In this article we explore the world of website branding and how big an impact it has on the way websites work. Brands looking to work on their corporate strategy should prioritize branding online. In this article, we share with you 10 Ways to Improve Your Website Branding.
The significance of online branding has further improved with the current pandemic around us. Keeping this in mind, it is necessary that organizations do what they can to improve digital branding online.
This article will help give organizations the clarity they need when dealing with website needs. What we’ve seen with most websites in this day and age is that they don’t happen to have a website strategy that is congruent with their online selling strategy. Hence, organizations are at a loss of words and actions online.
This article will explore the domain of website branding and will give organizations a brief overview of what is needed.
Readers looking to learn interactive tips on how to do branding online can greatly benefit from the tips that we’ve mentioned in the article.
These tips will help you improve the general quality of your website and work to make it more in line with your corporate and branding strategy.
With the dawn of information technology, the ways of the world changed. The availability of internet not only brought the world closer but also shifted businesses from traditional to digital platforms.
An online presence offers vast business opportunities, and these opportunities can be utilized by websites that are the digital homes of firms nowadays.
A business without a digital home automatically loses a huge chunk of the market share as according to ecommerce Foundation, nearly 88% of the consumers before buying a product will re-search information about it on the internet.
This figure alone is enough to emphasize the importance of a website.
The success of a company or a business in the modern marketplace depends upon the quality of the professional website it holds. Websites are important for every aspect of the business strategy to a digital market.
An effective market strategy demands that the website be designed as such so that it makes sure that the consumer doesn’t go anywhere else. For this purpose, the website should give a clear peek into what services and products the brand offers.
All in all, a business website can:
- Build trust with consumers
- Adds to the credibility of the brand
- Be a source of contact
Table of Contents
Website Branding
For a business to strive on the digital platform, and to get its desired market share, its digital presence has to be worthy of it.
Website branding in the simplest of terms has one unique advantage – recognition.
Recognition, once achieved, leads to trust and confidence.
Once the branding reaches this point, consistency is required to maintain the achieved level. This level of branding brings customers, and loyalty is bought. Consistency being the key here because to reach this level time is required.
And if the branding falls behind, the competitors fall ahead! Keeping in view the interactions of people on social media, website branding gets a whole lot more important if we compare it with a decade ago.
10 Ways to Improve Your Website Branding
Enough can be said and written on the importance of website branding for a business to be successful, here are 10 simple ways to improve website branding for your business:
1. Choosing The Right Colour
Colours have an emotional appeal and can affect subconscious, for example, the red colour often depicts passion or zeal, a simmering sensation, whereas black colour signifies seriousness and green goes for environment or health.
So, to affect the subconscious of the user and what matters a lot is how you make your website appealing by using appropriate colour combination.
Also, the target audience and its appetite must be kept in mind to choose the right colours. An international brand will always play with internationally accepted colours, as a slight change in contrast, and combination can cause a provocation that can affect your brand.
2. Logos and Optics That Define Brand Identity
Logo might just be a symbol that represents a certain brand, but it is the most powerful visual representation of your brand.
A logo can single-handedly change the conception of your brand. They can tell your story in the strongest possible way.
The swoosh, a check mark that represents speed and movement, and represents Nike’s brand.
The arrow that moves from “A” to “Z” in Amazon’s logo represents the availability of everything at Amazon.
Your website should have your logo anywhere, and everywhere it makes sense, make your customers identify you with your logo.
3. Add Some Personality And Stir Your Identity Audience’s Feelings
People are attracted to brands that have human or animal-like attributions that they can relate to. For example, what comes to mind when one sees a horse standing on its hind legs and is about to take off: Ferrari has got it.
Twitter automatically pops to mind when one sees a blue birdie. Psychologists call this anthropomorphism.
Secondly, the brand has to stir the audience’s feelings in order to develop an emotional connection with the audience. To make the brand more popular, the design has to associate positive emotions and vibes. Optics aided by gifs and short video clips can aim to achieve this purpose.
4. Easy Customer Service Helplines
The more your website helps and aids the customers through a 24-hour live helpline or chat service, the more customers are drawn into sales. Assisting customers with live photos of products and answering their queries real-time, help earn their trust and build a long-lasting relationship.
5. Put Yourself In The Customer’s Shoes
View your website from a customer’s point of reference and see for your own self, if it is helping or not? If it draws and maintains one’s attention or is it just another website, that confuses the consumer.
Does it clearly provide the consumers with answers to such questions as, what service and product is being provided, why they should place their trust in your brand, and what you do.
A brand that follows this mannerism and puts itself in the consumer’s place yields the best results.
6. The Plot
There are only good storytellers and bad storytellers, no in-betweens. The way you tell your story to the consumer will eventually determine the amount of attention you grabbed. The more attention you have of your consumer, the more chance of improving your sales.
Attention-grabbers are the charms storytellers use on their readers to grab their attention. Remember, first impression is the last impression. Grab them with your first message:
“We have what you want, and we are here to give you that.”
Remember, this is where you stand out from the rest of the lot.
The apex
Once you have the attention, guide that attention to where you need it to be, to the products, pages, and services you offer.
The End
Knowing what the user wants is a simple way to guide the user and a clear call to action.
Remember, this whole exercise was to shape your user’s experience into your own benefit, and how the user felt after engaging with your brand goes a long way.
7. Keep It Simple – Don’t Make Them Work For It
Time is money. Make your website simple to use and less time-consuming. Harder navigation, a lot of bells and whistles, is a major turnoff.
The simpler the stuff, the easier it is for every kind of user to navigate, and the more the engagement.
If a user has to work for what they want on your website, bear in mind, they will not be revisiting you.
For this purpose, make your menu clearer and brighter.
8. Focus Should Be On Customer’s Challenges, Not Your Achievements
If you are too self-absorbed and too airy about your achievements, and why you are the best, then you’ll lose customers right away.
If you do not show them “why” you are the best, then being the best means nothing to them.
Remember, you are communicating to your customers through your website, and one-way communication is never fruitful.
The focus should be on the customer, with a clear identification of how their problems can be solved, and their requirements met. You will be able to build trust quickly.
9. JPG and PNG for Logos
JPG is mostly preferred for websites, but it does not guarantee transparency, whereas PNG does.
Furthermore, if the logo is in PNG form, it can be placed over the background without the need of a particularly graphically integrated version.
10. Inclusion of Social Media Channels and Platforms
Social media platforms are the new circle of life. Nearly half the world is connected only on these social media platforms. Brands devise techniques and strategies to work their way into the realm of social media and from there on prey on potential consumers.
The engagement on social media platforms is huge and could prove to be a make or break for the brand.
People’s interactions and their response to brands can trigger engagement. This engagement can help make your brand and take it to the next level.
Display of small social media widgets will not only allow consumers to see relevant information provided by other consumers but will also impact the engagement your brand has.
It can potentially bring a whole new business opportunity, along with potential consumers.
Conclusion
Great branding makes great companies. Today companies like Apple and Starbucks are more valuable because of their branding alone.
The world is now a global workspace that runs on the internet, and the businesses have transformed. Website branding alone has the potential to shift a local brand to an international brand, and a local company to a multinational corporation.
On the other hand, if branding is not given its due share of attention, and the website is not up to date, and neither are the copyrights, then that business is not only deemed to fail in this digital market place but is doomed already.
Remember, the service or product you provide might be necessary, but it is branding alone that makes the company stand out from other competitors in this competitive market.
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Author Bio
Faizan Khan is a growing tech aficionado affiliated with Research Prospect with experience in website UI development. He has also worked on freelancing gigs during his stellar career to help clients improve website appearance, graphics and logo design. His writing goes beyond traditional tech domains and includes interactive tips that are implementable in the world today.