy. Like Muse:

And Tortuga:

Or why Kylie Cosmetics framed their email subscription call to action this way:

It’s worth noting that there are some exceptions. Kahneman has found that people decide differently, depending on whether the decision is framed as a loss or a gain. So:

• If you want someone to make a risk-averse choice, focus on what they will gain by making the choice you want them to.
• If you want someone to make a risk-seeking choice, focus on what they will lose by not making the choice you want them to.

Other ways to apply it to your store:

• Use your images and other visuals to show the loss scenario instead of the gain scenario.
• Choose the wording of your offers carefully. “Don’t miss out on our summer sale: 10% off all t-shirts.” might work better than “Take 10% off t-shirts.”

12. IKEA Effect

The IKEA effect states that the more effort we invest into something, the more we value it. Anyone who has spent three hours putting together an IKEA dresser knows how this feels.

Product customization is a great way to trigger this effect. The more effort your visitors put into customization, the more they value the product. You might find that this reduces cart abandonment and increases conversions.

StandDesk does this well. In fact, they invite you to build your desk, not buy it:

All of the customization options require thought and effort from the customer. No, they’re not trying to assemble a dresser with an Allen key for three hours, but it does become a labor of love along the way:

13. Paradox of Choice

If you’re offered one option, the choice is clear: do or do not buy. When you’re offered two options, your brain focuses on choosing between the two. Suddenly, the idea of not buying anything at all is muted.

In that case, offering more than one option can help make a sale.

However, if you offer too many options, analysis paralysis comes into play. With so many options, you can’t decide and end up choosing nothing at all.

This is known as the paradox of choice. The key, of course, is finding the right balance of options.

It’s why IKEA puts two calls to action on their product pages:

Just like Litter:

And Kinky Tease:

I remember at CTA Conference in 2015, Bart Schutz spoke about a test he had run relating to choice. He found that even adding a “Print This Page” link beside a previously lone call to action boosted conversions.

Of course, this paradox also has inventory implications.

Conclusion

The truth is that psychology and persuasion techniques don’t always translate well to the online marketplace. However, these 13 persuasion techniques have certainly proven that they have a place in ecommerce. At the very least, they’re worth experimenting with.

Leave a comment below if I’ve missed a persuasion technique that’s worked particularly well for you.

Post Credit : https://www.shopify.com/blog/13-persuasion-techniques

The best way to convince someone to do something is by displaying confidence, being assertive, making your words sound powerful, speaking clearly, looking the part, swearing profusely like Gary Vaynerchuk amongst other things. But how do you persuade without using words?

When it comes to persuasion, the weapon of choice to hand is normally words. To persuade, or to say to get our way, we tend to resort to verbal tactics such as, argumentation, reasoning, cajoling, promising and making deals.

Yet we miss the most powerful means of persuasion humans have – the non-verbal communication. In fact, subconsciously we are greater influenced by the non-verbal communication compared to verbal.

Understanding which non-verbal communication principles can help persuade your audience and increase website conversions.

Show them what they want

According to a study conducted by Hubspot, 76% of consumers considered ease of finding what they came on the website the most important factor in the design of a website.

It’s easy to become obsessed with the perfect design but the truth is that your main focus should be to make your website user friendly and make their experience as frictionless as possible.

Thoroughly test your website and learn from the insights. Ultimately, only your audience can tell you if they can easily find what they came looking for and if their experience has been joyous or irritating, so ask them!

First impressions count

First impressions matter during physical interactions because we are hard-wired as humans to make assumptions about people when we first encounter them. We make a judgement about someone in the first 4 seconds of the interaction and quickly form an opinion about whether we like them or not.

Similarly, research shows that we tend to make a decision on whether we like a website or not and whether we’ll stay or leave within the first 0.5 seconds.

Ok, so what makes people like a website?

Google conducted a study and found that there are two factors in which determined how appealing a website is in the eyes of its consumers.

• Low visual complexity – simpler the better
• Looks as expected – the website design is representative of the particular category

Visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy is one of the most important principles to consider in web design. In another words, it’s the order in which the user sees things on your website.

Effective web design exploits the principles of visual hierarchy and considers the order in which to display elements in terms of their priority and importance.

Certain parts of your website will simply be more important than others and therefore thoughtfully utilising visual hierarchy will help you keep your visitors engaged and help navigate them and make their experience pleasant.

See Ikea’s beautifully designed homepage that uses visual hierarchy to navigate the users attention to certain elements through considered placement.

Conserve attention

Once you’ve made a good impression and piqued your visitor’s interest, you’ll then need to keep them on the website to commit to an action at all costs.

There are a number of ways in which you can help your visitors find what they came looking for.

• Help them choose something. Often too many options leave people at a loss of what to purchase and the opportunity to get your visitors to make a purchase, complete a form, watch a video or take any other desired action increasingly diminishes. You do not want the visitor to become confused and convince themselves out of committing to the desired action. The chances of the visitor coming back are always evidently low.
• Don’t be boring! You’re not going to keep people on the website if all the pages look the same. Constantly change the layout to make the information more interesting to digest. Neuroscientist’s say that novelty promotes information transmission. Our brains pay close attention to patterns and quickly starts to ignore them. Use imagery where you can to supplement the body of text and use clear headings to create breakpoints where there is a lot of information.

Promote a single action

You must start with clarity in mind. Determine what actions you want your visitors to take from the website, I refer back to the point: don’t provide too many options to limit confusion and risk the visitor bouncing off.

As a rule of thumb, provide one action per visible screen area to maximise effectiveness of the call to action.

Mailchimp.com make it absolutely clear they want us to sign up to a free trial.

Most websites include a secondary call to action and that’s ok as long it’s crystal clear that it’s a secondary call to action.

Ok so that’s great, we know that we should place one call to action (where possible) per visible screen area, but how do we determine where the call to action should go?

A study by Dr. BJ Fogg called the Fogg behaviour model explains that people take action when you present the call to action when their motivation is at their highest and it’s easy to do.

In most cases placing the call to action top right will result in higher conversion. According to the Fogg Behaviour Model the motivation is high there because you’re at the start of the journey and it’s easier to do.

Conversely, high motivation and high difficulty will result in frustration. If it’s low motivation and easy to do, it leads to annoyance.

Conclusion

You can influence people using non-verbal communication through persuasive web design. Only a cursory glance at high converting websites will reveal their use of the principles outlined in this article.

Post Credit  : https://mamosingh.com/5-persuasive-web-design-principles/

Inbound or Outbound, Marketers are in the art of seduction.

No matter how you slice it, we’re all trying to seduce, or persuade, our target audience to give our product or service a shot.

In Inbound Marketing, it all starts with your website. So put aside those roses, chocolates, and slow-jams; here are 13 psychology-backed copywriting and design tricks to make your website more persuasive.

1. Use the Word “You”

The word “you” is one of the most hypnotic words you can use in your website content.

The reason it’s so powerful is because it directs your message right at the reader and makes the message feel more personal.

The human mind automatically places itself in the context of a message that includes the word “you”, so including it is an easy way to make your audience envision themselves using your product or service.

2. Disrupt, then Reframe (DTR)

Research in psychology has found the DTR technique extremely useful in social influence. The idea is to disrupt the way people normally perceive a message, then you reframe it — or redefine its value.

To illustrate, take this example of a local charity selling note cards from the study.

• The original message: $3 for 8 cards
• After applying the DTR technique: 300 pennies for 8 cards… which is a bargain!

The second variation sold twice as much. Although the amount of money is the same, pennies have less value than dollars and we automatically assume that anything priced in pennies to be cheap.

They also reframed the message by adding the statement about it being a bargain, which further emphasizes the lower value of pennies.

3. Speak Your Persona’s Language

To persuade your audience, you need to get inside their head and use words that will resonate with them. When you speak the same language, your message is more likely to stand out and your buyer persona is more likely to feel “understood” by your brand.

For example, whenever Encyclopedia Britannica introduced new copy that had featured descriptions pulled straight from their customer feedback, they saw an increase of 103% in conversion.

4. Capitalize on Fear of Missing Out (FoMO)

No one wants to be left out.

Fear of missing out is so common and powerful, that the acronym “FoMO” has become a part of mainstream culture, but more formally, it is known as loss aversion.

Loss aversion is a technique where you choose to focus on what your persona will be losing or missing out on by not purchasing, as opposed to focusing on what they will gain.

Try one of these simple ways to incorporate it into your Marketing:

• Focus on the time and money they lose by not purchasing
• Add a countdown timer or limited availability to your sales page

5. Tell the Right Story

By now, I’m sure you know that storytelling is a great Marketing tool to engage prospects to your higher mission. However, the type of story matters and telling stories just for the sake of doing so misses the point.

In the most underrated copywriting book that isn’t about copywriting, Made to Stick, the Heath brothers describe three types of stories that have the most stickiness:

1. The Challenge Plot: A story of the underdog, rags to riches or sheer determination to overcome the odds
2. The Connection Plot: A story about people who develop a relationship that bridges a gap, whether racial, class, ethnic, religious, demographic, etc
3. The Creativity Plot: A story that involves someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a problem that has plagued them or resolving an issue in a new way

All you have to do is plug your ideal buyer persona into the hero role of one of those plots and you’re golden!

6. Share a Secret

Humans love secrets. Whether it’s a FoMO or just an opportunity to gain a competitive edge, promising inside information is one of the most persuasive techniques in Marketing.

However, you can’t give away your “secrets” to just anyone or it obviously wouldn’t be a secret. To really entice people, you have to make them earn your secrets by subscribing to your email list, downloading an eBook, or gaining exclusive access once they are a customer. Their curiosity will get the better of them.

7. Remove Your Sidebar

Sidebars are distracting and take away from the conversation that’s being had in your content. Many businesses are removing the sidebar from their website and seeing a positive response (including us.)

Persuasion requires engagement from your persona and it’s difficult for them to stay engaged when there are too many things on the page competing for their attention.

8. Be Concise

With your web copy, you want to get your point across in the least amount of words as possible. Concise copy is powerful and persuasive, while long ramblings can quickly lose your reader’s attention. So, force yourself to choose words that have richer meaning and a greater impact.

This case study saw a 62% increase in sales by reducing the copy length.

9. Keep it Simple

Similar to being concise, your copy should be simple and easy to understand.

Big words might have impressed your college English professor, but in the real world, they can often be intimidating or alienating.

Persuading your persona is more than just impressing them, it’s about connecting with them and people can be easily confused and even turned off by corporate jargon or “buzzwords.”

Depending on the nature of your business, simplicity is also something to keep in mind when it comes to your design. If the look of your site is too busy or difficult to navigate, you’re likely to lose your audience’s interest before they’ve been read a line of copy.

10. Be Conversational

How do you seduce someone in real life?

You have a conversation with them. You ask questions to get them engaged, you tell them enough about yourself to spark their interest, but not enough to bore them.

Conversation in real life has a natural flow of back and forth communication. That’s what you want to create with the copy on your website.

11. Provide Proof on the Page

Case studies, testimonials, and statistics are absolutely crucial for persuading your persona.

Can you get by without them if your copy is great and you have a beautiful design? Sure, but you’ll be missing out on a lot of sales.

People actually want to be persuaded, but they only want to be persuaded into buying something valuable. We’ve all made purchases that we completely regret because we were misled. Providing proof shows helps prevent this from happening.

12. Add Elements of Trust to Your Design

The language you use can instill trust in your persona, but simply adding symbols and logos associated with trust can have a big impact on conversions as well.

Here are several examples of what you can do:

• Add a “verified” badge from a trusted industry watchdog, such as Angie’s List or BBB.
• Post trust seals such as TRUSTe or McAffe Secure on your checkout page.
• Add a “guarantee” badge that you create in-house on your sales page.

13. Create Urgency

The more time your persona has to weigh their options, the less persuasive you become. Seduction happens in the heat of the moment, people!

By adding urgency to your copy, you force your personas to make a quicker (more emotional) decision.

If you’re not convinced, here are several examples of how Marcus Taylor from ConversionXL increased sales by 332% by creating urgency.

14. Use the Right Colors

Color has emotional connotations.

Depending on what you want your audience to do or think about your brand, you can use color to help get them into the right state of mind to click or even convert.

For example, if you want to create a sense of calm and trust, you can opt for blues. If you want to draw attention to a call-to-action or pique someone’s interest try making it orange.

Post Credit : https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/13-simple-tricks-to-make-your-website-more-persuasive

Branding is key, regardless of your website’s focus. It doesn’t matter if you’re running a blog, an online store, or a service site – your brand will play a significant role in the way visitors perceive you, so it’s important to start developing it as soon as possible. That’s where a personal branding website comes into play.

With a powerful brand, people may begin to recognize your content simply by seeing your logo or your site’s other imagery. This kind of recognition is fantastic because it means that your audience knows and trusts you. As a result, you’re likely to have fewer problems attracting conversions.

In this article, we’re going to talk a little about what online branding is and the role your site plays in it. Then we’ll cover some tips for building a personal branding website using WordPress. Let’s begin!

What an online brand is (and how your website plays a key role)

our site’s logo, tagline, colors, and style are all pieces of its ‘brand’. In other words, your online brand is a combination of all the elements that people associate with your website and other presences (such as your social media profiles).

Do you know that there are over 1 billion websites (and counting)that are online right now? With competition among online businesses getting fiercer and stiffer, how can you set yourself apart from the rest? It comes down to personal branding. Because you’re dealing with people regardless of the industry you’re in, building a solid and unique identity for your business is imperative in today’s day and age.

Personal branding, unfortunately, is one aspect that most businesses tend to overlook. Most of our efforts are focused on ranking high on search engines, lead generation and conversion. All those things are of course essential to online success but personal branding is just as important. If you want your audience to trust you then you must learn the art of getting personal.

In this article, we’ll tackle getting personal with your potential customers by enhancing your website to reflect your personal brand in the best way possible.

The Importance of a Personal Brand

Whether you’re a one-man business or a mid-size company with several employees, establishing a personal brand in addition to building the company brand is what will make you stand out. Just look around you and how brands are everything today.

From the computer or the mobile device you’re reading this article from to pretty much every other product you’re using, branding is an ever present element. If you have an apple with a bite stamped on your devices, for instance, chances are high that you’re an Apple avid consumer.

No one really needs any introduction to one of tech’s biggest names. Why? Because the behemoth company was able to establish a personality that their target consumers can easily identify with. If you want innovative products that are different with superior quality, for example, look no further than Apple. This is how the brand continues to sell itself and beat the competition by a mile.

Personal branding is the same way. While you can’t compete the same way Apple can, you can certainly learn from today’s most successful brands. Regardless of the competition or the industry you happen to be in, you have a chance to stand out by creating a personal brand that will communicate how you and your company is unique, relevant and suitable for your target audience.

As Tom Peters, author of the Fast Company article called The Brand Called You, puts it, “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called YOU.”

Key Questions to Ask

In the online world, one of the best ways to stand out is by having a website which reflects your personal brand. But before we delve deeper into the process of creating a website for your business, let’s first ask these critical questions to help give you a clearer picture of your personal brand.

1. What makes you unique?

Getting personal no matter the business you’re in means that you need to dig deeper and find out what makes you different. Remember that you’re not the only person or business offering the same expertise, product or service. To stand out from the plethora of other brands that do what you do, you must present your business in a way that highlights your unique strengths and characteristics.

Do you remember Apple’s legendary “Think Different” campaign? Rumor has it that Steve Jobs did not really like the campaign but it was a turning point nonetheless that catapulted the brand to the next level. Taking cue from the campaign, you should also think different and be different if you want your business to succeed.

2. What can you offer better than everyone else?

Many of the best brands today have something great to offer to their customers. Apple, for example, is known for their most innovative products. When building your personal brand, another important element is to think about one thing that you do better than everyone else in your niche. Highlight that one thing whatever it is because that’s how you will continually stand out in a world where competition will get more intense as the years roll along.

3. Who are your target customers?

No one brand can cater to everyone else’s needs. Even Apple can’t do it. When building your personal brand, you must focus on finding out your target customers. Who are the people who will benefit most from your services? What are the types of customers who will find your products or services useful?

Remember that personal branding is about being personal. This means that your goal is to be selectively famous to the set of customers who need your products or services. Don’t try to gobble up the entire pie. Instead, focus on a portion of the market where you know you can reign supreme with the right business strategies.

Refining your Personal Brand

Maybe you’re starting to build your personal brand from scratch. Maybe you’re here to enhance what you already have at the moment. Either way, one of the best ways to get your personal branding across your target customers is through your website. But how do you enhance your personal brand with your website?

If you need some help, let’s not look further than some of the best websites with the best personal branding.

Take for instance, Lewis Howes’ personal website. Dubbed as a “true online marketing champion” by Ryan Holmes, Howes created a website that reflects exactly what he does – a lifestyle entrepreneur who is living the dream and who wants to inspire and help other achieve theirs. His website is a perfect reflection of his personality starting off with a video of Howes himself sharing his story to the images and other details included in the first page. What you can take away from Howes is the importance of knowing your audience.

Chris Ducker is another personal brand worth learning from. Ducker believes that “your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Ducker positions himself as a virtual mentor who will show you how to start, run and grow a business in the 21st century. That’s exactly what his website says. It’s simple, straightforward and perfectly on point.

We could list more names here that seemed to have mastered the art of personal branding. Some other websites to check out are that of Marie Forleo, Nathalie Lussier, John Chow and Seth Godin among others. In any case, you’ll see that they’ve included key elements that helped make their website reflect their personal brand in the best way possible.

To get started with refining or enhancing your personal brand through your website, below are some hacks you can try:

1. Start with a professional head shot

Nothing says more personal than a good head shot. When people visit your website, it should be the first thing they see – a head shot that looks professional and that captures your personality to a tee. Trust is also easily established when your visitors and potential customers know exactly who’s running the show. You might even want to a hire a professional photographer to get the job the right. The goal is to make you look like the best representation of the brand you’re trying to sell.

2. Grab attention with great headlines

If a good head shot is what captures your audience’s attention, great headlines are what will make them stay longer. So, rather than bore your audience with lengthy and boring texts, make them stay and linger longer by grabbing their attention further with great and exciting headlines. Your headlines obviously should zero in on your target customers and what they need and want. If you’re in the business of offering financial advice, for instance, you may want a headline that reads something like this “Are you ready to be rich and happy for the rest of your life?” Then back it up with a great web copy.

3. Add a video to get even more personal

To get even more personal, there’s no better way to communicate what you do and who you are by including a video starring none other than yourself. Remember Lewis Howes? He has a great video that tells his story and what he does. You can learn from what he did and make your video where you focus on what makes your brand different and you talk directly to your visitors. Keep it short and snappy though. It’s not supposed to be a full length movie of your life in case you have other ideas.

4. Layout and design matters

Your job doesn’t stop with a great photograph, video and attention-grabbing headlines. Your website’s layout and design are equally important elements if you’re trying to enhance your personal brand. While cheap web designs and layouts won’t cost you much initially, skimping on this aspect of your website may cost you more in terms of loss in profits. If you really want to stand out, hire the best designer you can afford. A good design sometimes is what it takes to convince visitors that you have indeed something valuable to offer.

5. Inject some testimonials

Talking about yourself in your video is one thing and having another person talk about you is another. Both elements are important if you want to build a strong and solid personal brand. Simply promising your customers with great products that will meet their needs and wants is not enough to fully establish trust. To really establish your reputation in your niche, what you need are powerful testimonials of people who have tried and tested your products and services. One powerful testimonial from a reputable name is usually enough to help with your personal branding.

6. Keep going with a content strategy

At this point, your personal brand should have been clearly defined and reflected on your website. Those who’ve been to your site know who you are, what you do and what makes you different. But how do you continually convince your customers that you’re the best in the niche not just today but for a long time? You can do so with a good content strategy. To keep the ball continually rolling, you must have a content strategy that will shift the focus from you to your content, products and services once trust has been established.

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