Starting an online business? One of your biggest
challenges will be getting noticed among the millions of other web sites. An
online branding strategy plays an instrumental role in raising your site above
the clutter. Toss out all those cheesy books with titles like 101 Online
Branding Secrets and Internet Branding Strategy for Imbeciles.
In this column, we will explore the various ways to
promote a brand name on the internet and how it can benefit your business.
As mentioned above, a brand is a mark indicating
identity. Many times in the world of business, people will think of a brand
name, such as Kellogg's, and instantly know that they are a cereal company. It
is important to be able to do the same thing with your website.
Perhaps the simplest way to brand your website is to
develop a logo with your URL (web address) included. Be sure to include this
logo on EVERY SINGLE PAGE of your website. This allows your visitors to see
your web address on every page, reinforcing your web address.
Another option is to give away free email addresses at
your website. A company such as hotmail(Microsoft) or yahoo is very well known,
primarily because every time one of their users gives out their email address,
they are reinforcing the hotmail or yahoo brand name. By using this strategy,
even with as little as 100 users sending 5 messages per week, this means that
there are 15,000 messages per year going out with your internet address in
them, that’s 15,000 free advertisements for your website every year. At one
time, this was an expensive option for site owners, but with companies such as Everyone.net are changing that
Be sure to include a unique slogan on your site. If your
site name was E.chicken.com, a good slogan might be “The Best Breasts on the
Web”. A slogan like this would be sure to make your site memorable. Although
this particular slogan could be considered pornographic by some, it certainly
would not be in poor taste if you were marketing to the young and hip cooking
crowd looking for chicken recipes.
The absolute best form of marketing your brand name (as
well as the most inexpensive) is to start an affiliate program. Study after
study shows that by paying webmasters to place your banners, buttons, etc on
their websites, that people will be more likely to visit yours. This gives you
the option to place your logo (the one with your URL) on thousands of websites,
reinforcing your brand name even more.
Finally, be sure to include your brand name in your newsletter (you DO have one. Right?) This
allows visitors to sign up and be reminded of your brand name every time they
receive your newsletter. In fact, email
marketing has been to be one of the most effective forms of advertising
By using these strategies, your business will grow and
expand, as more and more people begin to think of your website for their
internet needs.