The term Branding people usually use it interchangeably with logo design, identity design & sometimes typography and all design-related stuff, which is not really what Branding is. Let’s start with what branding isn’t because it is not all the staff people say it is.
Branding is not a logo
A logo is a useful tool for a business but it is not branding. A logo is a symbol for the Brand
A Brand is not a Product
Usually, you will hear a lot of people talk about buying this brand or that brand and they are really talking about buying this product or another product. The brand is not that.
Branding is not a promise
Some people say a brand is a promise that a company makes to customers. There’s a certain truth in that, it ends up working as a promise but it is not that either.
Branding is not an impression
Some say is an impression a company makes on its audience. If you’re trying to sell a lot of impressions I can see where that may be useful to you but from a business perspective why will customers want that? it doesn’t even help creative people understand what is it that they really have to do.
A brand is a result.
It is a customer’s feeling about a product, service, or company. it ends up in their heads and hearts. A brand is like a reputation, it is how customers feel after they had an experience with your company.
A lot of people usually confuse Sales, Marketing, and Branding as the same thing. Although they are all related to building a successful brand, they don’t mean the same thing. Lets briefly go through what they mean and how are they different.
Difference between Sales, Marketing and Branding
Sales is the exchange of a commodity for money; the action of selling something, it is all about convincing. You will hear sales coaches teach more about how to handle objections because it is all about convincing. Marketing is all the activities that you do to generate business while branding is all about influence.
How are all 3 connected?
Earlier I did mention that all 3 are different but connected, this is how they are connected. Let us pretend you own a clothing store, Marketing is what makes customers come to your store, sales is what makes them buy what you sell and branding is what makes them come back to buy more from you.
An online business can be an amazing venture to get into, especially as an entrepreneur who is looking to become successful while working from anywhere in the world without depending on a physical building.
Every business owner makes mistakes. Even the likes of Warren Buffett, Richard Marx, and Elon Musk have made mistakes in their businesses. The quintessential need is not perfect and averting every mistake but to avoid those ones that will cost your business dearly. Here are the top five mistakes online business owners make.
1. Cheap Infrastructure
A business must always remain sustainable and for that, it is necessary to remain reasonable with all expenses or recurring financial liabilities. However, affordability should not compel a business owner to make decisions that will not augur well for the enterprise. For instance, opting for cheap hosting plans will save you money but the real cost has to be assessed. Hosting plans that cost very little every month will have severely capped bandwidth, there will be hardly any worthwhile security for the website, the online presence will be compromised as the uptime will not be a hundred percent or even close and any kind of scaling will be dealt with very slowly. Infrastructure is the backbone of any industry or business. Online business owners often opt for cheap infrastructure.
2. Outsourcing Everything
Globalization has ushered in an era when you can find people to do everything at a fraction of a cost than what you would have paid in the pre-globalization days. It is not fair to state that the quality of professionals or their skills has waned but it is true that outsourcing has its pitfalls. You can and should outsource anything that you are not very good at. From website designing to accounting, you can and must hire experts. Also, note that outsourcing is not necessarily off-shoring. You can hire contractors or companies based in your city, state or country. The trouble lies in outsourcing everything. When online business owners don’t have complete control over any of the assets of the company or the day-to-day affairs affecting one or all existential aspects of the enterprise, then the business is bound to suffer sooner or later.
3. Lack of Diversification
Many business owners are content with their zeroed in focus on one or a few niches. It is perfectly acceptable to focus on one or a few niches but you need to diversify to sustain your overall empire through the years. Every niche goes through upswings and downswings. You can always enjoy the upswings but you need to plan for the downswings.
4. Cease in Upgrading
Many online business owners launch their enterprises with state of the art propositions and then stop upgrading. It is not just the technological infrastructure that needs to be upgraded but also the quality of products and services, the manner in which the business is managed and how the clients are dealt with.
5. Ignoring Competition
Digital enterprises can spring up in no time and usurp the market share of a major brand in a brisk few weeks. Ignoring competition is a surefire way to ring the death knell for the business.
Personal brand comes hand in hand with the birth of a company. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve begun working on improving your brand it’s still there. Looking at most large companies, there’s a trend that suggests that to succeed you’ll need a larger than life brand. But how do you get there? Heres how.
1. Get in the Mindset that You ARE a Brand
When getting in this mindset, consider Apple. When you think of Apple, what do you think of it? What do you want people to think when they hear your company’s name?
Do you want them to think of futuristic technology or do you want them to think of a homely carpet store? Once you’ve got that in mind, you’ll know how to market yourself well.
2. Track Your Online Presence
Google yourself. From the results you get, you can build. Set alerts that tell you when your name is beginning to pop up more often, perhaps you could Google yourself twice a day in order to check up on it.
The more your name pops up, the more people are going to see you. (*Disclaimer*: If you have a common name, add your middle initial or your full middle name to differentiate yourself.)
3. Make a Personal Website
Your website doesn’t have to have complex moving parts, it can be as simple as a resume and a short bio. Although the more professional your website is, the more likely it is to attract viewers, just having a website is a huge step towards success.
What another way will people be able to discover your company?
4. Find Ways to Produce Value
Have you ever had a situation in which you noticed someone from a large company tweeting about something totally unrelated to them? It probably makes you think, Boy, I wonder why he felt the need to let us know that he really enjoyed his Campbell’s Chicken soup today. Stay in line with your brand, which will, in turn, create more value.
Don’t post just whatever you’re thinking or feeling, post about different technologies if you’re a tech company. Speaking of Twitter.
5. Think Before You Post
Don’t post random things on your Twitter or Instagram. The people who follow your company are not interested in your life or what you did that day. Don’t post too liberally, and definitely don’t over-post.
Try to stay professional and adult when you post, don’t divulge anyone who comments something mean by responding to them.
6. Become Friends with Other Brands
What college did you attend? Are any other alumni also in business? Are they successful? If you can answer yes to those three questions, you’ve got a beautiful start. Join groups, find alumni from your college, and branch out.
The more powerful allies you can associate with, the better off your company will wind up being.
7. Reinvent and Tell a Story
What’s your story? How did you get to where you are now, and why did you begin your company? These are all important questions that will better your personal brand.
Having an inspirational story will help to inspire those who are investing in the company and will also do wonders in getting your personal brand out there. Not only that, but you should always evolve. Never stay in one place, always make progress and reinvent.
So you want to get your website to rank on google first page, but you’re not sure how? Well, you’ve come to the right place! I’ve ranked dozens of websites on page 1 of Google, and I’m going to show you how you can do the same.
First, let’s start with a quick primer on how Google and other search engines work.
How Google (And Other Search Engines) Work
The first thing you should realize about Google is that Google is NOT the Internet. Just because your website does not show up on Google, does not mean it is not on the Internet. Your website can be published live on the Internet without being displayed in Google’s search results for a particular keyword.
The way Google and other search engines display websites is this: Google has automated computer systems working around the clock that randomly visit websites all over the Internet, take snapshots of each page, and file them away in a massive database.
As part of taking a snapshot of each web page, Google’s system reads every word and other content on a web page (like photos, videos, audio files, etc) in order to determine the specific subject of the page. Google uses this collected data to determine which web pages to show, and in what order, for a particular keyword search.
In other words, Google’s computer algorithms dynamically determine which web page on the Internet is the most relevant for a specific keyword or key phrase and displays it first. It then displays the second most relevant page, and so on. The resulting list of web pages is known as a Search Engine Results Page (SERP).
The top section usually consists of 3 or 4 paid text ads that relate to the keyword used to conduct the search
If Google thinks the user is looking for a local business nearby, it will add a section below the paid ads called the Local Map Pack
The main section in the middle consists of an “organic” (non-paid) listing of web pages that are relevant to the keyword used to conduct the search
Example Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Example Google Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
How Do I Get My Site On Google?
First, you need to make sure your website has been indexed by Google. To find out if it is, type site:yourdomain.com into the Google search box, replacing yourdomain.com with your actual domain name. If you see a listing of your website’s pages, then Google has already indexed your site and will continue to visit it occasionally to check for updates. If your website is not listed, submit it here: http://www.google.com/addurl. It will take 1 or 2 weeks for Google to visit and index your website.
Secondly, remember, Google will only display web pages that are relevant to the keyword being searched. The first step is to make sure your web page’s text is related to the keyword in question. If it’s not, chances are Google won’t show it.
Third, just because your website does not show up on the first page, doesn’t mean it is not showing up at all. Go to the bottom of the results page and click “Next” for page 2 and so on. Your website may be on page 2, page 82 or somewhere in between.
Okay, My Website Is On Google, But It’s On Page 41! How Do I Get It To rank on Google First Page?
Ah! You’ve asked the million-dollar question. An entire industry has been built to answer this question and millions of dollars are spent each year to accomplish this! My first question for you is, “How much money do you have?” Just kidding, but seriously, the good news is there are two main ways to get your website to show up on the first page of Google:
You can pay to be on the first page of Google and it doesn’t have to be a lot of money. This is called Google Ads.
You can get your website to rank “organically” without having to pay for ads.
I’ll explain both below…
Google Ads (Pay to Play!)
The quickest and easiest way to get on page 1 of Google for a particular keyword is to pay for an advertisement. You sign up with Google, choose the keywords you would like to target, then “bid” (yes, like an auction) on how much you would like to pay every time your ad is clicked on. This is called “pay-per-click”. The higher you bid per click, the higher your ad will appear to the top of the page, all other things being equal.
You can also set a daily budget so that when your budget is met, Google will not show your ad any more that day so it won’t be clicked on and you won’t be charged. For most industries, this is a cheap and easy way to show up on Google’s first page.
For other industries (like lawyers, for example), it can be very expensive. Some keywords cost up to $100 per click or more!
Consider Hiring a Google Ads Pro
Be careful with Google Ads. They make it very easy to sign up and start showing ads on their platform (Bing has a very similar platform). But if you don’t know what you are doing, you can waste a lot of money with Google Ads. Considering the fact that I happen to be a professional who is certified by Google in AdWords campaign creation, management, and optimization, I suggest you leave it up to a pro to create and manage your Google Ads campaigns.
If the professional or agency you hire knows what they are doing, they will more than pay for themselves when it comes to returning on investment. For example, if your pro or agency charges you a fee of $1,500/mo to manage and optimize your AdWords campaigns, and they are doing things right, you should get much more than a $1,500/mo benefit from having hired them.
There are literally hundreds of different settings and features you can add or tweak for anyone Google Ads campaign. If you don’t get them all correct, you could waste or lose out on a lot of money each month. Hire a pro with proven results if you have the budget. If you don’t have the budget to hire a pro to manage your Google Ads campaigns, I recommend staying away from paid search advertising.
The other way to get on page 1 of Google and other search engines is the organic, or natural, method. These are the main results that show up below the ads or local map section on search engine results pages (see graphic above).
These results cannot be achieved by paying money to Google – they are achieved with careful and long-term optimization of many factors that Google uses when ranking relevancy. The practice of optimizing your web presence so that it shows up organically on Google is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Some of the most important factors that influence your rank on google first page are:
Quality and Length of Your Page Content – Your website’s pages should be full of unique and useful information that will benefit your ideal customer or client. The longer the better, as long as it is high quality. Strive to help your target audience by creating quality content that they will want to consume (like this article!).
Quality and Number of Inbound Links – If other sites are linking to yours, especially big important sites that have content relating to yours, then Google will rank your site higher. Third-party links to your website provide a “thumbs up” or vote of confidence that signals to Google that your content might be worth pushing higher up the SERP.
Mobile-Friendly Website – The majority of people are now using mobile phones to search for information on the web. Are your website pages mobile-friendly? Your site should be optimized for mobile devices and easy to navigate so users on any device can find what they need quickly and easily.
Page Speed – Your web pages should load fast on all devices. Slow-loading web pages could negatively affect your ranking on Google. Nobody likes to wait several seconds for any website to load. You can conduct a free page speed test here or use a tool like Gtmetrix to test your website page speed.
Keywords in Page Content – Obviously, if the keywords you are targeting actually appear on your site in the text and titles of the pages, you will rank better for those keywords. Don’t “keyword stuff”. That practice is outdated and will only hurt you now. Write your content for humans, but do keep Google in mind. Don’t use too many keywords. When in doubt, keep it natural sounding.
Authority of Domain Name – The longer you’ve owned the domain, the better. The more pages of quality content you have on your domain name, the better. Also, include keywords in your domain name if you can (although Google says this does not directly impact your rankings, it could help influence a user to click on your website vs a competitor’s).
Secure Pages – Your web pages should load via https so they are secure. Google, and regular humans, like to see secure pages, even if you’re not processing credit cards or obtaining personal information. In their Chrome browser, Google is now labeling all pages that load with an SSL as Not Secure. Don’t be one of these naughty sites…get an SSL installed by your web hosting company so that all your pages load securely.
URL Structure – “Pretty” URL’s are better (https://redstarsa.co.za/blog is better than https://redstarsa.co.za/index.php&id=54). If your page URL’s are human-readable, that’s a good thing.
Other Things You Should Do to Rank on Google First Page:
Google My Business
Claim and optimize your Google My Business listing, especially if you are a business that serves only your local community (like a bakery or plumber). Then, get as many positive reviews as you can. This will greatly increase your chances of showing up in the Local Map pack section above the first organic listing. This can be huge if you do it correctly!
Start a Blog
One of the single best things you can do to rank highly on Google is to start a blog and post articles regularly. If you’re not sure what to write about, think about the top 5 questions your customers ask you. Then write a thorough answer to each question – one blog post per question. Notice the title of this blog post?
Get a Few Quality Links
Partner with a non-profit in your local community and do a contest or giveaway. Maybe the local paper will pick up on it and give you some free PR (and a link to your website). Join your local Chamber of Commerce or BNI and get a listing on their website. Offer to write a guest article for the local paper or neighborhood magazine. They will often include a link to your website in your bio at the end of the article.
Create Citations
What is a citation you ask? A citation is a listing of your business on a local directory site. Go to sites like Yelp, Foursquare, YP.com, Angie’s List, etc and make sure your business listing shows up there and that the information is accurate. This helps create a robust link profile for your domain name and will send signals to Google that the information they find on your site can be trusted because it is found on other sites around the web.
You’re Never Done
Additionally, just because you rank well for one keyword or key phrase, does not mean you will rank on google first page for a similar keyword/phrase. And remember that Google is constantly updating its ranking algorithms so today’s rankings may not equal tomorrow’s rankings.
Expect to see your site move up and down in the rankings on a daily or weekly basis – it may even drop from the rankings altogether. This is why SEO should always be ongoing.
Remember, your competitors are likely following the same protocols as you are to rank on google first page. They are likely optimizing their web presence using the same methods you are using. Keep blogging and getting links. Improve the content you already have on your website. A lot of diligence and patience will prove to be worth it when you get that coveted spot at the top of Google page 1. Depending on your business, it could literally be worth millions of dollars in revenue. Something that value will never come easy.
When it comes to Internet Marketing, we cannot overstate all the amazing opportunities it has brought to entrepreneurs. Especially those that are just starting. The internet and the popularity of social media channels have created faster and more targeted ways to build brand awareness, generate leads, and grow your bottom-line.
However, all experienced marketers know that, despite its many advantages, there are certain marketing myths that need to be refuted. These are my top 6 expectations vs. reality examples:
Everyone is a marketer
If you need surgery, do you tell the surgeon that you “can just do it yourself?” Of course not. Same with internet marketing. It is one of those things that everyone believes they can do until they’ve thrown a lot of money down the drain.
Internet marketing experts know the very specific processes that need to be performed at a very high level to see positive ROI. You can write a copy – but can you write a copy that sells? Or target the right people? Or know when to change your strategy? There’s more to it than what the eye can see.
More traffic means more sales
Traffic is king to generate leads and grow your revenue. Intuitively, it makes sense: the more visitors your site gets, the more conversions you’ll have. But is this really true?
Not really. First of all, you don’t want traffic. You want targeted traffic. What’s the difference? Well, if you sell PlayStations, you want people interested in gaming, not in movies.
And don’t forget about your conversion rate. You can bring millions of viewers to your website, but if it’s ugly and slow, you won’t see money back.
Paid ads give you a better chance to turn a profit because it is a cheaper and more targeted way to promote your business. But everyone who guarantees positive ROI is lying.
You need to make sure you are creating ads that will convert AND showing them to the right audience. You should always be testing different ad versions and retargeting those that have interacted with them.
Have a universal message for all platforms
There are many different social media platforms, and all of them have different demographics. When you have a presence in more than one, you have to respect the platforms.
What does that mean?
Make sure you know what the audience in each platform wants. Snapchat’s 14 to 23-year-old users want a more juvenile and visual message than Twitter’s older and written-based audience. And they are all different from Facebook’s, or Instagram’s, or Pinterest’s, etc.
It is easy to come up with innovative ideas for your business.
Sometimes it can be difficult to find out the great ideas for your digital marketing campaign. One of the big facts is that you can’t get results overnight.
It’s important for your business to think outside the box. Innovative ideas with your marketing campaigns can attract new customers for your business.
It can be difficult to give time to get some innovative strategies while you are trying to establish or run your business. That’s why there are people who rely on a professional digital marketing company to study the market.
The reality is, you need to try and test and experiment, it is not necessary that you will always get an innovative idea and that idea will work.
Digital Marketing is all about experimenting
Digital marketing is “set it and forget it.”
Facebook/Instagram and PPC ads require constant monitoring of its campaigns. Audiences can get exhausted and make your CPM rise. Frequency, the number of times someone has seen your ad, can also increase. Maybe the ad that was working great last week then stopped performing.
Make sure you keep an eye on all your campaigns. You should periodically change your ad’s creative design and written copy. You can also try new ad ideas or even scale up the ones that are working.
These are my six main expectations vs. reality disconnects in digital marketing. Can you think of others?
