Branding Yourself Online - A Simpleton's Guide to Hitting it Big
By Alan Ayazyam
There are a number of very effective FREE or relatively cheap ways to brand your company online. Whether you are an internet marketer, a home business owner, the owner of a larger business yourself, or the head of your company's marketing team, you must know how to brand yourself online. Or, you must know who to hire to do so for you.
The simplest and most effective means of branding yourself online is also similar to how everyday brick-and-mortar companies do it and have been doing it offline for many years. First of all, you have to have a company name, a USP or slogan, and some kind of logo. This is assuming your business is already up and running and doesn't need to do all of its marketing research, financial planning etc. This is focusing only on the marketing aspect of things online.
"Branding" simply means you are giving yourself an identity online. You are stamping your company's name in a way that allows people to find it, inquire for information, maybe order products (depending on the type of business), and get an overall feel and impression of your business so they can decide if they want to buy from you.
The world of internet marketing is wildly complex, but one thing is certain: you want a gorgeous, professionally designed website, you want that website to contain lots of useful information about your company, and you want that website to be indexed on search engines so people can find it.
You automatically have it easier than most internet marketers if you own or work for a "real", non-digital, business. That's because it's going to be easier for you to earn people's trust and get credibility. You can include snapshots of your company's team on the website, your various key players, business gatherings, or whatever. This will help you build a relationship with your buyers. If you really want your online marketing model to go over well, it's recommended that you hire a professional. But, if you are someone who wants to do it all themselves, here are a few quick tips:
1. Get a Twitter account - Preferably with the name of your business and get some custom graphics made for your home page. Start following interested customers, companies, or people who are in your line of work. You can search for people by a keyword phrase or search online for companies that might be interested in doing business with you, or people who are interested in buying.
2. Get a YouTube account - Again, include custom graphics to make your account stand out. You can post really impromptu videos, as long as the quality is decent from a digital camera.
3. Install a website with custom graphics, or hire someone to do this - Go to Elance or Guru and hire someone to make your website. Make sure the person is going to be reliable first. It's easy and quick to do.
4. Submit the RSS feeds from these sources to feed submitting websites like Feedest.
5. Make a quick press release at Webwire. Include your twitter, website, and YouTube account.
Again, the processing of branding yourself online can be quite complex. However, this will help you. If you integrate your blog with your twitter account, you can start updating your posts regularly and getting people's interest. This will very quickly and easily bring visitors to your site. And submitting to RSS feeds, social bookmarking sites, or article marketing to get back-links are a few ways to get your site indexed on the search engines. Don't forget, it's all about high quality content and user experience, and then from there it is all about regularly updating content and getting it out there in large volume to targeted customers.
If you follow these guidelines you'll be seeing a huge increase in customers and visits to your site very quickly. And the more consistent you are at updating everything the more consistently you'll rank on search engines and the more consistent your visitor traffic will become.
Alan instructs on a number of subjects, check out his newest blog at: http://getgirlseasily.blogspot.com.
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