Why You Should Brand Your Blog

If you haven’t heard it by now, I’m here to tell you:  brand your blog.  These days, with blogging being more of a business, rather than a hobby, its more important than ever for your blog to represent you in the best and most professional way.  This is especially important if you plan on monetizing or already do so.  When your blog is branded, it shows Brands and potential sponsors that not only are you professional, but that you take blogging seriously and that your blog is a place whether you can effectively promote their product.

Think of a grocery store, a place that houses many brands, has to be able to appeal to the average person to shop there.  Your blog is very similar to this, in the respect that Brands need to know that your blog will be appealing enough to readers to market their product.  If you don’t have a consistent color scheme, clean design layout, and overall you site is all over the place, I can bet you that those opportunities to monetize will be few and far between for you, as opposed to some who has a nicely branded blog.

[Tweet “Brands need to know that your blog will be appealing enough to readers to market their product.”]

Here’s a few questions to ask yourself when it comes to assessing your site:

1. What feelings and emotions does your site convey?

2. Do readers/visitors get an accurate sense of who you are when they visit your site?

3. Is the overall look of your site consistent and neat?

4. Are the design elements on your blog adding to the overall aesthetic of your site?

5. Does your design detract from the content or product on your site.

Your brand should be more than just the design layout, color scheme, and header/logo.  It needs to represent the content, product, or service that you offer in an unmistakable way.  People should able to recognize content from your site on social media and in print as well.  The entire purpose of your brand is to make you recognizable and memorable.  The most successful brands are the ones that resonate with people, and that they can recognize at the drop of a hat.

[Tweet “The most successful brands are the ones that resonate with people. “]

Here’s a few examples of brands that do this:

1. Apple

2. McDonald’s

3. Kraft

4. Chevrolet/Ford

5. NBA/NFL

As you may have noticed, all of the brands are from different industries, but right off the bat you could picture them in your head.  Not only could you probably picture the logo, but the product, event, or service they offer.  Moreover, you also probably remembered a time where you used, eat, road in, or went to one of these places.  The common thread:  they are resonate and make connections with you, the consumer.  Your readers are your consumers.  Its the traffic they bring and engagement you have with them that makes you site successful.

[Tweet “Your readers are your consumers. Its the traffic they bring and engagement you have with them that makes you site successful.”]

When your brand is professional, consistent, and clean, it will not only attract brands and more opportunities to monetize, but it will in turn attract more readers as well.  People love to look at beautiful things, and when they can see you’ve taken the time out to make your site just that they will love you for it.  I can speak to both scenarios from personal experience, in that when I visit a site I automatically look to get a feel on the individual whose site it is by looking at their branding.  I know almost immediately if the person is organized, professional, and has taken the time to maintain an aesthetically pleading site.  This also alludes many times to how good the content of the site is.  The two go hand in hand, since you need both to make site work.

[Tweet “When your brand is professional, consistent, and clean, it will not only attract brands and more opportunities to monetize, but it will in turn attract more readers as well. “]

For me, good branding also makes the difference as to whether I add someone to my Feedly or Bloglovin or follow them on social media.  Additionally, your social media needs to match the branding of your site, because your branding doesn’t stop there.  I’ll be discussing the importance of branding your social media platforms in a follow up post in this series, but in the meantime think also about what your various social media platforms look like and convey? – Are they consistent across the platforms?  Do they accurately represent you? Would you follow yourself if you ran across your social media profiles or pages?

[Tweet “Your social media needs to match the branding of your site, because your branding doesn’t stop there!”]

There will also be a free social media branding worksheet that will coincide with the post, so make sure you stay tuned for when that post goes live.

Feeling like you might need to do an assessment of your brand?  I’m here to help you get on the right track, I have a free worksheet that will help you assess and define your brand.  Get it below!

Need help with assessing and defining your branding?  I’m available and ready to help you!  Drop me a line for more details and to get started: hello@blissandfaith.com.

[Tweet “Need help with your branding? @blissandfaith ready and would love to help you!”]