The culture of a company is crucial to being successful. You can't coast by just by having a great product. Great products help, of course, but your company culture is a huge part of what makes consumers like you. If they like you, they are more likely to buy from you.

So what exactly is company culture, what does it have to do with customers, and how do I use my website to show it?

What Is Company Culture and Why Does It Matter to Customers?

Company culture is a shared set of values, attitudes, goals, and practices that form an organization. In other words, it's how people feel about the work they are doing, what values they believe in, where they see the company going, and what the company is doing to get there. All of these things combined represent the culture of the organization.

Company culture is critical for a couple of reasons. One, if you don't have happy employees, it is going to affect their performance. If you have an employee who is frustrated with his job circumstances, they will not be motivated to do well. Make your employees happy, and you will get better results.

The other reason a positive company culture is essential is it impacts whether or not customers buy from you. Ethical workplace environments are high on people's lists of reasons to purchase products or services from a business. If people perceive your company culture to be poor, they won't want to support you. This means you can lose a lot of money.

How to Use Your Website to Show Company Culture

The good news is, there are plenty of ways you can show your company culture through your website. You want to have expansive employee profiles, a thorough About Us page, a tone that matches your culture, designs that resonate with your audience, and content that will keep people coming back.

Employee Profiles

The backbone of your business is your employees, and it is important you highlight them on your website. People like to know who the integral people are of your organization. Depending on who you choose to highlight, it will say different things about your company culture.

For instance, if you only highlight your CEO and other top positions, people may see this as proof that you don't care about the little guy. However, if you highlight employees across the board, it shows people that you believe everyone is an essential part of the team.

The way you present your employee profiles also says a lot about your business. If you wish to be seen as more professional, your employee profiles may include pictures of employees dressed in suits in the more traditional headshot style. If you are looking for a more personable look, you might have photos of employees dressed in more casual clothing with less stiff postures. Maybe they even have their family or pets in the picture. Neither setup is better than the other. It is all about having your company culture match what you put on your website.

Optimized About Us Page

Why did you start your business? The public wants to know as well. You are much more likely to succeed if you have sound reasoning behind why you started your business. It shouldn't be that you wanted to make a bunch of money. What sets you apart from other businesses? Do you only use eco-friendly materials? Do you have a special donation program? You need to know this before creating your website.

This is where your About Us page comes in. Fill this page with the story of why you started your business. It is kind of like an autobiography for your company. Your About Us page gives you a chance to show what makes your business unique and show off your company's culture and style.

Keep in mind that everything on your About Us page is reflecting on you as a company. Using first-person pronouns like "we" comes off as more personable. Choosing to use the third person is fine if you want a more professional-sounding page.

Make sure to include your mission statement and main business objectives on this page, as well. Consider who your audience is and tailor your statements to appeal to them. If people see your mission statement and goals as unethical or not interesting, you can lose business.

Messaging and Tone

The way your company talks about itself online says a lot about your company culture. Consider how your brand's personality is reflected in what you say on your website.

If your website is full of stiff, stale, and boring information, people will perceive your company culture as stiff, stale, and boring. If your company is fun, positive, and upbeat, you want your website to reflect that. This means using less technical words and having a generally more relaxed tone. You want your internal culture to be accurately represented online, so you have to make specific choices to make your culture match your messaging and tone.

Design

Part of your messaging strategy is developing buyer personas, brand colors, and more. This becomes part of the design of your website. Consider the following questions to help get you started on developing your messaging and design strategy.

  • What is my company's personality?
  • If my company was a physical person, how would they talk?
  • What is my audience's language?
  • How does my company make my clients feel?

Defining your company's personality can be difficult. Start by thinking of your company as a person. How would you describe them? Are they fun, serious, sarcastic, silly, formal, informal, etc.? Once you know how you would describe your company's personality, you can start deciding how to show that in your designs. For example, if they are fun and informal, you may use bright colors and a sillier font. A more serious personality could be represented by more muted colors and more standard font.

Next, figuring out how your company would talk if they were a person relates directly back to their personality. If they are fun and informal, they will use fewer technical words and more casual language. If they are formal, they may use more technical language and speak in more formal sentences.

Depending on who your audience is, you will want to emphasize certain things on your website. This is where audience language comes in. For instance, if you are a clothing company specializing in eco-friendly clothing, you will want to use the same verbiage your audience uses. So, for example, words and phrases like "eco-friendly," and "saving the environment." This will help connect with your audience. Pay attention to comments on your blogs as they can give you ideas on what other words to use.

Finally, you need to know how your clients feel about what you are offering. This can be done with focus groups or surveys. Depending on what things your clients like and don't like, you can make adjustments to your website.

Content

What you put on your website has a significant impact on how your customers perceive you. Consider the audience you are trying to reach and put content on your website that applies to them.

In the example above, you are an eco-friendly clothing company. Your About Us page should then have specific information about why you chose to focus on eco-friendly clothing, along with how your clothing is eco-friendly.

In addition to your About Us page, you can post regular blog content related to your product. With the eco-friendly clothing example, you could post blogs about local environmentally friendly products or ways your customers can be more eco-friendly.

Finally, come up with some type of regular gimmick that you post on your website. For example, you could do "Teaching Tuesday." For this, you would publish a blog post each Tuesday that teaches your customers how to do something related to your product or service. This helps keep your customers interested and gives them more insight into your business.

Conclusion

Company culture is how people feel about the work they are doing and the values they believe in. It also includes where employees see the business going and what the business is doing to get there. Positive company culture is essential because it keeps employees doing good work and makes customers more likely to buy from you. Therefore, you must make your company culture evident on your website to draw more customers to you.

The good news is, there are multiple ways to show your company culture on your website. First, your employee profiles show who your company values. Second, your About Us page tells customers what your business is all about. Third, the tone you set on your website will tell people a lot about you. Fourth, design, such as colors and fonts, also speaks to what kind of culture you have. Finally, the content you post tells customers what you prioritize.

At Brightscout, we can help you design a website that accurately shows your company culture. Contact us today for more information.