WHAT IS ONLINE BRANDING?
Online branding is part of smart internet marketing strategy.
In a nutshell, online branding is creating a snapshot of your entity’s image. This doesn't mean a literal photograph and not just your logo either. Online brand building is establishing your business’ recognizable internet presence, and goes far beyond launching a business website. Some years ago no one knew who Amazon was, today it is a rare soul who doesn’t instantly know what Amazon is by their logo, or a mere mention of the business name. This is online branding, strategy for creating an instant connection between a company, a website and its product or service. It should be integrated into every step you take from the design of your website and logo - to each marketing maneuver planned, designed and launched.
Just having a business website is not online brand building.
Your web presence may already be somewhat established. You could be already enjoying some good SEO results from your content optimization and backend meta tags. Still you have not built your brand. Tossing some online advertising into the mix like PPC ads and banners distributed helter skelter far and wide? This is not enough to be considered online brand building, though this is some business’ approach to an internet marketing strategy. If you are going to create brand recognition, there is a lot that must be done. It won’t happen overnight. If developed correctly, an online branding strategy can create brand recognition for your company as strong as Nike, McDonalds, eBay and Amazon.
How do you work online branding into your internet marketing strategy?
If you haven’t already bought the URL for your website’s domain, selecting a strong online brand building site address is an excellent place to start. You certainly wouldn’t find eBay at auctionking.com. Amazon wouldn’t be named ‘Amazon’ without their URL being amazon.com. This is brand recognition at its finest, no one has to Google to locate these brand’s websites. Their brand is their URL. The design of your website and logo is also vital to online branding strategy success. A brand’s site is the foundation of online brand building and the springboard for all your internet marketing strategies too. With a solid and relevant foundation in place, your internet marketing begins building your brand, growing your business and increasing sales all at once.
Strong branding means domination of these internet marketing strategies:
- Domain Name: For absolute brand recognition online today, be wise and remove the possibility of competition on your own brand name. Smart internet marketing strategies include dominating every URL extension, whether they are made active right away, or parked for future expansion. You want to own – ‘mybrand’.com, .net, .org, .info, .us, .me, .biz and .mobi.
- Video Marketing: This is one hot new form of advertising that should be in every business’ marketing strategy. Here you find the beauty of applying SEO to online branding strategy and an effective ROI maneuver. The masses love great video and will take your message viral - if it really shines.
- Social Media Marketing: SMM is also a vital part of a savvy internet marketing strategy and very important to your branding strategy too. To increase brand awareness, applying social media optimization is highly recommended.
- Search Engine Ranking: This is crucial online brand building, as well as to your sales volume, albeit your entire internet marketing strategy. Just as with all other vital pieces of your branding avenues, search engine optimization is crucial to your organic search listing placement.
- Interactive Communities: Participating in community discussions on topics relevant to your product and business is just as important as social media interaction. These are different from social sites though, representing forums and discussion groups that operate outside the social media platform. You need your name, your URL and your message or voice - wherever your target audience might be online.
- Blogging Onsite or Offsite: Blogging is a powerful tool for your internet marketing strategy that also spills over into online brand building. To be of benefit, you must handle this media channel in the right way - to establish buying group communication. Don’t ignore your audience’s questions or input on your daily posts. Interact with them, a response is in order.
Doesn't building my brand include my PPC advertising?
Many online businesses are convinced that PPC advertising is the easiest way to increase traffic and sales, without all the hard work involved in search engine optimization and maintaining a rich, user friendly website. PPC is online advertising, and not part of an internet marketing strategy. Pay per click is not the right place to start online brand building. You have to build the vital foundation above before brand recognition is really possible from PPC ads. If you are going to begin building brand recognition, it won't be fast and super easy.
