What’s in a name? A lot, if you plan to do business on the internet and want to generate traffic and link power to your website or blog.
If you’re looking to create a new business or rebrand an existing one, you can’t underestimate the power of keywords, keyword phrases, color, and your web presence, when naming and qualifying your organization.
Most businesses do not have the resources of a large corporation or well-funded start-up to spend the thousands, if not millions of dollars it takes to establish a unique and recognizable brand and image. You can take a picture like GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons did when he gambled the farm (and his ad budget) on a Super Bowl commercial that propelled his company from a virtually unknown entity to a market leader in Internet and domain hosting. and a household name.
If you’re just starting out and looking to take an idea or vision and turn it into a business that you want to successfully market online, consider these five simple but essential guidelines as you develop a name, brand, and image for your business. company.
Essential 1 – Keywords make the name
Be sure to identify and use keywords in your business name that best describe your core business and have high internet search value. This may require some research and effort, but you need to know which words are the most powerful when marketing on the web.
You can get very sophisticated in your search and analysis, or you can just go and use the Google Keyword Tool and type in the words that best describe your business and see what words people use when searching for what you are going to market to. Remember, what you call your product or service and what a customer or search engine calls it can be two very different things.
A simple example of the power of a single keyword is the difference between the words “plan” and “program.” Let’s say I started a website marketing a new diet I’ve developed and I want to name my new business y A simple example of the power of a keyword is that people will search for the term “diet plan” 550,000 times a month on average, but they will search for the keyword phrase “diet program” 165,000 times a month. “Bill’s Diet Plan” on “Bill’s Diet Program”.
Now this is an oversimplified example, but you need to understand the power and potential of the keywords you use in every facet of your business, including your company name. Many search engine spiders (it’s documented and sometimes only speculated by experts) give more authority to the company and website name when indexing sites and listing them in keyword searches.
Essential 2 – Own your domain name
There is nothing worse for any entrepreneur than developing a product or service, creating a plan; spend the time and money to form a business, and register it with the state only to find out that someone else owns the domain name for your new business. It happens all the time.
Never settle for a name, register a business, or start building a web presence without first controlling the domain around which you will build your business. That is essential. You can buy a variety of domain names, but always strive to own your business name.
You can easily go to GoDaddy as we mentioned above, or a variety of domain name registration sites and see what’s taken and what’s available. This is also why your initial keyword research is so important, to identify and register a domain and business name that will help drive traffic to your site.
Essential 3 – The power of the slogan
Never underestimate the power of a tagline to reinforce the core of your business, as well as add keyword energy that can help you differentiate yourself in a search. Your tagline is your catchphrase, theme and mantra wrapped up in a few select words. You want it to be simple, concise, and keyword-rich.
I’m not talking about a mission statement. I’m talking about 7-10 words that describe your business. An effective tagline is critical to search as it should contain the keywords you want to be known for and found for.
Take my diet plan example. A tagline could be “A diet plan that is transforming bodies and changing lives.” Now, from this tagline, I have a statement that uses my key phrase “diet plan” and gives a very clear picture of what my diet can do. I would definitely test and research my other two keyword phrases “transforming bodies and “changing lives” to see if there are more popular keyword phrases that keep the theme of my tagline, but have higher search value.
Essential 4 – Color your world, but not too much
This section is literally the blind trying to lead the seeing as I’m not good with colors and completely color blind when it comes to certain colors. My wife and kids have a picnic with me some mornings when I show up in the kitchen wearing one black sock and one blue sock with my suit.
Color can be a great tool or a great pain. When considering colors for your brand, logo, and website, consider who your target customer is, the region of the world you trade in, and finally, keep the phrase “less is more” in mind.
First, check out other websites and products aimed at a similar demographic or age group. Large companies spend thousands of dollars on market research and testing to see what colors, themes, layouts, and images work best for specific target markets. Why reinvent the wheel, use what works for others, and add your style and theme to it?
Next, find out where in the world you are trading. Certain colors can have very positive or very negative responses in different regions of the world. Some regions respond to bright colors, while others do not. If you’re selling outside of the US, do some research and check out websites based on those regions to get an idea of what’s popular and what’s not.
Finally, “less is more”. The more colors you use in your company logo, website, and theme, the more complicated and expensive it will make it for you. It costs more money each time you add a color to print a marketing piece or company letterhead, so keep this in mind.
Remember that not all monitors display the same colors and what people see on a website is not what can be printed. Consider how everything will look in black and white when developing your website, branding, and logo. If you create something that encourages people to print, make sure the text is displayed.
Essential 5: Your logo can say a lot
An effective logo can help you establish your brand, and a bad logo can send the wrong message and turn a prospect off faster than a light switch.
Logos, like color, don’t need to be overly complicated to be effective. You can easily outsource the logo design. there are hundreds of graphic artists on the web that will do a good job for $100. Be sure to be specific to what you want, how many colors, and the theme of your logo.
When designing a logo, make sure you get high-resolution images you can work with and the specific RGB, Pantone, or CMYK color codes used so you can mix and match them to see how it will look on your website.
When you are designing or considering a logo design, consider three things:
- Relevance to your brand and business image
- simple is better
- no more than 2 colors
If you’re a financial planner starting your own business with a passion for Harley Davidson and weekend biking, that doesn’t mean you should develop a Harley font logo, a similar symbol, or an image of a motorcycle in your logo. . You may think it’s funny, but I’ve seen stuff like this. You should consider your goal, not yourself when developing a logo and brand. I’m not sure how big the financial planning market is for Harley enthusiasts, but you would be limiting your market and creating a brand image that is out of sync with your business.
The bottom line is that your vision will only go as far as your planning takes it, and that one name means more than ever in this competitive marketplace. Take the time and plan, it will make a big difference.
