You may be ready to take your business to the next level, and you need to create a brand that reflects your prestige. Perhaps you may have just started a business and want to start branding from the beginning to avoid unnecessary missteps. Better yet, your business may be headed in a new direction, and now is the time to redefine your messages. Whatever led you to this aha moment, you know that you need to start building a brand and/or rebrand … Now it is just a matter of identifying the right time to brand or rebrand your business for client attraction!
When Is Ideal?
The best time to build a brand … is from the very beginning of your business formation! Now, I am not talking about investing large funds and time into creating a pretty website and logo. As much as I love the creative process involved in both items, your creatives are not going to launch and/or sustain your business. You need to go beyond brand elements to defining your brand message, essence, and overall value … in the eyes of your right audience, not just any and everyone!
Why The Need?
If you want to create a profitable business … your audience needs to know that you exist. Even if you are able to get clients, you do not want one-offs, and you do not want to continuously chase clients. Oh, no! When you build a brand, you are making an effort to build a community. Keyword: community. You want to forge an ongoing relationship with your tribe/fan base/friend group/biz besties/repeat customers who will advocate for you. This is how successful businesses work and thrive. So, once again, when is the right time to brand your biz? if you’re in business for the immediate gains as well as the long-term game: build a brand … today!
What To Do?
If you need assistance with building your brand, let’s talk about it in detail and see if we’re a fit for working together.
You have absolutely no time for superficial interactions and yet another social media platform. You just want to work on your client work and do business. However, here comes Instagram adding another feature, and not only that, everyone you know is popping up and jumping on the latest and greatest. Yes, I am referring to Instagram TV and its stories. While at this moment, Instagram is unveiling its own TV platform to rival YouTube (another social media shift), Instagram Stories is still embraced by many people, especially as the masses are still fleeing from Snapchat.
Now how does that relate to business?
Well, there are several ways in which you can use Instagram and its stories to further build your brand. In this latest video, I give a tutorial on how to use Instagram Stories for branding your business.
During this tutorial, I introduce you to all of IG’s features and how to utilize them for brand building. While it is easy to get lost in creating pretty pictures (especially as a creative). Just don’t lose focus on your underlining strategy for branding! You can wield these tools to let your potential and current clients get a better feel of the brand experience.
Still questioning how? Tune into this latest video.
If you’re a small business owner, chances are you’re also the marketer, financial manager, designer, web manager, juggler, and fire-breather–all rolled up in one!
As discussed in the video above, the biggest issue for soloprenuers is being the end all be all. However, there’s only so much you can do in 24 hours, not counting the actually delivery of your products. In my interview with @TonyLBrownHQ from TonyLBrown.com, he outlines actionable tips that you can use to systemize your business for success.
Previously, we discussed the difference between systemization and automation. In that discussion, Tony emphasized the importance of having a personal touch in your automated processes. I’m pigging back on this to stress that your communications should be RAW BRANDED™. Even though someone else may be stepping into your shoes to help spread your messages, that message should be authentic to you and your brand. It shouldn’t appear as if you are being cast by a robot.
In this video, Tony L. Brown credits fellow entrepreneur and digital superpro Chris Ducker with outlining the items that you should be outsourcing. This includes: what you can’t do, what you don’t like doing, and what you should have been doing. If you have any of these items taking up the majority of your to-dos, it’s time to seek some help. You can do so by delegating tasks to a virtual assistant. Yes, it’s time to let go and put your trust in someone else. However, this will not be a scary feat if you lay out your systems.
Tony advises business owners to develop a staffing structure then recruit for the roles you have in mind. By creating a framework, your VAs will understand how to deliver services to your standards. Don’t get trapped by your creation. Systemize your business for success and for sanity!
Are you systemizing your business operations? Drop a comment below.
If you already have a blog or website set up for your brand–kudos to you! That was your first milestone. Now, how is your site performing? Do you have visitors, or is your website more like a no man’s land? Sometimes it’s not enough just to build it in order for them to come. You also need to pull people into your site. One way to do this is by implementing keyword strategies. Don’t turn around and walk away! I know this one often sends content creators running. With the help of @dantegd76, I’ll give you bare bones, simple, and actionable SEO tips for your blog that can make a big difference on its performance.
Tip #1 – Utilize keywords.
You will be ranked by search engines according to your keywords’ relevance, so make sure that you select keywords that pertain to your blog topic. This will require some research. One simple way to do this is to start typing the first few words in Google. You’ll notice that Google will list similar long tail keywords (longer strings of words) in which site visitors frequently type into search engines. The longer the keyword, the more you’ll be able to niche down on your topic. There is a whole science that involves the popularity and competitiveness of keywords and data mining. However, looking at Google’s keyword autocomplete api is one way to quickly and easily identify what people are searching for. Furthermore, you’ll be able to find your list of competitors, based on the search results.
Tip #2 – Make sure keywords are included in your blog title.
The tech term for this is your H1 tag. In the HyperText Markup Language (HTML) coding world <h1> is your most important heading. Your H2 tag is second in priority to your H1 tag, followed by H3 tag and onward tags. Your H1 tag is visually the larger, pronounced text on your page and most likely (but not necessarily) your page title. A single H1 tag is needed to clarify what is most relevant on your webpage. For instance, this webpage’s H1 tag is <h1>actionable seo tips for you blog</h1>. If you’re using WordPress, there are several plugins you can use to simply type these keywords into your H1 field. The most important thing is to be consistent with the keywords you select for your page title and h1 tag.
Tip#3 – Include your keywords in the first paragraph of your page.
This will enable search bots to understand that your content is actually pertaining to the your topic. It must all appear seamless. Once upon a time, not long ago, digital marketers were abusing this tactic in order to quickly and easily rank in search. However, with the release of Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, bots got smarter and caught on to these “black hat” tricks. Many a sites have been banished by Google as a result. Use your keywords sparingly to avoid punishment!
Tip #4 – Have sizeable content.
The ideal length of blog posts are often debated. A good rule of thumb is to have at least 500 words in your post. Now, I have been known to break this rule myself. In my previous blogging life, I would write posts that were worthy of book chapters. I’ve since scaled back and often push myself to add more words! Bottom line, your blog post needs to have rich content. In the past, cyber sneaks would throw up sites plastered with ads and rank them for keywords in order to make big bucks. Are you old enough to remember those annoying sites? If not, just note that this why content is more important than ever. Your webpage needs to address the topic outlined in your title and H1 tag. Yes, Google bots are watching!
Tip #5 – Include meta tags.
Once again, this involves HTML. Meta elements outline your page description, author, attribute, and keywords (yes again). Your <meta> tags don’t appear on the page itself. They are usually located in the “head” section of your website’s code. You may notice meta descriptions are sometimes displayed in Google’s search results. While meta attributes tell robots whether or not they should follow the links on a page and index/display the page in search results. If you want to get techy with it, you can play around with the meta tags in your HTML … just don’t blow up your website! My advice is to download a nifty SEO plugin in which you can simply populate these fields and have them automatically display in your website’s coding.
That wasn’t so painful, now was it? These actionable SEO tips should increase the likelihood that your blog or website will turn up in searches. At the very least, search engines will have a better chance of crawling your website.
If you are ready to take a deeper dive into SEO strategies, sign up for my RAW BRANDED® Courses, where I will show you the step-by-step process of creating a website and optimizing it for search engines.
I hosted a Blab on identifying and connecting with your target audience. Several, savvy business experts joined to lend some insight into their marketing strategies. Thank you to the approximately 257 live viewers! Here are a few key takeaways:
1. Niching down is essential.
2. Go where your audience resides.
3. If you build it, sometimes they really do come.
4. When getting to the next level of your biz, it’s okay to seek help.
5. As an entrepreneur, you must learn to embrace fear … It may mean that you’re on the cusp of something good!
Guess what else we learned? Blogging is not dead! Watch as two bloggers who are killing it give a taste of their secret sauce.
You can view all the comments and get a better sense of this interface by visiting my blab page.
I share five tips to help your target audience care about your brand. One of my essential tips is to make sure that you have a solid product. Without this ingredient, all of your marketing efforts will be in vain. Watch as I explain this further … and please take notes. Class is in session! If you’re still trying to identify your target audience, check out my previous post.
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