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The face that builds trust

You'll know how to decide whether your site shows a face, and whose, or whether the work speaks better through hands and results.

By Yodai · Published on September 6, 2026 · Updated on October 12, 2026

They asked you for a photo for the website, and your first instinct is to close the folder. Showing your face feels like drawing attention to yourself, like something a serious business just doesn't do, so the section stays empty or you just drop in the logo and call it done.

It doesn't matter whether you like your own photo or not. The real question is different: does your customer choose knowing the face of the person who'll be helping them, or do they choose without needing that at all?

If there's more than one of you, you'll also need to decide whose face to show. But there's a bigger question first: whether you need to show a face at all, or whether the business works better without one.

What your customer is actually buying

A lawyer handling your divorce, a physical therapist who works on your back every week, or an accountant who figures out your taxes with you: in all three cases, you're hiring a person, not a transaction. You're going to trust someone specific before you hand over your money or your problem, and that trust holds up better when you know the face of the person who'll be helping you. That lines up with the web credibility guidelines Stanford University published in 2002, drawn from three years of research with more than 4,500 people: one finding is that showing real people are behind the website, through images or text, builds trust.

A flower delivery service, a soy candle shop, or a prepared-meal delivery business work differently. The bouquet arrives just as pretty, the candle smells the same, and the dish tastes the same no matter who made it that day. There, the customer isn't trusting a person; they're trusting a result that doesn't change depending on who delivers it.

The question you need to ask yourself has nothing to do with whether you have a flattering face for the website. It comes down to this: if the person helping the customer changes tomorrow, does what the customer gets change too? If the answer is yes, show your face. If it's no, the face is unnecessary.

If your business works without a face

Not showing a face doesn't mean hiding that there are people behind the business. It means choosing which part of those people you show. Hands kneading dough, a counter with the oven in the background, the exact moment an order gets wrapped up: all of that says real people work here, without locking you into one fixed face. Those same Stanford guidelines point to a photo of your own space as a way to make clear there's a real business behind the website.

This option mainly makes sense when your team changes. If you hire and let people go with the seasons, or if a different person covers the morning shift than the afternoon one, tying yourself to a single face on your homepage means redoing the website every time someone leaves. And it's not entirely up to you: under Spain's Organic Law 1/1982, using someone's image for advertising or commercial purposes without their express consent is an unlawful intrusion, and that consent can be withdrawn at any time, though whoever withdraws it has to cover any damages it causes. The Spanish Data Protection Agency's guide on data protection in employment relationships adds that a blanket image-rights clause in a contract doesn't count, unless the job actually requires it. Hands and craft, on the other hand, never go out of date.

The photo that costs you trust

Depending on your type of business

Once you've settled the face question, there's a smaller piece left, but just as visible: what caption you write underneath it, and where on the website it ends up living.

Yodai builds the site from what you tell it, with a store, bookings or quote requests depending on what you do. See what the website for your business looks like.