That was the sad question a young black woman asked on the Warrior’s Forum, a forum where Internet marketers hang out.  She wanted to know if putting her photo on her web site would harm her sales numbers.  It’s becoming a common practice to put a photo on a sales page these days. It adds credibility by reassuring visitors they are dealing with a real person and not a nameless, faceless entity.

But does it work to everyone’s advantage?

In a perfect world, you’d hope that race wouldn’t matter. You’d  hope that gender wouldn’t matter, that age wouldn’t matter, that a physical deformity wouldn’t matter. You’d hope it wouldn’t matter if you’re plain as a box of rocks.

 But it’s not a perfect world. To some people, these things do matter. To some, the seller’s appearance and race could create a subconscious reaction. To others, it’s probably more of a direct decision.

Personally, I’m not photogenic. I agonized over putting a picture of myself on this blog and on other web sites. After taking several hundred pictures of myself using the self timer on my digital camera, I finally got an image that I thought was suitable and wouldn’t send people screaming away in fear.

But to what extent does a photo help or hinder sales?  One could debate this issue til the cows come home, and you still wouldn’t know the answer.

Doing a simple A/B split test is the only way to know for sure. By using a simple script designed for this purpose, the seller can rotate two sales pages, one with a photo and one without. The best scripts rotate the pages for new site visitors, but set cookies so they always show the same page to the same visitor, should he or she return more than once. Then, over time, you track which sales page performed the best. Services such as Google Analytics will do this for you, and Google Analytics is free to use.

When the human race evolves to the point that no one is influenced by superficial issues like skin color and physical appearance, we won’t need to test. Until then, sad but true, its probably necessary.

Split Test and Increase Conversions by (up to) 734% is an economically priced, easy to use A/B testing script. It comes with a report that explains split testing in considerable detail.  Naturally, you can and should test for a lot more than whether or not to use a photo on your sales page.