Showing posts with label branding tips. Show all posts

Blog Audit Challenge 2021

Welcome back for another month of challenges for the Blog Audit Challenge 2021! I hope you did well with the February challenges. Remember to link up your progress in the February Linky.

Each month we'll concentrate on a different area of our blogs.

The Challenges:

January- The Competition

February- Legal Aspects

March- Branding

April- Internal Links

May- External Links

June- SEO

July- Content Promotion

August- Technical Errors

September- Readability

October- Follow Options

November- Security

December- Know Your Stats

Monthly link ups

In order to keep us all on track, and give us a way to see each others progress, I'll be hosting link ups on the first Saturday of every month where participants can share their links and discuss their progress.

#BlogAuditChallenge2021

March Challenges

Our focus for March is on branding.

In the January challenges we looked at our unique selling point and what makes us stand out. This is the starting point for branding. It helps answer the question "Who are you and why should I care?"

As of 2021, there are more than 570 million blogs on the internet and 7 million blog posts are published every day (these numbers are constantly growing). - First Site Guide

This month we'll be working on strengthening our brands and making sure we stand out from the crowd.

I've written about the topic of branding in previous posts which you may find useful reading e.g. Branding: More Than a Logo

You might also like: The Ultimate Guide for Book Bloggers

The March challenges:

1. How do you want to be known?

Your brand and keywords should all be focused around your niche. Not only will this help you rank on search engines and improve your DA score, it will also make it clear to readers what your specialty is and what you are passionate about.

The style you use is also part of your branding. What's your personality? Are you a friendly, laid back person or do you keep it professional and polished? When building your own brand voice you need to take your own personality into consideration.

Task 1- Answer the following questions:

What is your blog niche?

What are 10 keywords (long and short) best suited to your brand?

What personality adjectives best describe you and your brand?

N.B. You can have more than one niche. I personally have books and blogging. I blog about each of them separately but also cross over between them for posts specific to book blogging.

2. Perfect your look

Design is obviously an important part of branding. In fact, studies have shown that 94% of the time, a visitors first impression is based on design and it only takes 50 milliseconds for that decision to be made.

Task 1 - Make sure your blog design fits your brand.

e.g. If you answered "Professional" in part one your blog design should be professional looking. A clear, clutter free design would be best for you.

Is it instantly clear what your blog is about? Think blog header, sidebar content, etc... When people visit your blog will they instantly know what your niche is? Do the titles of your blog posts convey your niche?

Task 2 - Make sure your blog graphics match your brand.

When someone sees graphics related to your blog they should instantly recognise it as your brand. The colour scheme, the fonts you use, etc... all make up part of your branding.

I personally use Canva for creating my blog graphics. It makes it super easy to be consistent in my branding across a wide range of formats. Having the templates set up is also a great time saver.

If you have a logo make sure it appears on all your blog graphics. If you don't have one, I suggest creating one. Even a simple text logo will work.

You might also like: Tips for a Successful Brand Photo Shoot

Don't forget to promote your participation in the Blog Audit Challenge 2021 by using the following graphic in any blog posts you do connected with the challenge along with a link back to this site.

Blog Audit Challenge 2021: A Challenge for Bloggers

Save the Date:

The monthly link up post for sharing your March progress will be on 3rd April. The April challenges will be posted on 2nd April.

You might also like: Ways To Write More Creative Book Reviews

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I relaunched this website in April 2019 with a brand new website design. Whilst I was planning for this I decided it was a good time to update by brand files and do some new brand photo shoots.

You might also like: Exploring CTA's: Different Types of Calls To Action To Use in Your Blog Posts

What is a branding photo shoot?

A branding photo session is a strategically planned photo shoot.

Why doing a brand photo shoot is a good idea

By doing a brand photo shoot it means you have a supply of professional looking, on brand, images you can use whenever you need one.

Pre-Photo Shoot

Do an audit of what kinds of shots you need and for what purpose. Where do you what to use the photo's? Do you need any specific shoots?
Select your outfit(s). What you wear gives an idea about your brand and personality. Do you want a smart, professional look? or is your brand more friendly and relaxed? What colours look best on you? What colours fit best with your branding?
Practice your poses. If you're not used to having your photo taken, or feel shy about getting in front of the camera it's a good idea to experiment with some poses beforehand.
Be well rested.

Behind the scenes of my brand photo shoot

For my brand photo shoot I decided I would do one photo shoot inside, and another outdoors.

I'm a frugal gal and, as I used to do modeling when I was younger, I opted to DIY my brand photo shoot with the help of my sons. If you don't have experience in photography or modeling, you might want to consider hiring a professional photographer to take the pictures for you.

Indoor Photo Shoot

The indoors photo shoot was the most simple to do as I could do it from home. All I needed was my smartphone and my tripod. It also meant that I had plenty of props handy, and outfit changes were easy.

It's a good idea to take a mix of close ups and some wider shoots.

The great thing about doing wider shoots is that it means you can create multiple images from the same photo.

This is the same photo from above just positioned differently. In this one I zoomed in closer and used the right side of the wider photo.

You can achieve even more options by adding different filters to the same photo.

Outdoor Photo Shoot

I'm lucky enough to live in Rome, Italy, and so have a wide variety of amazing backdrops to pick from for the location on my outdoors photo shoot. I decided on the Colosseum as it's probably the first landmark that comes to mind when thinking of Rome, or even Italy for that matter.

Having the landmark in the background immediately let's people know where I'm based.

I wanted some more neutral shoots too though. Luckily nearby there's a park with plenty of areas for taking photo's.

What made this photo shoot extra fun was that my photographers were my kids. I have a good idea of what kinds of angles work best, but I decided to let them tell me how to pose for some of the shoots. They also helped suggest places we could try shooting.

I came home with loads of photo's. Some from a distance, some up close. Not all were perfect shoots but they don't need to be.

Then there's the option of editing the photo's to get even more choices for my portfolio. For example, just changing the setting to black and white gives a different look and feel to a photo.

Each photo can also be sized and edited according to the purpose you want to use it for.

A few places your brand photos might show up:

Website
Blog posts
Social media
Sales pages
Newsletter
Online courses
business cards
e-books or or other digital products
guest blogs and features
podcast promos

Have you done a brand photo shoot? What locations did you use?

You might also like: 60 Blog Post Ideas For Book Bloggers

Need help building your brand and setting goals?

Book Your Virtual Coaching Session Now

Building Your Brand

If you remember, I did a rebranding in September this year. In this post I talked about why I decided to do a full makeover of my brand design. I also promised in that blog post that I would do some more blog posts on the topic of branding for you, so today we're taking a closer look at what branding is... and isn't.

You might also like: The Ultimate Guide for Book Bloggers

What does "branding" mean?

The Business Dictionary defines branding as:

The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers' mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers.

Branding is what makes people think of you. It's not just the visual, but we'll go into that in a minute.

More than a logo

Of course, your logo is part of your branding. It's your symbol, and is generally placed on your marketing material. A logo doesn't have to be complicated or even have an image. In fact, a simple text logo can actually be better.

For my new logo I decided to go with simple text. Depending on the logo you choose you might want to have an alternative logo too. For example I have two.

Logo:

Alternative logo:

The alternative logo is just a simplified version of the logo. This is in case I need a transparent version to use (without the background colouring).

Colour scheme

Whilst your logo is something people will immediately identify with your brand, your colour scheme also plays a role.

This is my main colour palette for my brand:

Using the same colours helps people identify your brand, and gives consistency.

Fonts

I use BEBAS NEUE, Aileron Thin, and Verdana as my main text fonts. Using the same fonts across the board is also a visual part of your branding. Again consistency.

What about the non visual part?

This is the most important part of your brand. This is what people think of when they think of you. What words do people use to describe you, and therefore ultimately, your brand?

What personality adjectives describe you?

adaptable, adorable, agreeable, alert, alluring, ambitious, amusing, boundless, brave, bright, calm, capable, charming, cheerful, coherent, confident, cooperative, courageous, credible,cultured,dashing, dazzling, debonair, decisive, decorous, delightful, determined, diligent, discreet, dynamic, eager, efficient, enchanting, encouraging, enduring, energetic, entertaining, enthusiastic, excellent, excitable, exuberant, fabulous, fair, faithful, fantastic, fearless, frank, friendly, funny, generous, gentle, good, happy, harmonious, helpful, hilarious, honorable, impartial, industrious, instinctive, jolly, joyous, kind, kind-hearted, knowledgeable, likable, lively, lovely, loving, lucky, mature, modern, nice, obedient, painstaking, peaceful, perfect, placid, plausible, pleasant, plucky, productive, protective, proud, punctual, quiet, receptive, reflective, relieved, resolute, responsible, righteous, romantic, sedate, selective, self-assured, sensitive, shrewd, silly, sincere, skillful, splendid, steadfast, stimulating, talented, thoughtful, thrifty, tough, trustworthy, unbiased, unusual, upbeat, vigorous, vivacious, warm, willing, wise, witty, wonderful, zany, zealous.

So when you're thinking about your branding make sure you take into consideration all the above elements to ensure a professional look, and most importantly, more effective branding.

In this post we've looked at branding in general. This is the basic stuff that you can use on your website, blog, marketing materials, etc...

For the authors amongst you, branding can be used for your books too. Maybe you use the same fonts on all your book covers, or a certain style, or elements. For example, author Nicholas Sparks often has an image of a couple almost kissing on his romance covers. Again, using the same fonts across your books can help brand them. I'm happy to change the fonts on any of my available premade book cover designs should you require it. As well as my premades, I also offer custom cover designs too, and so can definitely help you brand your books.

You might also like: Tips for a Successful Brand Photo Shoot

How would you describe your brand? Do you have consistent visual branding? Let me know in the comments below. Also feel free to ask questions. I love a good discussion 😉