Whether you’re a fully established business, or a newly started online business it’s important to start branding your company right from the beginning in order to maximize the results that you and your business will start to see over time. I’m going to share some of my ideas and methods below that I use, as well as a few I’ve yet to implement.
1. Use the name you wish to brand in your domain name whenever possible, if you wish you brand yourself as an individual, don’t be afraid to register yourname.com, just be aware if you do build it up into a million dollar business and wish to sell, it will be harder to do if it’s branded to yourself.
2. Spend the money on getting yourself a decent logo; have you ever taken a look at some of the better logo’s that are around? There are some amazingly simple, yet astounding images that have been created for companies around the globe that embody the spirit and name of certain companies.
3. Create a Twitter account, and either design a custom background for it, or have one created for you, remember to incorporate your logo, or “brand” into all graphics that you put out whenever possible to achieve consistency, and promote brand awareness. Notice that my website, Twitter account, Facebook fan page, eBooks, banners, etc. are all branded to my company. This way over time people will start to associate these images with me, and my business or website.
4. Sponsor a WordPress theme, or plugin and make it available to people on the web, have you ever seen themes that included a footer that said “made possible by” or “Sponsored by”, not only is the name of the company or website on hundreds or thousands of these templates, but there is also a link back to their website which provides them with additional SEO benefit as well.
5. Build, or outsource a piece of software or productivity tool and have it branded with your company name then offer it to users. There are thousands of software sites that will carry your software and offer it to their visitors for download. Again, these software sites (which are usually very high traffic sites) will provide a link back to the website that produces the software which again will provide you with additional SEO benefits.
6. Create a signature in your email to promote your website or company. I have my name, company with a brief description as well as an invitation to follow us on Twitter. I’m not sure how many people have visited my site due to emails I’ve sent out, or how many followers I’ve gained by it, but I can tell you it’s more than if I didn’t utilize it.
7. If you’re an internet marketer you are most likely capturing email addresses and building a subscriber list in order to market to them. Rather than send out the generic text emails, try branding your emails. I’ve designed my emails to look like my website, complete with a header graphic, links and again, an invitation to follow me on Twitter. Are you starting to see a trend yet? Every form of communication media that I use is branded in such a way as to promote my companies assets.
8. Set yourself up as the expert in your field. This will keep people coming back time, and time again for your tips, and information and they will start to associate you and your brand with one of the industry leaders that they can turn to for advice on the different topics that you cover. Now being the expert in your market will require a dedicated consistency to learning as much about your topic as you possibly can, but if it’s something that you are passionate about then it shouldn’t be an issue.
9. Fill in applicable fields like your forum signature, or Skype, MSN, anything that will allow you to enter text to describe you to an audience. Don’t just limit yourself to your name (unless that is what you are branding).
10. Brand your YouTube account so that you maintain a consistent image on there also. YouTube is currently ranked the third highest traffic website on the internet, if you aren’t already on there, get over there and set up an account and make yourself available to the audience over there also. It’s all about placing yourself and your company or website in front of as many people as possible.
11. Article marketing, write articles on your topics and publish them on high traffic article directories with a resource box that points back to your website. This will also help set you up as an expert in your chosen niche.
12. Comment on related blogs, and make sure to add value to the discussion so that people will be encouraged to click through to your site, where you can then hopefully convert them into loyal readers.
13. Brand and release reports on topics in your industry, offer them for free on your website as well as availing them to other site owners to offer up to their readers. If I write a blog post about affiliate networks, and you’ve given me a report discussing the top 20 networks I’ll be more than happy to include it in my post. This gives your site a much wider reach than it might normally have because now my readers have the option of downloading and reading your branded report.
14. Take it a step further and write an eBook that solves a problem or teaches readers how to accomplish something. This will again set you up as an expert in your field, and will provide you with another branding opportunity. If you’ve downloaded my eBook E-Business; “The Insider’s Edge” you’ve noticed that the book is branded with both my header as well as links at the bottom of each page where the reader can visit my site directly. There are thousands of copies of my eBook out there promoting my business while helping people at the same time.
15. Create and brand your own products. This will provide you with more branding opportunities, and more importantly an income source for you and your site.
16. Use press releases to announce upcoming product launches, or other newsworthy events that your company experiences. This will help get your name out in front of a national audience in a very short time. It is not uncommon for thirty or forty thousand people or more to read your release in just a matter of a few days. That’s a pretty big audience by anyone’s standards.
17. Have banners created to promote your brand or website, and strategically place them on other sites in your industry. You can take part in banner exchange programs to maximize your exposure and open yourself up to new audiences and readers that frequent other blogs or websites in your niche.
18. Create an avatar to represent your brand so that when you comment or post on the internet you are again leaving behind something recognizable for people to see and associate with you and your brand.
19. Create a favicon for your website to set yourself apart from other websites. If you look through your bookmarks you’ll easily see sites that you recognize just from their favicon.
20. Brand yourself offline as well as online, have your business cards and stationary reflect the image that you are trying to build online. Make sure any collateral you send out has not only your contact information and website address, but also your logo as well.
These are just a few methods that you can use to start building brand recognition and setting yourself apart from others in your market. Building a brand is an ongoing process and will continue for as long as you own your business. Make sure you have a program in place that not only promotes your brand, but protects it also. Keep one ear to the ground so that you can deal with any issues or problems that occur as soon as they take place. There is nothing worse than stumbling over a post that slams your company because someone sent you an email addressing some issue they had with your product or service only to have it slip through the cracks and never be dealt with by you or your team.
Incoming search terms for the article:
- branding marketing (71)
- tips on branding yourself (25)
- branding yourself (21)
- tips for branding yourself (11)
- How have you made yourself available to deal with any issues or problems with your customers? (7)
- How have you made yourself available to deal with any issues or problems with your customers (6)
- marketing brand (6)
- branding ideas (5)
- branding yourself tips (4)
- brand yourself (4)
- How have you made yourself available to deal with any issues or problems with your customers? Please provide an example: (4)
- tips on how to brand yourself (4)
- 20 tips to be an internet marketer (3)
- techniques to brand yourself (3)
- tips brand yourself (3)
- tips to branding yourself (3)
- How have you made yourself available to deal with any issues or problems with you customers? (3)
- internet marketing branding yourself (3)
- PLR branding (3)
- 20 tips for branding (2)
- techniques to brand yourself in marketing (2)
- how to market brand yourself (2)
- how you made yourself available to deal with issues to your customers (2)
- internet branding book (2)
- branding yourself strategies handout (2)
- branding en marketing (2)
- Tips on Branding Myself (1)
- tips on branding yourself at work (1)
- plr branding your service business (1)
- plr logo and branding book (1)
- plr tips on internet marketing (1)
- tips on branding in the internet (1)
- tips to brand myself (1)
- self branding plr (1)
- tips of branding yourself (1)
- technique in branding myself (1)
- tips for branding yourself as an actor (1)
- Tips Branding Myself (1)
- tips about self branding (1)
- top tips to brand yourself (1)
- plr brand and image (1)
- marketing tips (1)
- how to market/brand myself (1)
- creating brand yourself (1)
- Branding youself tips (1)
- * how have you made yourself available to deal with any issues or problems with your customers? please provide an example: (1)
- Branding yourself on the Internet (1)
- Branding yourself marketing yourself (1)
- branding myself (1)
- brand yourself tips (1)
- brand yourself on the internet (1)
- best branding ideas (1)
- Customizing plr Branding yourself (1)
- e business branding report (1)
- great branding ideas (1)
- marketing and branding yourself (1)
- issues and obstacles with marketing and branding (1)
- internet marketing issues like brandin (1)
- Internet branding yourself (1)
- brand yourself websites (1)
- how to brand yourself branding techniques (1)
- how to brand yorself on the internet (1)
- how have you made yourself available to deal with any issues or problems with your customers? please provide an example (1)
- how do you brand yourself to yuor customers (1)
- 5 techniques on branding yourself (1)
Backlinks: Why You Need Them, And Where to Get Them!
Why do I need backlinks?
Who cares if you have any backlinks! Well, actually the search engines do… quite a lot actually.
They take into consideration, how many sites link to your webpage, and consider it to be a kind of “vote” for your site. I mean who would link to a site that had no useful info on it, or provided no value?
Another thing that gets factored into the equation is the quality of those backlinks pointing at you. Do you have 30 PR0 sites linking to you? Perhaps you have twenty or so links from sites on the same IP? (All from your other websites, it’s assumed) Perhaps you have mastered the art of blog commenting to the 9th degree, and have 10,000 of those, and only those?
It’s a good idea to have a healthy mix of backlinks; your goal here is to target three things.
Building backlinks should be an ongoing part of any website’s marketing plans. Do some keyword research, calculate just what you need in order to rise to the next level, or SERP (Search Engine Ranking Position) and decide on the number of links you’re going to build on a monthly or weekly basis. If you’re not comfortable you can always outsource work like this to other companies, or even other website owners.
I have to be constantly building backlinks for my own sites, so I have no problem taking on a handful of clients each month, and adding their site into my own backlink building program.
“Remember! The more roads that lead to your website or blog the more potential traffic you’ll receive”
Where Do I find Backlinks?
There is one question that I seem to answer at least once a week.
“Where can I find more backlinks?”
Here are some of the backlinks I personally build for my sites, you can implement some, or all of them depending on your needs. Not all niches will need a ton of backlinks, if your company or website is in a specialized niche with very little competition, you may only need a handful of high quality backlinks to ensure a first page rank.
These are in no particular order, use the one’s you feel most comfortable with.
Forum Links – A good way to build traffic to your site (and pick up some backlinks) is to join a forum in your field, if you start answering questions in an online forum you will soon be considered to be an expert in your field, and people will be inclined to click on your signature link to visit your website.
Add a small link to your site at the bottom in your “signature” (remember to follow the forum rules, and don’t spam simply to get your link out there)
Social Bookmarking – Social bookmarking sites allow us to bookmark our favorite sites, stories, blog posts, pictures, etc, all around the web. Some of the more common one’s that I’m sure you’ve heard of are Digg, Stumbleupon, or Delicious. There are literally hundreds and even thousands more, and at each one you can create a bookmark (which is also a backlink) to your site, as well as any other you find interesting! I receive thousands of visitors a month to each of my sites from just one of the bookmarking sites I’ve listed above. Bookmarking should be a part of everyone’s backlink building strategy!
Article Marketing – This is probably one of the oldest methods for driving traffic, and building backlinks. There are thousands and thousands of article directories on the internet today. How do you get a backlink from them? It’s simple, just submit an article you’ve written, or have the rights to, and voila! You now have a backlink from their directory to your site. Remember, not all directories are created equal, start at the top and work your way down. Choose the highest quality article directories first. Again, decide on your backlink schedule, and build accordingly. Whether or not you decide on submitting to 20 directories or 200 directories a month, the most important thing is to try and stick to a schedule.
“Consistency is the key to a good backlink building strategy!”
Blog Comments – Commenting on blogs in your niche (or others) can also be a great way to build backlinks to your site, or blog. When leaving comments always go for quality over quantity, if you leave a comment that adds value to the discussion, or post then it’s much more likely that someone reading the comment will click through to your website where you will then have the chance to convert them to perhaps becoming loyal readers on your site.
Guest Blogging – Want a backlink from an authority site in your blogs niche? Write a great post and offer it up to the site you’re trying to get a backlink from. It’s a good idea to start by leaving some decent comments first as the site owner will then have an idea of who you are, and will know that you’ve already been contributing in some fashion already. Remember when you leave comments on a blog, your adding content. Who loves content? Google does! So you can be assured that a blog owner will value the added content and will be more open to the idea of having you guest blog for them. It’s a good idea to offer up your best work at times like these! (Hint – if the article you offer up doesn’t work for one site, keeps it and offer it up to the next blog on your list!)
Directories – There are a vast number of web directories out there. I take advantage of two different kinds, SEO friendly free directories, and paid directory listings. When looking at paid directories I’ll usually only consider a few like Yahoo, Best of The Web, or Eaton Web Directory. There are also some great free one’s, dmoz is one not to be missed, though in past years it’s been getting much harder to get included into their directory for one reason or another. Always be sure to choose the most relevant category to submit your site to. Directory owners receive dozens of submissions each and every day, and you don’t want them to click the “delete” button, simply because you’ve listed your site in the wrong category. It’s also a good idea to keep a list of sites you’ve submitted to, as well as another for sites you’ve been accepted into.
Press releases – Sending out a press release can be a great way to announce your website to the world. You will end up with backlinks, exposure, traffic, and possibly more sales if done right. It’s also a great way to announce new products or services you’re launching.
And there you have it; these are just a handful of methods you can start using today to build up your backlinks to your blog or website. There are many other one’s out there as well, but I’ll save those for another day!
Once again, thanks for reading, and have a great day!
Warren
Incoming search terms for the article: