First impressions matter: Coming across credibly on the internet

By Andreas Thieme Oct 3, 2010, 17:34 GMT

Dusseldorf - In the internet age, learning how to present oneself credibly online is just as important as a well-kept appearance in the offline world. How can you make sure that your application or home page comes across well as a virtual medium? The experts have a few handy tips.

Posting to Facebook, blogs, and message boards means creating a 'virtual you' on the internet. And for job applicants and freelancers, that digital identity can be very important. They need to project a certain gravitas online in the eyes of human resource officers or potential customers. The first impression is often decisive. Amateur-looking internet pages or an abundance of private information don't make a strong case for being taken seriously.

To give a convincing impression, users should always use their real name when appearing on the internet, says Mike Schnoor from the video portal sevenload.com. Profiles, reviews and product evaluations only appear credible and serious to other users if the author doesn't hide behind a pseudonym.

Those who do reveal their identity online, by contrast, benefit from an inherent pool of trust: An online evaluation of a cooking set by user 'Samantha Sample, Chef' is more reliable than one from 'Princess123,' explains Schnoor, who is also a member of the working group on social media at the German Association for the Digital Economy (BVDW) in Dusseldorf.

While human resource officers can be patient with email addresses from free online mail services like gmail and hotmail, there are no guarantees that those mails won't end up in the spam folder. This happens not least because of the advertising lines appended at the bottom of the emails. Providers use those lines to point out new functions and services. Yet in many cases there's no way to turn those unwanted signatures off. They only appear once you click send.

Anyone creating their own web page should give serious consideration to whether they want an individually designed or a cookie-cutter solution. While the latter are simple and easy to create, they don't always make a strong first impression. 'A user with that kind of website is showing that they are only capable of mastering the absolute essentials for having a website,' says Christian Daul, a Member of the Berlin Art Directors Club (ADV) and CEO of the digital agency Scholz & Volkmer.

Bloggers should always view their blog as a digital application portfolio, Schnoor recommends. After all, it can be called down off the web at any time and contains personal information. Too much private information comes across as not at all serious, including images from cocktail parties on a blog and the like. Even those who present themselves for business on the web should ensure that the presentation is at least somewhat professional looking, Daul explains. Contact forms and authorship information should be placed on each page.

Freelancers should forgo any and all advertising. 'The banners are usually foreign bodies on the page, don't fit the design, and disrupt the composition,' explains Sebastian Veit, the owner of Farbwechsel, a German creative agency. The communications designer also recommends against a splashy intro, since it unnecessarily delays the loading of the page.

A better idea is a clear structure for the site, with simple navigation, differentiated use of colour and clearly divided topical areas. The integration of multiple Flash elements tends to come across as somewhat amateur, however, as they tend to interrupt the flow of reading too much.

'Have courage to use colours,' Sebastian Veit recommends. For freelancers in particular it's a good way to burn into the visitor's memory. Only the most egregious cases are too much: gaudy colours like pink or neon yellow can be too extreme for business uses and are also hard on the eye. 'Creative isn't always the same as credible,' the designer notes.

Dark blue or grey are usually a safe bet for visual design. 'Understated colours can give a sense of objectivity,' Veit says. Beige tones and the like can also give an optical boost to accent colours like red and orange.

Users typically have the freedom to decide how much they reveal about themselves on the web, says Christoph Neuberger from the University of Muenster. Less controllable are the things that others write about you on the net. 'You need to keep that in mind,' says Neuberger, a professor for communications science.