As a new blogger or business owner, this can be overwhelming. There is so much information out there and you are trying to differentiate what is right for you and what you are trying to achieve. The main goal is to find out who you want to reach and what is the best approach to inspiring them.
This post is a guide on how to focus your branding and create a plan to create what you want from your blog. Your brand is how you want others to perceive your blog/product. This includes your site design, content, colors, and who you are looking for as your target audience. Your brand is the process of creating a consistent theme to make you unique and stand out in your niche. Your niche is the main topic or topics that you choose to discuss with your targeted audience on your blog.
The biggest focus should be on your target audience and how best to reach and help them. So, Let’s get started!
Why do you need to brand your blog or business?
Branding is the whole look, appeal and face of your business/blog. By building your brand, you create something that your target audience will recognize and immediately recognize as believable and appealing. Your brand incorporates your core values and the overall purpose of your business. By building your following or audience around a certain brand, you know you can help a certain group of people. Another reason why branding is important is because it improves SEO.
Brands tend to rank higher in search results for SEO purposes and are much less likely to receive a penalty from Google for violating its guidelines. Google ranks branded businesses higher because they are more likely to be recognized by the target audience. Recognition is the ultimate key to building your brand! Proper use of SEO and branding techniques will generate tremendous positive results for your business/blog.
Purpose of having a brand?
The goal of building your brand is to share your brand story and the core values of your blog. You have to sit down and really brainstorm:
● What do you want from your blog?
● Who is your target audience?
● What would you like to discuss? (Niche)
● How will your content benefit them?
● How will you connect with them?
Once you have developed your brand building goals, you can develop your content to engage your target audience effectively. Empathy would be a great tool for showing how you can resonate with your audience. Your content should have a message that solves a problem for your target audience and engages them to change something in themselves or their life.
Start Your Plan to build your brand
1. Choose a branded domain name and design. Take your time to think of a unique name that will make your blog/business stand out from the rest. Also try to make your name SEO friendly so that it is easily picked up by Google Search.
Invest in your design – site, colors, logo. Creating your web design is simple enough to work on mobile but stands out with color and design. The choice of color has a huge influence on how it attracts people or makes them feel. Be unique and invest in the design of your branding plan. You can buy great pre-designs at Creative MarketPretty Darn Cute Designs or other design platforms.
2. Create amazing content that will benefit your audience. Your content should be detailed, in-depth and problem-solving for your target audience. I prefer to write posts of at least 1500 words. I feel at that level I can finish giving my audience great detail on the topic and explaining things that are thorough enough for anyone to understand.
3. Content must be expressed in a way that is unique and specific to your audience. You should make an effort to write content for your target audience and answer questions they need solutions too. Collect as much info and demographics as you can about your target audience. Be open to email or social media questions and create content around these questions. I also use family, friends, and Quora to find inspiration for content ideas.
4. Images, infographics and data references make content look better and apply what you say so your audience will understand. Detailed posts are great, but by adding images you create contrast and draw people in. Images bring content to life and create better detail for audiences. I use Canva and Microsoft Word to do most of my graphics.
Promotion and Building Credibility
The best way to build credibility is to borrow credibility from other authority publications by guest posting. Backlinks are a great traffic builder but they are not the only advantage. The biggest benefit is building your brand from being featured in other publications with higher authority and traffic. Guest posting helps grow your influence and relevance. Focus on how many people in your target audience your blog reaches.
Grow your social media reach by joining groups and networks. Such as using Facebook groups and live sessions to build your network and generate leads. Promote your blog with facebook ads and even create your own facebook group.
The stronger the brand, the better results you will get. Make this your ultimate goal and your brand will strengthen. You want to get creative and focus on your target audience to find what they are looking for and how you can create content that will attract them to help them.
In conclusion, you need to decide what your overall outcome will be: increasing blog post views, increasing social media followers, and making yourself more unique or different from other blogs. Focus your brand on your market niche and target audience. Create a unique design that will attract people and set you apart from others. Your brand is what you make it, but make sure your blog content lives up to it. Your content should solve problems and entice readers to return or subscribe.
Remember your target audience is who you want to help and your brand is your unique way of helping them.
