The Type A: Therapy for The website that Might be driving too hard

The Type A personality is legendary - hard-driving, focused and competitive. But, Type A's are known to be impatient and even aggressive. What does that have to do with your website's personality? It's all about the experience that your website delivers to the visitor.

If your visitors feel pushed, pressured or harassed, then you might have a Type A website personality. That can easily happen if you you are light on valuable information and heavy on the "buy now" message being delivered in traditional squeeze pages, pop-ups that block the screen, or simply in the language that you use throughout the site.

The big problem with the Type A Website Personality? Your website is all about you and your needs, instead of your customer and meeting their needs.

The Type A website personality suffers from too much focus on the business and sometimes it's owner or founder vs. the needs of customers. Customers don't see themselves in your pages, they only see you! While it's healthy to provide background information about the organization, anything that you have to say about yourself really should be in the words of a satisfied customer. Web viewers believe reviews, and they believe employees, but they are pretty skeptical about what brands say about themselves.

The shift that has to happen in the personality of a Type A website is a stronger focus on the buyer's journey. People come to a website to meet a need or to address a challenge. As a solution, your website has to speak to their needs. Meeting your need for more sales isn't really why they came to visit. Instead of so many pop-ups, incentives and sales, your website needs to offer a much bigger dose of questions answered and practical help.

If your business is Type A in the way that you focus and work hard for your customers, then that is where the focus should go. People don't mind a driven worker, who is working for them. But how you work for customers, is not the same as if they feel you are working on them.

Here are some things to review:

Pop-ups: Does the sit block the page to keep people from getting what they were looking for?
Volume of free information: Does the site offer at least 10 or more articles or videos that answer customer questions, without requiring that they do anything except read or watch?
Transparency: Does it offer honest information about how your product or service may or may not meet their needs?

If you haven't takEN the Website Personality Quiz, complete it now to further understand your website's personality

In addition to the three areas listed above, it helps to ask some of your best customers if they feel that your website fits the real personality of your business. You can call it a "brand discussion." You might be surprised to hear them say, "when I first visited your website, I was kind of turned-off." Listen for language that implies that the website is too pushy.

One big thing (Ok, Two Things) that you can do to Help your website

Testimonials

Putting your unique differentiators into the words of customers is the most powerful way to establish the value of your organization. If your customers say it, then it won't feel pushy. Make these testimonials, including photos, available on the home page and other places.

Visuals

Swap out some of the pictures on the website so that when your visitors come to the website they can see people that look like them. Use authentic photos or videos that are not "over-hyped" versions of reality in which someone has an unrealistic grin on their face with your product in their hand.

One sure cure for your Type A Website Personality is a Story Website Plan. We'll prepare a new website plan that will move you into the world of trusted resources, with a website personality that matches your brand story.