Many small business owners, when they first learn about search engine optimization, are tempted to ditch their brand in order to pursue a textbook search engine marketing campaign. This might be a problem. While I certainly think that SEO is important, I also believe that branding is important. The question, which is more important?

Honestly, I think branding is more important. Your SEO efforts should work toward supporting your brand, not the other way around.

Let’s suppose you wanted to open up a retail shop that sells widgets. Your retail shop, a local over-the-counter dealer, will also have a website. Do you call your retail store “The Widget Shop” because you want people to be able to find your website and you’ve heard that using your keyword in the domain name an on your web pages will help you rank higher? Or do you come up with a creative name that tells the world who you are in a branded way?

The great thing about branding is you can use keywords, but you don’t have. “The Widget Shop” could be a great brand. Or you could go with something more creative, like “Thingamajigs”. Which of those two names is more memorable?

When it comes to e-commerce, SEO is a consideration that you should give serious thought to, but only after you’ve come up with a brand name that really catches people’s attention.

Branding. Businesses have been doing it for centuries. But what’s so special about doing it online?

For starters, branding online is not done simply by putting your name in front of people. That’s a part of it, of course, but online branding is as much accomplished by how you approach your market as the image you present when you do so. By ‘how’ I mean the methods you employ.

Let’s spell it out clearly. You can brand yourself with search engine optimization and with social media marketing, or a combination of the two. Search engine marketing, or pay per click marketing, can also be used to brand your business. The branding begins with your keyword research, but it doesn’t end there.

Every time you interact with someone online in the name of your business you have an opportunity to brand yourself. Whether you choose to use your real name or the name of your business is itself a branding decision.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you sign up for a social network. Do you sign up in your personal name or your business name? Some social networks won’t allow you to sign up under a business name so you may not have a choice. But what if you do?

You can always have two accounts – one for your personal name and one for your business name. Whenever possible, you should use your business name as a branding element.

That may seem intuitive. But it’s not really. Online marketers like to hype and harp on the fact that people online prefer a personal touch, and they do. But that doesn’t mean you can’t approach them in the name of your business. You can still employ the personal touch. But you always want to get the brand in front of the eyes when it is prudent to do so. That’s what branding is all about.

Both Steve and I recently had our professional images updated, and we were so delighted with the results!  I learned a great deal about the importance of your photographic image while working with our photographer, Wendy Blomseth from InBeaute Photography and wanted to pass that knowledge along to you.  What better way to do that than to have you “hear it from the source” – so I asked Wendy to provide a guest post on the subject.  Enjoy!

The Top 10 Reasons Your Photographic Image is Important to Your Business  by Wendy Blomseth, InBeaute Photography

I’ve heard many people ask, “How Important Is My Photographic Image to My Business?”  In today’s extremely competitive environment it is one of the most extraordinarily important components for you and your brand identity.  Today, your photographs have to literally work for you 24/7 or they should be fired and replaced.

Your photographic images should be fired immediately if they are not working for you in the following ways:

1. building relationships in every medium that they are displayed
2. mirror and attract your best clients
3. convey your unique, genuine personality
4. reinforce trust and credibility by showing you with your business, associates, clients, audiences & products
5. cause a reaction that is positive both physically and emotionally by viewers
6. generate positive energy and big smiles with every photo email signature that you send
7. provide easy identification so you are recognizable during face-to-face encounters
8. grab the viewers attention long enough to create an attraction to you which can result over time in an attraction to your company and its mission, values and belief
9. work to build a solid foundation upon which you and your target audience can do business
10. visually support your bottom line activities.

Caroline – Before

Steve and Caroline Melberg, owners of Small Business Mavericks, recently fired their old photographic images and collaborated with InBeaute Photography to create new ones that met the top ten criteria listed above.   Now as they display their new images they are being overwhelmed with positive comments ranging from “Yes!  That’s the person I want to do business with,” to  “Wow! What a difference the new photo makes to your image.”  Now their photos are working for them 24/7 and building relationships with people even before the first email, conversation or face-to-face contact.

To assure that the photographic images were optimized for the best display possible, InBeaute Photography formatted the photos for the web at approx. 200 pixels x 200 pixels with a resolution of 72pixels per inch and for print 4”x5” at 300 dots per inch (exact sizes may vary.)

Both Caroline and Steve purchased not one, but four different in-studio headshot portraits from their sessions.  Why four different images?   Because they strategically chose a minimum of four different top priority venues for display: Blog, LinkedIn & Facebook profiles, email signature photo and print materials as well as several secondary ones.  Then they matched up four portraits that subtly convey different brand nuances to be appropriately displayed on each over two years time.  Additionally, Caroline had several on-location photographs created in 2009 as well.  So the overall visual strategy results in  a plan with depth and breadth; photographic images with consistency, variety and quality; and a good ROI of time/money invested.

Caroline – Ater

In conclusion, we recommend that you take notice of the photographic images being displayed by your associates and, most especially, by your competitors.  Note which images are working for the brand and helping to strategically and positively reinforce their brand versus the images that are counterproductive and unfortunately, hurting the brand.

Attractive, well-produced photographic images are a priceless tool to help you build positive relationships with your target audience. Make a lasting impression with photographic images that convey the friendliness, warmth and professional trust you bring to your work, plus build brand awareness of your company and its mission, values and belief.  Good business images are a necessity in today’s competitive marketplace, not a luxury !

Wendy Houser Blomseth

InBeaute Photography

Helping you create your best images that attract your best clients since 1998

NOTE: As a truly gifted photographer, not only did Wendy do a tremendous job for Steve and I, she’s created amazing portraits for hundreds of other smart and savvy business folks as well.  Check out her work on her online portfolio here!

What’s it take to become a top brand online? According to a survey recently conducted by Forrester Research, trustworthiness, helpful, and relevance are the three attributes that made Google, Yahoo!, and Amazon the top three brands online.

This actually makes sense. When I think of Google I do think of trust and relevance. When I think of Amazon I also think of trust and relevance. After all, where else would you go for books and music online?

Google built its reputation as a search engine on trust and relevance. And searchers still trust them over every other source.

When it comes to online branding, trust and relevance are two of the most important attributes necessary regardless of your niche. No matter how large or small your audience is – and few of us have the audience the size of Google, Amazon, or Yahoo! – you’ll need to develop trustworthiness, be helpful to your audience, and be relevant. If you don’t possess those attributes in some measure then I doubt very seriously that your target audience will pay you much mind.

Are you developing trust, relevance, and helpfulness in your online brand?

Branding is one of the most important concepts, online or off. A small business marketer needs to understand how to position itself online for branding and marketing position. Here are some tools for you to use in branding and how to make them most effective:

• Your website – First, the obvious one. This is your online hub. The place where everything begins and where everything else leads back to. Make it your own, give it some personality, a logo, a message, and purpose.
• Your blog – Next to your website, your blog is the most important piece of real estate you own online. You want it to match your website in appearance and writing style. Communicate with your customers and potential customers. Start a conversation.
• E-mail marketing – E-mail marketing keeps people in the loop. If your e-mails are designed to look like your website and blog then you’ll build up better credibility.
• Twitter – Twitter allows you to design a background for your tweet stream. Make it look like your website and blog. You are branding yourself and Twitter can be another way to make your branding stick.
• Social media – Social media allows you to take your conversation beyond your own web properties and across the web. Keep it consistent with the conversation going on at your blog. If possible, design your social media profiles to look like your website.

These are the basics of your online branding. These tools can help get you going on the right path. It all starts with your website and logo. Those are the two most important online branding tools you have.

What is the most important web design issue facing small businesses? Is it content development, site navigation, logo design, keyword management? No. It’s none of those.

Most small businesses struggle the most with using web site design as a branding tool. It’s one of the most important aspects of web design, but it can also be one of the biggest pains for a small business trying to keep up with the larger competition. How do you manage it?

Branding is a real challenge for most small businesses anyway, but in terms of web design it can get sticky. How much design should you use? What elements show go into your web page? Which elements will you use over and over again from page to page? These can be hard questions to answer.

I’m not trying to minimize the difficulty of other aspects of web design, but using it to brand your business is a bold step and a necessary one. For more information on web site design services and branding, visit Small Business Mavericks.

Twitter is more than just a social media website. It’s great for making new connections, building new friendships, marketing your business and its products, and all sorts of other wonderful communication strategies, but it can also be used as a branding tool.

GoDaddy, the hosting company that I use, now offers webmasters a chance to look up the Twitter name for any domain name they register to see if that Twitter name is available. If it is, you can register it through GoDaddy.

For instance, if you buy the domain name www.Imrichhowaboutyou.com then GoDaddy will look for a Twitter name that is compatible with that domain name. Of course, Twitter has a character limit on names – 14 characters. I thought about this and asked myself, Why would GoDaddy do this?

Actually, it makes good business sense for GoDaddy. But more importantly, why would GoDaddy users want to do it? The answer is branding. If your website is www.goodatwhatido.com and you have a Twitter account named GoodAtWhatIDo then you have two web space entities with the same name. You can link them together and use them as a branding tool. As your follower count increases on Twitter and you use the service effectively you’ll get more people visiting your website. Eventually they will come to know you by your Twitter name. That’s great branding.

Social media superstar Chris Brogan wrote a great blog post about the difference between personal branding and product or service branding. Actually, it’s about distribution, but the big picture is personal vs. product/service. So let’s talk about branding for your small business, shall we?

What does small business branding entail? Should it require a personal touch or is it all business? I think it depends. But if you plan to do any online marketing, and that includes branding, then you’d better learn to get a little bit personal. And I don’t mean sharing your innermost, darkest secrets with your clients (they probably don’t want to know any way). What I mean is, being personable and reachable. Accessible. If not transparent.

Small business branding isn’t a lot different than large business – aka corporate – branding. But it is. You see, with McDonald’s distribution is everything, but if you’re like most small businesses then you only have one outlet, maybe two or three. But no more. Your distribution channels are pretty limited, aren’t they?

Well, they needn’t be. You can have a distribution channel online that is completely different than the one you have in your brick and mortar store. They can overlap. They can even be one and the same as far as distribution goes. It’s your business. But it is feasible to have a brick and mortar store for local distribution and a website for global distribution. What’s stopping you?

It’s your brand. When you own it, you can expand it or contract it. I’m about expanding. And that means, for most small businesses, being personal enough to be accessible, locally and worldwide, while being sophisticated enough to think like a McDonald’s exec. Can you do it?

Small business branding is really a simple matter. You may not need to spend thousands of dollars on a huge marketing plan. In fact, spend too much and it will cut into your budget too hard, leaving little room for profit. That’s why many companies opt not to bother with marketing at all. But marketing doesn’t have to be expensive, even for small businesses.

Branding can be as simple as putting your logo on your letterhead. For a rather reasonable fee you can have a graphic artist design you a logo and that’s a one-time fee that allows you to use the same artwork over and over again for the life of your business. That logo will speak volumes about what your business stands for and you want it to be something that will be memorable and recognizable for many years to come. Once you brand yourself in the minds of the people you want to do business with in your local area, it will be difficult for them to forget you. And that’s when you know you’ve done a successful job at branding you business.

Other small business branding practices include simple things like a slogan or tag line that appears on all of your marketing copy, a color that can be associated with your business, a particular style that can be associated with your business and sets you apart from your competition, or anything that establishes you as unique and professional in your niche.

Branding is really all about putting yourself in the minds of your customers so that they remember you even when they aren’t trying to. I’m sure you picture the logos of McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Proctor & Gamble, Abercrombie & Fitch, Exxon-Mobile, and a couple dozen other large corporations without much effort. You can do the same thing for your small business with just a little branding effort and the people you want to remember you will, just when they least expect it.

One of the most important principles in business branding is to know who you are. If you can’t define in a simple sentence who you are and what you have to offer then chances are you won’t be able to brand yourself effectively. Many business owners make the mistake of trying to be all things to all people. That’s not an effective way to approach branding.

In order to effectively brand your business you must start with who you are. What can you do and can’t you do? Start by taking a personal inventory.

Your personal inventory should asses your strengths and weaknesses. What are you capable of and what are your limitations? There is no sense in trying to operate outside of your boundaries. That’s a sure way to fail. But you must also make sure that you don’t sell yourself short and assess yourself properly. Don’t overestimate your strengths or underestimate your weaknesses. What kind of clientele do you hope to attract?

Branding requires a stong analysis of yourself and your business. If you have other people working with you then be honest about them as well as yourself. Assess the entire business and create a strength/weakness report. Then decide on what you want to be after you have assessed the organization properly. Begin with who you are.