Your website is the extension of your brand. It is the most visually comprehensive part of your brand and has the potential to be the most engaging too. The most successful brands out there treat their websites as more than their digital stores. Their websites carry their brand DNA and create more engaging and fulfilling customer experiences.
To create a website like that, where the audiences can see your brand in action, we have come up with 8 interesting ideas that you should try. They are easy to implement and can strongly affect conversions. The best bit: they are easy enough to try yourself – nothing too technical.
Introduce yourself
Gone are the days of content-heavy home pages. Today, if you want to make a mark for your brand through your website, keep it short and sweet.
First off, introduce yourself; who you are, what you do, and how it’s making people’s lives easier. Get it done in three steps or less. Go to any SaaS website right now and you’ll see this in practice. Other major websites from various lifestyle as well as science and technology brands also employ this practice.
On one hand, it allows you to impart important information to the audience. On the other, the directness makes for an impactful impression which your audience won’t soon forget.
Sneak in your brand mark
Websites are visual. If you are a brand that deals heavily in images – a photography brand or a travel blog, etc. – this idea is especially useful for you.
To protect your images from duplication and to add a layer of brand recognition to them, use a watermark. But keep it sneaky. Most brands use their entire logos to watermark their images. But it can make the images look cluttered and the practice immature. What you should do instead is to make your business logo symbol your official watermark.
Then instead of using the whole logo, you can only use its icon and insert it into your photography as a subtle but definitive branding tool.
Make a theme out of the images
Expanding a bit on the subjects of images, you need to tell a story through them. All the popular branding websites use consistent and cohesive imagery on their sites to tell what their brand is all about. Nike and Reebok use athletes and movement in their photography to show their brand character. The imagery on Apple’s website is bold and strong. Instead of displaying the complete phone, we are asked to focus on the iPhone’s next-level camera, its sleek body, and side panels. McDonald’s website is in its signature mustard yellow with burgers featuring front and center.
This thematic imagery allows the brand’s core feature to leap out and bind to people’s memory. Consistency will be the key here. You cannot post a picture of a girl in a meadow one day and in a grunge costume the next and call it a theme. These are two entirely different styles and must be supported by some strong background story.
Related: Winning Design Tips for Business and Marketing
Make them hear you
So, this is an aspect that many small businesses leave behind when they are creating branded websites. Everyone gets stuck at the visuals. While visuals are important – we have dedicated two entire points to them – they aren’t everything. How you speak to your customers and how your customers recognize you through your voice is equally important.
To ensure consistency in your brand tone and voice, make sure your communications are always on-brand. Think of Wendy’s on Twitter. The brand is known for its wit there, with sharp and saucy comebacks. Then we have Coca-Cola. it uses a friendly and casual voice that’s always welcoming and relaxed.
When you create your branded website, make sure your web copy is completely on-brand. Are you flirty and sexy? Champion of green causes? Have great wit and known for banter? Let it come through your communications and make your customers ‘hear’ you whenever you have something to say.
Related: Ways to Identify, Qualify and Convert Your Website Leads
Add video
We all love videos. They tell a story, are more engaging, more interesting, and unlike long articles, require very little work from our end. We love them so much that one-third of our online activity consists of us watching online videos.
Brands know this and have started embedding videos on their websites. These websites can be how-to tutorials, helping your clients get the hang of what your services are. These can also be marketing-oriented – showing off your new collection in a more engaging way. You can also use videos to introduce yourself, display your expertise, educate your clients, entertain them, and hook them for more.
Related: 6 Types of B2B Marketing Videos that Your Business Needs in 2022
Start blogging
Brands that have loyal followings are the ones that have been able to convince their consumers that they have something of value to offer. Value is that extra something that a consumer gets when they buy a product.
A blog is that extra something to a brand.
To become a brand that people follow, you have to become more than a tradesperson. You have to become an expert – and a blog can help you there. It allows you to create helpful, informative, and entertaining content. It lets the background come to the forefront of your brand and elevates it to the next level. And don’t worry, to create a lively blog, you don’t have to post every day. A couple of times a week is fine. Just pay attention to quality. That’s where everyone comes to do business.
Related: Essential Components of a Lead-generating Website
Pay attention to the little things (copyright date, contact information)
Only the most detail-oriented brands do it. What are a few things that a customer needs from every business? A way to get in touch with them, someone to talk to if the need arises, and the most recent information available. Regardless of your industry, these requirements remain constant.
If your branded website is always updated – including the copyright date at the bottom of the footer – then you are doing the branding right. Also, display contact information right there on the menu and make sure it is visible on every page – make yourself accessible. Use a customer services chatbot and help your clients get answers to their most immediate queries in the easiest and quickest way possible.
When you pay attention to these little things, you emerge as a brand that is top of it all. In complete control of its affairs. And that’s really attractive.
Related: What is Conversion Rate Optimization and Why Your Website Needs It
Give back to the community
Do not be THAT brand. That greedy company that only cares about its bottom line. To do the right thing, AND to endear yourself to your consumers, create a brand character that is part of the community. Include yourself in social causes that are authentic to your brand and help your community grow and prosper. Customers LOVE a brand that gives back to the people. Create shopping events where a part of your proceeds go to a local charity. Display on your website the non-profits that you support. Create a reward points system where customers can use their accumulated rewards to help the less privileged and add to social sustainability.
That’s it for today
While there are tons of unique and interesting ways you can incorporate your brand identity in the things you do, our discussion for today concludes here. Do employ these practices into your branding and see which one (or more) worked the best for you.
Till we meet again.
