How You Can Brand Your Business Better Online

What simple steps you could take to brand your business better online, without breaking your bank?

Branding your business the “right” way has several benefits for entrepreneurs running their online business.

Proper online branding efforts helps visitors immediately know what the company is about, what they offer, and why they are different from the heap of other competitors.

In addition, proper branding also helps entrepreneurs become clear about what they represent. This way, they can focus their efforts on their “core competencies” rather than being “everything for everyone.”

Today, proper branding also helps online entrepreneurs to rank higher in search engine result pages because search engine such as Google loves businesses that are well-established, genuine, and who are for the long-run.

Related article: Reputation Management for Small Business Owners

With that said, let’s look at few simple yet potent steps to help you build a strong brand to skyrocket your online business success:

How You Can Brand Your Business Better Online?

1. Brand Name –

Brand name states what you do and who you are. However, brand name isn’t just picking up your personal name to identify your business. No one will know about your business through your name. For instance, having business name such as “JamesSmith.com” won’t tell your people what you have to offer.

So instead of using your personal name as your brand, you can use niche-related keywords as your business name.

For example, if you’re in a web design and development field, choosing a brand name such as “WebTech,” or “WebDev,” or even more specific phrase such as “ASPDotNetDevCenter” would perform better to help establish your brand better than rather pick up your name such as “JohnSmith.com.”

So identify what keywords people use to search businesses like you and select a short name that is easy to remember yet powerful to leave a lasting impression on people’s imagination.

2. Design –

The next thing you could do to build a strong online brand would be to build a visually attractive website. Your website has to be welcoming. Just think how people will feel once they land on your website.

• Is the page loaded with too many ads, or does it even load quickly?

• Is the color scheme doesn’t match the tone and theme of the industry you’re in?

• Is the theme customized and stands out from the rest or it’s just like blog or site people usually visit?

• Is it responsive?

Invest little money on purchasing a professional and relevant theme that reflects the type of industry you’re in. A professional and responsive theme cost less than $15 so don’t worry about burning your pocket.

Similarly, change the content to suit your needs playing around with widgets, plugins, and website settings to make it user-friendly. Do not worry that your website doesn’t come out as professional as you’re thinking. It will take some time to fine tune and tweak things around until you have a site that looks exactly the way you want it to.

3. Logo, Symbols, and Colors –

The world’s biggest brands have always been using a “single” image that reflects their core vision, ambitions, and activities. Just look at the logo of Coca-cola, Apple, Microsoft, and Manchester United. When it comes to soft drinks, without even thinking about it, people often think about Coca-cola. Similarly, when it comes to high-end gadgets, people invariably think about Apple – iPad, iPhone, iPod, and other gadgets.

Your business is no different!

We’re sure you have a vision and mission for your business. Now, if you could only find a highly relevant logo, symbols, or colors that represent those values, you’ll be in better position to build a strong online brand for sure. Once you’re finalized a color, symbol, and logo for your business, it’s time you place them on your website, social profiles, create business cards and banners out of it so that everything looks consistent.

Related article: Consistent rules

4. Slogan or Tagline –

Slogan and tagline are keyword phrases that help tell something about your brand. It could be very specific, just like the slogan that Nokia uses – “Connecting people” or it could be vague like “Just Do it” like Nike uses.

It doesn’t matter that your logo text and slogan or tagline be the same.

In fact, a study showed that the more contrast there is between your logo text and the slogan, the easier it gets for people to remember your brand.

Sometimes, your slogan could also be slightly long which could appear as a mission statement. But if you’ve communicated what your logo is about in your tagline, people will easily identify you online. Later, you can always strip those long keyword phrases down to two or three word phrase just like the most famous brands have been doing for over decades.

5. Content –

Your content has to reflect what your brand is about. That means sticking your content topics that revolves around the main theme of your business. Sometimes people want to get adventurous and write on topics that may sound like similar content to your niche, but in fact, they’re no helpful for people whom you’re targeting in the first place.

This usually happens when you’re out of topics to write in your niche.

I have been spreading my content around several niches, but as my blog is only about Internet Marketing, writing content on programming and web design may have gotten more views on my Facebook pages, but they weren’t popular like the ones I’ve written for Internet Marketing niche.

If you’re running out of topic, I would suggest you go over your content again and look for keywords that could give you a relevant content on your niche. In addition, do not forget to read comment from people as it’s one of the best ways to generate highly relevant content in your niche.