How to Enhance Your Online Branding
If your brand isn't performing well online, don't worry! You have many options when it comes to brand elevation and visibility. Since your website plays a crucial role in effective online branding, a few simple tweaks there can have a big impact. Putting more emphasis on brand consistency and professionalism are other easy tricks that can give your online branding a major boost.
[Edit]Steps
[Edit]Brand Identity
- Use consistent branding for a professional and authentic image. Cohesive branding communicates to the world that you have a clear and established brand identity. Customers are more likely to engage with and trust a company that presents itself in a consistent way. If you aren't sure where to start, create a brand guide. Be sure to give the guide to your employees so everyone's on the same page. Include specifics like:[1]
- Your brand's mission statement
- Brand voice and tone
- Official logo and colors
- Fonts and typography
- Marketing style and materials
- Product packaging
- Company culture
- Update your website to be easy to navigate and on-brand. Your website is the face of your business and the embodiment of your brand. It's crucial that your website looks clean, consistent, and unique. Set aside some time to audit your website and look for ways to improve it. As you look over your website, ask questions like:
- Is the site easy to navigate? Does information flow logically? Create relevant internal links that guide users from page to page. Keep navigation tabs simple and easy to find.
- Does the tone reflect my customer base? For example, if your customers are millennials or Gen Z, go with an informal tone. If your customers are business professionals or stock market investors, use a more formal tone.[2]
- Are the design elements attractive and consistent? Be sure use the same colors, formatting, graphics, personality, and emotions on each page.
- Where is the logo and what size is it on the page? It's best to put the logo in the upper left corner of the website. Make sure it's big enough to see easily.
- Post customer reviews and testimonials on your website to build trust. Most shoppers read customer reviews or testimonials carefully before buying from a brand for the first time. It helps to create a dedicated section or page on your website where you can post positive customer reviews and testimonials. This boosts credibility by showing that your brand has been “tested” by the public.[3]
- Try to include a variety of reviews that highlight your range of products and services.
- Promote any good press you get to solidify a professional image. Being mentioned in the press establishes your brand as a legitimate business that's worth talking about. Add a “Recent Press” section to your website and link to articles or publications that mention your brand. Be sure to share these posts on your social media accounts, too.[4]
- For example, create posts or press releases about awards your brand receives and circulate them on social media.
- Make sure the “Recent Press” section is easy to see and access on your website's homepage.
- Display trust seals on your website to make shoppers feel secure. Customers are more likely to make a purchase on your website if they see seals (or logos) of trusted e-commerce names like PayPal and Norton. These seals make customers feel secure because they show that your company protects their transactions and information.[5]
- Some of the most trusted seals/logos are PayPal Verified, Norton, McAfee, Verisign, and BBB Accredited.
- In a recent study, 75% of customers said they've canceled an online purchase because they didn't see or recognize the website's certified trust seals.[6]
[Edit]Web Presence
- Optimize your website to be viewable on all devices. Customers are using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets more than ever before. If your website isn't mobile-friendly, you could be losing a ton of visitors and potential customers. Check out your website on your mobile device to evaluate the user experience first-hand.[7] Look for issues like:
- Slow loading speeds
- Loading improperly (for example, for video content to load properly, it should be square and vertical, subtitled, and no longer than 30 seconds)[8]
- Inaccessible areas, links, or pages
- Unattractive or unreadable content
- Lengthy content that takes up too much space on a mobile screen
- Too much text content/not enough images and videos
- Use SEO techniques to make your website easy to find. Optimizing SEO is crucial because it increases your search ranking and generates website traffic. Start by researching keywords and using the strongest ones in your webpage titles, general content, and meta descriptions so relevant users can find you easily.[9] You can also:
- Create new content with strategically placed keywords
- Insert internal links and backlinks
- Increase social signals by frequently sharing web pages on social media
- Display your business name, address, and phone number
- Check for coding errors that can impact your website's crawl-ability
- Create a brand blog with quality content that can be easily shared. A blog allows you to engage with your customers and share useful content that establishes you as a resource in your field. If you're sharing quality content, people in your industry are likely to use and share that content online. Remember to blog in your brand's unique voice and tone to be consistent.[10] Consider blog content like:
- White papers
- Case studies
- Infographics
- Online courses, workshops, or webinars
- Downloadable user materials[11]
- Network with industry influencers to increase your brand's visibility. Building positive relationships with industry influencers can have a big impact on brand awareness. If a trusted influencer mentions your product(s) or brand in their content, you suddenly reach a whole new audience of potential customers.[12]
- It's important to work together to cross-promote each others' brands so the relationship is mutually beneficial. Think of it as an unofficial partnership.
- Industry influencers, Instagram photographers, celebrities, and social media platforms are all viable options for this kind of partnership.[13]
- For example, if your company sells canvas art for home/office decor, ask an influencer to pose with an art piece you sold to them and share the photo on social media.
- Part of working with influencers is negotiating how much you're going to pay them. A fair price will depend on things like how popular the influencer is and how you'd like them to promote your product.[14]
- Use brand-personality content to maximize social media engagement. Getting likes, shares, and comments on social media boosts your visibility in a major way, especially on algorithm-based platforms like Facebook that prioritize content with good engagement.[15] Leverage your brand's unique personality in your social media posts to engage and grow your audience.
- For example, the fast-food restaurant Wendy’s increased their brand awareness by tweeting sassy and amusing comments aimed at the media and their competitors. In one instance, when a user tweeted asking where the nearest McDonald's was located, Wendy's replied with the image of a trash can.[16]
- Sassy Twitter humor works well for a fast-food restaurant, but if your business caters to stock market brokers, that isn't going to be effective. Instead, use a confident or educational tone and share something that gets their attention, like real-time statistics or a Wall Street case study.
- Be sure to mix it up on social media! Don't post the same exact thing on all platforms. Tweak each post to fit the platform's size and media requirements. For example, a vertical and square video posted on Facebook shouldn't be uploaded to YouTube as-is. Adjust the video size to meet the current YouTube recommendations before sharing it there.[17]
- Remember to tag your posts so users can find them! Make your tags specific so you have a better chance of being found.[18]
- Use analytical tools on a regular basis to guide and refine your reach. Tools like Google Analytics can provide invaluable information about how well your website and marketing campaigns are doing. Regularly review analytics data like reach, shares, likes, and page impressions to see how users are reacting to your content.[19] Tracking metrics can help you identify problems like poorly timed marketing campaigns, ineffective promotions, and whether you're reaching the right audience or not.[20]
- For example, if you post a promotion on Facebook that links to a specific landing page on your website, use Analytics to track how effective it was.
- "Total Visits" tells you how many people visited your website that day. Did the average number of daily visits go up?
- "Unique Visits" tracks first-time visitors. Did you have more than usual?
- "Popular Pages" lists the highest-performing website pages for that day. Did your promotional landing page rank?
- "Referring Websites" tracks how visitors got to your page. If a lot of visitors came from Facebook, you know your promotion was effective.
- If your promotion performed poorly, try changing the focus or posting it to Twitter to see if you get traction with that audience.
- For example, if you post a promotion on Facebook that links to a specific landing page on your website, use Analytics to track how effective it was.
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[Edit]Related wikiHows
[Edit]References
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/281523
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/324920
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2013/09/25/six-tips-to-enhance-your-online-brand/#687584ea4a06
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2013/09/25/six-tips-to-enhance-your-online-brand/#687584ea4a06
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279937
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2014/12/16/importance-of-a-trust-seal-on-your-ecommerce-website/#4c4773576802
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/02/25/13-ways-to-optimize-your-companys-mobile-site/#102f32df20ce
- ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20171121164932128
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/12/10/improve-your-brands-online-reputation-with-seo/#525ab5e519cc
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2016/02/04/4-ways-to-grow-your-online-presence-and-find-more-customers/#5b87b84f3a92
- ↑ https://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2013/09/25/six-tips-to-enhance-your-online-brand/#54730ec64a06
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310427
- ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20171121164932128
- ↑ [v161019_b01]. 5 April 2019.
- ↑ https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/social-media-sell-your-brand-not-your-stuff
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/310427
- ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20171121164932128
- ↑ [v161019_b01]. 5 April 2019.
- ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20171121164932128
- ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219747
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