If your website or blog isn’t performing the way you’d like it to, or your presence and following just aren’t growing, there’s a very likely possibility that you’re doing your branding all wrong. There’s a reason global corporations spend tens of millions of dollars on their branding. The reason? It’s important.
Even if you’re a small business or blog and you don’t have a massive budget, it’s essential that you take the time to brand yourself properly.
Take a look at the following list to see whether or not you’re making any of these mistakes when it comes to branding your website or blog.
Design That Doesn’t Match Your Purpose and Values
Even the smallest companies need to have a defined purpose and set of core values because that’s what will guide almost every other aspect of their business.
If you have a website design that doesn’t reflect those elements of your business, it’s going to be hard to resonate with visitors. Every aspect of your design needs to support the story of your blog or business cohesively.
You Don’t Know Your Target Audience
It’s nearly impossible to build a well-branded online identity if you don’t know who you’re trying to target. Everything you build your brand around should ideally be centered around knowing who your audience is.
When you know who your audience is, you know how to reach them, in the voice that’s going to most appeal to them, and even small details such as the design features that are going to most effectively grab their attention on your website.
If you’re a new business or simply a small business taking a wait-and-see approach to defining your target audience, it’s going to show through in your branding or lack thereof, and it’s going to be tough to grow.
Your Site Looks Too Small
If you want to grow, you need to have a website and branding presence that’s on-par with larger companies. Your brand and website design need to be put together in a way that looks professional, and in-line with what you see from your competition and even from much larger companies.
If your site looks like it was done in your basement with no professional design, that’s not a good look regarding your branding.
Your site visitors will judge a book by its cover, so don’t sideline your other branding efforts with a website design that lacks professionalism.
Inconsistency
If every page of your site or blog looks different, or there’s no real thematic consistency, you don’t have a brand. You have a variety of elements all pieced together, but you don’t have a defined image or voice.
The most successful websites are the ones that are streamlined in their style and design, as well as their regular delivery of content.
Site visitors keep coming back because they know what to expect.
This sense of consistency should extend to all other areas as well. For example, your website branding should be consistent with your social media profile brandings, and also your in-store branding, if that’s relevant to your business.
Branding is essential in your digital marketing, and if you can identify any of the following mistakes happening in your own branding and then fix them, you’re likely to see substantially improved performance of your website and business in general.