No more smiling faces

It is positively frightening to see how many companies still put pictures of smiling people on their homepage and other important pages.

Are there really still marketing people out there who think that stuff works on the internet?  

In our experience, people react negatively rather than positively to these smiley pictures. Regular people don’t relate to unnaturally white, unnaturally wide smiles. They know they’re fake.

Customers aren’t fooled by these shiny pictures. They want a website that gets to the point. And they expect your pictures to be to the point too.  

Quiz: what are these companies trying to sell you?

• Left – smiling mother and daughter: homepage of toothpaste brand Colgate. Fair enough. After all, they’re in the teeth business.
• Middle – smiling lady: homepage of dental practitioners. Again, fair enough.
• Right – smiling man: homepage of a coaching and training company. (We won’t mention the name of the company. That would be too cruel.) Are they selling courses in smiling? Or do they think that smile will entice people to book a coaching session? Would you book a coaching session with this company?

Moral of the story

• Stop sprinkling your website with smiley people. Unless you’re in the dental care industry.
• Seriously. Stop it.
• Take those pictures off your website. Do it now.