I attended a great talk about the importance of body language in business and life in general. She reminded me that over 60% of the way we perceive someone is through their body language rather than what or how they say something. One of the questions she posed was why radio works when there is no body language on the show, but it does.
Body language is all about engaging with the person/s you are conversing with. Can the principles of body language be applied to how your website works with visitors, or is a website like radio, where body language does not play a role?
Build rapport
What can you do with your website to make it more engaging, to ‘hit it off’ with the visitor and to encourage them to choose to take the action you want then to take. Effective body language is all about building rapport. This is the same with your website. So how do you build rapport with your visitors?
- Understand your target audience – if you truly understand who you are targeting you will know how they think and what they associate with
- How you look – the design of your site is a critical element. How you look is important – on a website this is achieved through good design which can communicate your company values. You only have one chance to make a first impression and often it is your website.
- Use right images – body language is visual and mostly subconscious so using images that resonate with your target audience will subconsciously make your site attractive to your visitors.
- Talk in the right language—having the right copy that says things that your audience will understand is vital. This will then lead them down a path to action.
- People like people that provide information that is useful and relevant to them, again this principal applies to your website. Provide information or tools of value to your target audience, this will engage them far better than a monlogue of copy about how good you are or details on the services you offer. Make yourself attractive via your website.
- Use Video – now we get on to how you can really impress your target audience using your body language. Video is a visual representation of a conversation – how you present yourself, and how you say things, even how you sit or stand will have an impact. One key element of effective body language is eye contact; with video, you can achieve this to really engage with your visitor. These are all important reason why video on your website can be so powerful.
So, like body language, your website needs to address the emotional needs of your visitors if it is working for your business.
- Radio works without body language, and many websites try to do the same. My recommendation is that we take some of the learning gleened from the study of body language and apply it to your website.