When Its Appropriate to Add Your Picture to Your Site

I met with a good friend, Tricia Molloy, this week for lunch and we started talking about her website www.divinewisdomatwork.com. She told me that she had decided to take her picture off her site to put the emphasis less on her own self and more on the work that she does. She had a lot of people telling her that she should put her picture back on the site and I agreed.

If you are selling a service to people, its definitely a good idea to put your picture somewhere on the site. You should always consider putting it on the home page if you, yourself are the service and the brand of your company.

In Tricia's case, she is a motivational speaker. She is the "brand" so her image needed to go right on the home page to help personalize the site and get her "brand" out there immediately and into the viewer's mind.

I also had a gentleman call this week inquiring about a site who is a clinical psychologist. Again, he is the "brand" and he did not have his image on his site, but hidden on the About Us page. I told him one of the first things I would do with his design is add his image to the home page. He was a little taken aback, but when I explained why, he understood.

Putting your image on your site is not a bad thing and doesn't make you an egotistical entrepreneur. In the cold world of cyberspace, a human image helps to connect with the audience. I have my picture both on this blog and on the About Us page of my site www.bellawebdesign.com. People always comment about it when they call and I have a feeling it gives me a bit of an edge over competitors who do not portray themselves on their site. It makes them feel like they already know me just a little bit and they want to do business with me. It gains their trust.

So did Tricia follow my sage advice? Go to her site and take a look and you'll see! I look forward to seeing more of your faces out there very soon....