Are You a Real Person?

By Jeanne Frazer

When we work with clients, we spend a lot of time researching and analyzing results. One of the common denominators across almost every client we partner with is the interest by their website visitors and prospects in them as individuals. Having a bio page on your website is a start, but the basics aren't enough anymore.

Potential clients are searching for a reason to choose you and it isn’t always education and associations. So what do we recommend? You need to become a "real person" in the minds of your prospective clients. Here are a few suggestions to consider:

• Include some personal information along with your education and experience. Why did you choose your current job? Which areas do you like best? What are your hobbies and interests? You may want to also post a photo if you don’t have one there already. Consider adding other pictures that show more personality than the standard head shot. Change photos based on the season.
• Include a personal approach/focus to articles you write for newsletters, brochures, etc. Write about what you learned during summer vacation (related to your business, of course!).
• Create a Google Profile for free at www.google.com/profiles; this has the added benefit of appearing in search engine results.
• Make sure you’re LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/), with a free personal and company profile. Public profiles are found by the search engines and will pick up new activity. Ask for recommendations.
• Add a Facebook page (personal and business) at http://www.facebook.com/. Make sure you set your privacy settings or don't provide too much personal data. Include a link to your business website, as well.

While you don't want to open up all aspects of your personal life, you DO want to provide just enough information to allow clients and prospects to become comfortable with you and to make a connection.