Last week in our series about promoting your website, we discussed the importance of SEO. Part of SEO is knowing your brand and niche well enough to use the right keywords so that ultimately, your website is being promoted to its maximum potential. You can’t do this until you have your branding complete.
Branding involves consistency and professionalism. You want your website, logo, and business actions to reflect a level professionalism that customers seek. Nearly everyone who is considering a business for services or products will look them up on the internet and the way you are branded needs to extend to your internet presence. Your brand needs to be consistent: your website needs to look as familiar as your shirts, business cards, and brick and mortar location.
Here are some tips for branding that will help you in promotion of your small business website:
Know Your Audience: When you are deciding on the look you want for your brand, it is more about what your customers will respond to than what you like. You have to appeal to a large audience – so, make it personalized to you but something a large amount of people will recognize and lean toward when choosing where to put their business.
Identify Your Competition: Know what your competitors are doing – this way, you can be consistent but unique.
Create a Unique Logo: The unique look of your brand is what will help you stand out, be recognized among the sea of competitors in your niche, and will bring new business as your logo and business name spread.
Build Your Website Around Your Brand: Your website is something that is key to branding. If a potential customer tries to find you on the internet and they come to your website but don’t recognize it as your business from signs or logos or the feel of your shop that they are familiar with, they may not even know it is you. From colors and design to the warmth of your personality, you want your business to be expressed consistently through your website.
Be Consistent Across All Channels: Your social media channels, website, print designs, and other items that you use to promote your business – from t-shirts to bumper stickers – need to be consistent. Use the same colors, the same logo, the same tagline – to keep people knowing what your brand is. This will not only provide a feeling of longevity for your business, but also a professionalism that all customers seek when choosing a business to patronize.
We at Old City Web Services are experts at helping you formulate your brand for your new business beginning with your logo and extending to your website and other channels of promotion.
Next Week, we will be looking at how to use Social Media to promote your website and build your business. Make sure you check it out!