A website that supports your brand

Wednesday, 20 January 2010 09:28

Does your website support your brand personality?

Your website needs to reflect your brand image and personality. It must reflect what you stand for - your values and culture. This takes more than displaying your logo and having a design that matches your brand colours. 

When someone was recently describing the Essentee website they used words such as 'solid' and 'straight up'.  We took this as a compliment and felt it probably describes how we approach our business quite well.  We are pretty direct, and will tell our clients what we can and cannot do, and why animated GIF's for navigation is a bad idea.  We build websites that work rather than ones that are flashy  but don't achieve anything for our clients.

One technique often used by designers is to use persona's to describe their target audience.

For example:

Bob is a 45 year old builder.  He owns his own business employing five people full time.  They specialise in residential and small commercial refurbishments and additions.  Bob is married with two teenage children and when he's not working is either watching rugby or at the beach.  He describes himself as no-nonsense and doesn't have time for frills or marketing 'fluff'.  He is rarely seen out of shorts in the summer and jeans in the winter.  He owns one suit that he's had for twenty years that he wears to weddings and funerals.

The product's packaging, communications material and/or website can then be designed to appeal specifically to this audience - which probably means no pink and use of strong earthy colours.

Who are you?

Think about using a similar technique for your website.  If your business was a person, who would they be?.  How would you describe them?   Would they be wearing jeans and a t-shirt or a suit?.  Are they professional, or casual and friendly?.  Do you want them to get the impression that your business is fun and funky or solid and reliable?

Ask yourself what sort of impression do you want your target audience to get from your site.   This has to match the reality of your industry and the service you provide.   There would be no point deciding your brand is like a hyper active twenty year old party-goer if your customers are in their forty's looking for a service from an experienced and risk-adverse company.

Note down some descriptive words that come to mind when looking at your website, and then get a few other people to do the same to see if they match.

Take a look at some of your competitors who are trying to appeal to the same audience and see how they come across.

Colour matters

Colours evoke certain feelings and impressions, for example red is associated with passion and energy but is also aggressive and can mean a warning.  It is also one of the hardest colours for the eyes to deal with on a screen. 

Green on the other hand is gentler, associated with nature and growth.  Pale green is associated with wealth in the some cultures such as the United States.

If your brand includes colours that might not work well if used extensively on screen (such as red or yellow), think about using it as a highlight or to complement a colour that is easier on the eye.  You don't have to colour your whole site that same colour just because your logo has it.

Images of people - is that you?

If you include images of people, make sure they are an accurate reflection of you or your target audience - or better who/what they want to be.  Don't include an image of a young, spiky haired, iPhone toting male if your business appeals to or could be described as a nurturing, thirty year old woman who love animals.

Content

Make sure your content (i.e. the text) and how it's written also reflects your business.  Few people read content on a website word for word.  Content must be easy to digest when scanned, and convey the benefits of your service or products. 

Content that is focused on the needs of the user and easy to navigate says you care about your customers.  Too much about you and your company tells people that you care more about your own processes and outcomes.

Content that is well written tends to be absent of flowery and verbose script, but what is left should still align with the personality of your company.

Usability

If your site is easy to use, it says that you are easy to do business with. 

Answer emails or online enquiries quickly and professionally.

Make it hard and you are telling people that you are hard to deal with - chances are they'll go somewhere else.