How To Create A Brand That Sticks

How To Create A Brand That Sticks

by: Eileen ‘turtleก Parzek

Most people, when they hear the word branding, think logos but in fact, branding is really much more than that. A brand involves blending the image, purpose, and focus of your business, with your core marketing message, and coming up with something which will stick in the minds of people who encounter it. As a business or an independent professional, it is who you are and what you do, packaged neatly, clearly, and memorably. A logo is only a tangible representation that works to reinforce a brand.

So what kind of personality does your business have? Is it conservative and solid? Outgoing and fun? Or robust and strong? And, what is your business focused on doing? Whom do you want to work with? How does your business differ from the competition? And what makes it so special, after all? Do not try to name every special quality or unique selling point you can actually build a brand on just one unique quality! Once you can answer these questions, you can begin to create your brand. The question is what you want YOUR brand to leave behind in peopleกs heads.

Practically any business or professional can benefit from a strong brand. But branding is even more important for micro businesses and independent professionals because they face tighter competition. A well executed brand and identity can help them compete on a larger playing field, appear more professional, and stand out from the hordes of competitors.

Once you determine how you want to be remembered, your image and your message will need to communicate that. The image can simply be a consistent look used in all your correspondence, a logo that marks everything that comes from your business, and the identity you use on your web site and brochure. The message can be a tag line, your 30 second กelevator speech,ก and woven through the content on your web site.

A logo is only one manifestation of brand identity, used to create a memorable impression, but it is useless if you have not clearly defined your audience and the focus of your business. There are plenty of clearly branded businesses using only consistent fonts or colors in their marketing collateral. But whatever you decide chose one image to stick with through all your business communication, and make sure that image is professional. In other words, if you do not have the resources or finances right now to have a professional image developed for you, work with less, rather than using badly formatted clipart or a layout that makes you look amateurish or cheap. That approach can only hurt your business and your brand, so find the level that Works for you without a negative effect.

Once you determine what brand you want to create, and have developed an identity to accompany it, the work has just begun. You will need to vigilantly reinforce your brand every moment you are in business. Your brand needs to affect everything your business does, everything you and your employees say, and every bit of information that comes out of your office. Letterhead, invoices, proposals… these should all consistently promote your brand. In your voice mail, in your email sig, and every time someone says, กWhat do you do?ก your brand should come out to shine. Domain names and web site content should, again, reinforce your brand. Everywhere you use your brand with consistency, you are communicating with the voice of your company.

Be aware, though, that this does not happen overnight your brand will need to build over time. Develop a strong brand, and use it consistently, and more and more often, your brand will pop into peopleกs minds when they have a need that you can provide.

Eileen ‘turtleก Parzek (c) 2003 All Rights Reserved

About The Author

Eileen ‘turtleก Parzek is a veteran web designer and an online marketing & communications consultant who has been working from home and virtually since 1995. You can subscribe to her free monthly newsletter called Increase Your Reach: Infuse Your Marketing with Technology at http://www.sohoitgoes.com

NOTE: You’re welcome to ขreprintข this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the ขabout the authorข info at the end), and you send a copy of your reprint to [email protected]

This article was posted on September 05, 2003

by Eileen ‘turtleก Parzek

Eight Quick Tips For Stopping SPAM

Eight Quick Tips For Stopping SPAM

by: Cavyl Stewart

If you are buried in SPAM then you’re not alone. Itกs been suggested that as much as 50% to 75% of the email traffic on any given day is SPAM. Reading through SPAM is a waste of your time and it subjects you to potential viruses, trojan horses, and sexual material which can be quite offensive. Here are some tips on how to win the SPAM war:

1. Use a throwaway email address when posting to public news groups and chat rooms and for your Yahoo or MS Messenger Chat accounts. You can get free email addresses at Yahoo, HotMail and other places. Use your personal ISPprovided email address only to communicate with trusted sources. If you are an AOL user then set up an additional email account to use for public posting purposes. When your free or spare email account starts getting abused just close it and open another.

2. Take the time to set up different email addresses for different purposes. Have one for business communications, another for personal and another one for shopping online. That way you can avoid the risk of exposing one email address to all of your contacts.

3. If you own your own web site then the chances are that your hosting account comes with the ability to create new email addresses on the fly. These are addresses that will automatically forward to your main address. If you have that capability then use a unique address for each web site or mailing list that you choose to join. For example, if your site name is abc.com and you decide to join the mailing list located at xyz.com, you would join using the address [email protected]. If you start getting SPAM to this address then you know that the people who run xyz.com are responsible. You can complain to them and their ISP and you can easily delete that email address.

4. Don’t list your email address on your own web site in plain html or as a link to a contact form. Spammers use automated robots to capture these addresses and add them to SPAM databases. Instead use an email cloaking script whenever you need to show your email address. You can search at Google.com using the phrase กemail cloakingก and come up with a lot of options. Just pick the one that works best for your particular needs.

5. Do not buy anything from a company that sends you SPAM. Not only might the company or offer be a scam but you are jumping right into the fire by letting spammers know that your email address is active and that you buy from spammers. Your address will be sold to thousands of other spammers.

6. Never reply to a spammer or click the ‘remove my addressก link. That only lets them know that your address is good.

7. If your email service or email client comes with SPAM filters use them.

8. You might want to think about subscribing to a SPAM prevention service. Search on Google.com for กSPAM prevention serviceก and review your options.

Following these simple tips could cut your SPAM down by as much as 90%. Wouldn’t that be great!

About The Author

Copyright © 2004 Cavyl Stewart. Discover 52 Ways To Do More With Software by signing up for my exclusive Free ecourse. Get tutorials, tips, reviews and recommendations you can use right now to help you achieve more, easier, and cheaper! 100% Original content. Visit: http://www.findsmallbusinesssoftware.com/52ways.html.

This article was posted on December 11, 2004

by Cavyl Stewart

What Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO Camp

What Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO Campaign?

by: John Metzler

Unfortunately, not many Search Engine Optimization companies know what this involves. You may see a กone size fits allก package, link popularity development in the form of submitting to link farms, or even the dreaded กSubmit Your Site to 1000กs of Search Enginesก scam. While the basic premise of each of these ideas is true, the execution of them is extremely important.

First of all, your web site needs human attention. A real person should thoroughly analyze your site before any work is done. Get them on the phone and ask them questions. There should be a clear process that the Search Engine Optimization company uses and tailors to each client. The SEO company should also have a clear idea of what your goals are for your web site.

The first step in any work that is done should be keyword research. Like any kind of advertising, you need to know where your target market goes and how they find businesses like yours. The keywords chosen should apply to the theme of the web site. High rankings for these keywords should also be obtainable given your budget. If you are a computer repair shop with one or two locations in a city and can not service computers outside your area, then targeting a term such as กcomputer repairก is overkill. The cost for obtaining high rankings for a term such as that will be far greater than what you will make from the exposure, as much of your web site traffic will not be targeted enough.

Once keywords have been chosen for the web site, the content should be updated to reflect them. This may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles and text headings; or it could involve adding additional sections to the site, rewriting content and reorganizing the web siteกs structure. It all depends on the specific requirements of the site and market.

Once the onpage content optimization is complete, link popularity development needs to be done. A link development campaign should be done to acquire quality incoming links to the web site. This phase of search engine optimization should take place as soon as possible and can be continued as needed. Reciprocal linking is fine as long as some caution is used. There are many sketchy services out there that use huge networks of gambling and pharmacy sites with no unique content. Always make sure that each incoming link can be interpreted by the search engines as a กvoteก by that site for yours. It is worthless and possibly dangerous if the site links out to link farms and FreeForAll sites (FFAกs). Writing articles with a link to your web site, getting people to post on forums and message boards, and advertising or getting links to drive targeted traffic to your site are great methods to use in improving your link popularity.

For the most part, you get what you pay for with Search Engine Optimization. A quick fix will rarely works, and if it seems too good to be true it probably is. Talk to the search engine optimization company about your concerns and make sure they understand your goals. Read their site and make sure they seem legitimate. Ask for results theyกve obtained for previous clients. Methods that not effective and have a chance to get a site banned include hiding text or links, participating in link farms, keyword stuffing, repeat search engine submissions, and copying web sites to multiple domains.

Proper SEO does not involve tricks. Web sites that have well written and well focused content, have been advertised in one way or another (including link popularity development), and overall are a good informational resource will get traffic from the search engines. Search engines are constantly updating ways to weed out the spamming and illegal SEO methods, so think long term with any search engine optimization campaign.

About The Author

John Metzler is the cocreator of Abalone Designs, Inc. www.abalone.ca, a Search Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO companies in the world.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 09

by John Metzler

Web Site Content Ideas for Webmasters

Web Site Content Ideas for Webmasters

by: John Gall

Many years ago I began creating web sites that began as photo albums for friends and family and then turned into travel guides for trips I took to Jamaica , Napa Valley and the Black Hills of South Dakota. Soon I created web sites related to cars, dogs, and motorcycles. Later I was turned on to Googleกs Adsense program which allowed me to generate enough income from my hobby web sites that I could pay for the overhead costs. I found it challenging to come up with additional content and perform search engine optimization on my existing pages. Occasionally I would hit mental blocks and would have no new content I could add. Whenever this happens I try for the following to help me generate new and useful web site content and hopefully drive my Google Adsense revenue.

Simplify something that is complicated How many times have you wanted to learn about something but didn’t want to spend the time reading a complicated manual or article. Perform this service for your web site visitors by paraphrasing something into a one page snapshot of your subject matter. The key is to pick out the most important points or actions and present them simply for easy reading. You can use your web site to refer the visitors to the more complicated document and recommend they follow up and read the entire document. Class action lawsuits are great for this purpose. In my work as an IT Manager I occasionally get legal papers detailing the settlement of class action lawsuits that affect my industry. There is nothing more boring than reading the details of a class action lawsuit settlement. In most cases I am required to read and then follow up on the class action claims in a given lawsuit. I find that by pulling out the steps to claim a settlement and paraphrasing the cause and effect of the lawsuit in plain english I not only have quality revenue generating web site content but can provide a useful document for my customers that saves them time. Keep an eye on the news either locally or nationally. Any subject that that might need clarification or opinion is an opportunity for you to generate original content for your web site.

Look for new keywords that spur ideas for additional web site content When you don’t know what to write about try putting in keywords related to subjects you know about or for which you already have web site content. Many keyword generator tools exist on the web and these typically spit our new and related keywords or phrases that might get those creative juices flowing again. Some such as the Overture bid tool will tell you the relative worth of the keywords. This will help you prioritize your ideas.

Compare Something. This is my favorite. Take two choices and provide your web site visitors with additional information so they can choose between the subjects. I do this a lot with travel web sites especially resorts and hotels that are related. This works especially well if the two things you compare are owned by the same company and are not competing. Simply do the research to provide the differences and let your visitors decide which to choose from.

Review Something Now that I create web content as a business I review EVERYTHING. I also keep a camera in the car and any business that might be searched in a search engine I snap a picture and write a review. This has been especially satisfying when I can offer tips or criticism that would help future customers get a better experience.

About The Author

John Gall is a full time IT Manager and IT Consultant in Minnesota. He runs several websites as a hobby featuring content similar to that in this article.

http://www.napavalleypictures.com

http://www.gallconsulting.com

http://www.sandalspictures.com

http://www.unifiedthreatmanagement.com

This article was posted on February 13

by John Gall