While the elements of marketing and search engine optimization these days often lead to many webmasters, marketers and SEO enthusiasts focusing more on analytics and metrics, there are more subtle and abstract concepts that drive key underlying trends in all of that data. For decades, advertising revolved around the analysis of personality and its impact on both sales and engagement. If a campaign via AdWords or an affiliate marketing website has yet to perform as intended, then you probably have a lot of questions about what this signifies. In many cases, consumers’ experiences with your brand play a key role in whether they will purchase or otherwise interact as desired. The lack of character and personality from a website or promotion can be a death knell for efforts that would otherwise be successful. Below, we will discuss two important ways you can add character to your promotions, products and marketing efforts via your website.

Understanding the Experience

Even if brick and mortar establishments have waned in the presence of worldwide infrastructures of e-commerce, there is still an innate desire to be coaxed and cajoled into purchasing a product or service via the web. While it may be easy to throw together a quick affiliate marketing website with a standard template or deploy an ever-so-slightly modified WordPress design, many of your more critical visitors will notice this lack of effort and seek their services elsewhere. In an online world where impression counts for everything, you must be doing more than pinging URLs to products via reviews in order to earn trust. Customers expect valuable information in addition to product availability; providing just one or the other is a losing strategy.

Optimizing Your Aesthetics

Some of the largest companies in the world can vouch for the fact that brand loyalty, recognition and culture matter in terms of market dominance. Those who want to succeed in any online niche need to work just as hard to cultivate this sense of character. Even those who do not know your brand or business will be more reassured when they see a web design and presence that is clean, uniform and user-friendly. An example everybody loves to cite is Apple, which has managed to develop a strongly loyal consumer base in large part because of its marketing of products and its overall brand image. Simplicity is a key advantage of Apple products, and the marketing package in which they are embodied solidifies this message.

The optics of any website play a huge role – content management systems such as WordPress offer incredible versatility in this regard. Most successfully-designed websites utilize just 2 or 3 colour shades and intuitively place content in categories that are optimized for access. Nobody wants to make a purchase from a website that was built in 1998 (or one that uses a platform from that time period, Flash site builders). Even if you are pinging URLs to the appropriate SERPs and being seen by many within the targeted niche, lack of character in this regard will sink your efforts and make the long-term venture less profitable.