Business, Home Business.
Online branding with google - if i had to pick just one, it would be substance. While these and more are all important factors in creating a look and feel for your online visitors, they are all clearly secondary to substance. When I refer to style, I am limiting the definition to items such as logo, public relations, name and title, advertising.
So what do we mean when we speak of substance? - they all have one thing in common... a distinctive and easily recognizable customer experience that is repeatable interaction after interaction, transaction after transaction. Substance, refers to those, in its essence elements that create a lasting impression, a unique and lasting" user experience. " In the real world of bricks and mortar, we can all quickly name scores of successful brands. Online successful brand names are also numerous. We got to know Google through this unique and outstanding customer experience. When you think of Google, you have an instantaneous vision of a Google search page, its familiar structure on the search page and the fast, reliable and relevant results... the most trusted source of information for most of us online.
We BENEFITED... this is what substance is all about. - google became a verb... we don' t search anymore... we google! We all got to know Google, not by the logo or the stock price, not even by it going public... only by achieving fast, reliable results that saves us a lot of time in the process. As with Google, household names such as Ebay, Priceline, Amazon, Travelocity and Yahoo all provide that unique, satisfying and even pleasurable customer experience that keeps us going back with great loyalty. These names are only a portion of the first brand names that were born on the web. We know what to expect and we like what we expect. There will be many more in the years ahead... they will all provide a unique experience that will appeal to a large common area of interest engendering confidence, peace of mind, reliability and other clearly positive feelings.
Think this through... before you can plan and execute, you need to have the following key elements: Commitment to your customer. - substance is really achieved through excellent planning and execution. Vision of your business and how it will benefit customers. Either you have these or you don' t. PASSION. ONLY with them can you generate the thoughts, the, the processes" extra miles" effort needed to truly stand out, make an impression and generate discussion amongst those in your target audience, whether it be the general public or those in a specific industry or business.
All of the elements of your website are important, when establishing an, even critical online brand. - when we talk online branding, the first place we start is with your website. Just consider the following and this is just for starters: Home Page - are first impressions important? Is it engaging, well written, interesting? Content - is it about you or is it about the visitor? Is it RELEVANT?
Do you provide a reason for someone to come back for more? - would you come back for more? Great content does all of these things. Do you make it easy to be contacted by email, by phone or fax? Navigation - do the links and the paths in and around the site make sense, follow a rational pattern? Do you make customer service readily available? Do you offer assurances, guarantees and warrantees?
Do you make it obvious that you are here for" them? " Is your shopping cart an easy and sensible process? - do you offer free information in the form of newsletters, blogs, rss feeds, etc. This means Internet Marketing including Search Engine Optimization[ hot link] and Sponsored Search Advertising[ hot link] . All of this is all well and good... however you also need to make it easy for your site to be FOUND ON THE WEB... that means Google and the other major search engines. YOUR NAME DOES HAVE TO ACTUALLY APPEAR to those searching using keywords that directly relate to your business. So online branding is clearly about execution.
SEO[ hot link] and Sponsored or Paid Search[ hot link] requires dedicated, professionals with proven track records and demonstrable results to achieve the visibility you need so that searcher can find you and gain the customer experience you have uniquely created through your website. - style only becomes important once you have created and crafted a unique and meaningful user experience through great execution. Still think you need style and hype before great execution? Great execution, is not possible, in my opinion without vision, commitment and PASSION. Consider the case of etoys. com and pets. com just to name two. They blew much of their venture capital so that 100 million people will see their 30 second ad. These guys confused" brand - awareness" through traditional advertizing... do you remember the 2 million dollar 30 second super bowl ads?
These companies, literally hundreds of them, went the way of the Edsel and the Nehru jacket... they didn' t execute for the customer... they threw their money at the issue. - as if you needed more convincing consider amazon. Just plain doesn' t work. We don' t call it Amazon. com anymore. They didn' t advertise their name change, no effort to, no hype change the name. Amazon has become a marketing giant.
The marketplace did it for them. - this is all thanks to the vision, the commitment and the passion of jeff bezos and those on his team that share these common values. Amazon. com became Amazon because the marketplace has a" first name relationship" with them. So online branding is a realistic opportunity for those passionate, committed souls with a vision and a genuine understanding of what they offer their customers. Create a unique feel and experience that is shared by your visitors and you will become an online brand. With these raw elements from within, implementation and the, the design visible online presence of a website become only natural as part of the overall company strategy.