Do you know that before 20 years, no term called a “Blog” existed? And what if I say that today, there are more than 150 million blogs available across the globe? All credit goes to a widely adopted content management system – WORDPRESS.

Well, that’s the reality! WordPress has changed the way people were thinking about the concept of blogging.

Today, blogging is no more an optional stuff, but it is more of a “NECESSITY” to bring the power of online media for your benefit! As a business owner who has managed to establish a successful business, it is all because of WordPress blog. The B2B companies having blogs are leveraging 67% more leads from their ruthless competitors who are not having any blogs. The reason behind this is because today many adult online users read blogs and get influenced by it.

The blogs not only brings more clients and traffic to your business, but it also boosts up your online visibility and brand value. When we talk about brand value, it is a core entity for any business or individual trying to establish a good repo online in front of a target audience. The online brand is one of the crucial assets for you as it is connected with the quality, trust, and efficiency of your business.

Many of you might be spending money on the branding of your blog to establish strong footprints online. However, the hard part is time-by-time your readers are evolving. They like something new every time they visit your blog and serving the same old stuff all the time will not work. And thus, you’ve to work-out on your branding strategies too!

Do you think your branding strategies are not helping you generate enough leads from your blog? Do you feel branding of your blog is hurting its authenticity, credibility, and likeability over the time? Well, if the answer is yes, then it is time for you to give a thought to your branding strategies and see if you’re implementing the below-mentioned blog branding mantra’s or not.

Shakespeare said “What is in a name?” but trust me NAME is everything when it comes to branding of your blog.

One of the most crucial pieces of your branding strategy is the name and tagline of your blog. The name of your blog is something which readers will refer when they discuss it. Don’t give a hard time to your audience with difficult jargons or words within your blog name. If you don’t know how to bring something unique, then ask yourself a few questions:

• Do I really like the name of my blog?
• Will it ever encourage me to click on blog having this name?
• Does the name chosen reflect what my blog is all about?

Ask yourself these 3 simple questions to figure out about the blog name. And if it goes well, then in parallel give a thought about a catchy tagline for your blog too. However, focus on providing a high-level view of what your blog includes via tagline instead of getting fussy about adding something crazy.

1. Oops, I forgot about my target audience!!!

Okay, you’re done with catchy name and tagline, but what if you neglect your target audience? Well, branding of your blog doesn’t include the only design or usability changes, but it should also focus on your target audience too.

Branding of your blog should not distract you from your ultimate goal, which is to bring target audience to your blog. If you feel your blog is not echoing your message to your target audience first, then it is time for you to show them that you do care about them by providing enough reasons to visit your blog daily.

Feature your frequent readers or visitors on your blog, reach out them and shout-out their names as and when required to show them how attentive you’re for your loyal audiences. Launch various online promotional events and try to talk with your audience, instead of force-feeding them.

2. Get the BASICS corrected…

• Logo, badges, widgets and more…

  There is no denying that WordPress brings a lot of appealing themes, which will surely get you refreshing look at your blog. But there are a lot of additional things you’ve to take care of, including logo, badges, widgets etc.

  Of course, you might have read a lot about how to use a logo and how to design a perfect logo that effects the overall branding of your WordPress blog. But did anyone tell you that logo is not a mixture of a few symbols and some design that you are trying to force on your blog? You can easily hire someone who can design a logo for you, but do you think it serves the purpose?

  Remember, not all the symbols and logos designed can help you convey your message. Ensure that the logo you select contains a power of storytelling, interacts with people and doesn’t conflict idea of your blog. You can also leverage from badges and customized widgets available in the market to give add-on to your branding efforts.

• Hold on!!! What about colors, graphics, typeface and other media format?

  In continuation of the above point, color combination, graphics, typeface etc. are also considered as the basic pillars of establishing strong branding impact of your blog. Of course, you are not an artist, but you cannot ignore the significance of color palette on your blog. Instead of getting multi-colored, try to go for a minimalistic approach and select combination of 2 colors for your blog.

  Maybe you’re linking your blog to the business. If it is the case, your blog serves as an EXTENSION of your business and thus, you have to stretch-out your business branding to your blog as well.

  In addition to color and graphics, you also have to be a little choosy for fonts and its size as it says a lot about your brand. Do you know all machines don’t have capabilities to read all the fonts you select? If no, then don’t go crazy with typeface and avoid using multiple typefaces just to show how creative you are!

3. Always welcome comments and respond to them!

Do you respond the comments received on your blog posts regularly, no matter how rude the readers are? Well, if not, then start doing it from today itself. Today, we’re easily connected in this small world and quicker communication can really make a difference among your blog readers, no matter how short it is.

If you delay in responding their comments or even ignore, then it will piss them off easily. Responding to comments received on your blog posts in the appropriate and timely manner is a good practice to slowly build brand value among the visitors.

4. Be responsive, not only for comments, but for the devices too!

We’re now in 2018 and still, if your blog doesn’t work or look good in handy devices, you’re upsetting Google and spoiling your repo in the front of your loyal blog visitors! Today, more than 60% searches are via mobile devices, so if you don’t go responsive you will lose the visitors as you are making their browsing experience awful.

If you’re not responsive yet, don’t worry! These days you can find plenty of WordPress blog themes at affordable rates from popular sites like Creative Market and so on.

Maybe you were bunking school or college, but don’t you ever skip posting relevant contents on your blog!!!

Well, we all have that child who was skipping lectures or colleges. But when we talk about the branding of your blog, if you fail to post on regular intervals, then you will surely lose a major chunk of your readers.

Okay, we’ve discussed how you can boost up your blog’s brand identity in the market by implying a few simple suggestions within your branding strategy. By this time you know what you should do to rev up your online brand, but do you know that there a few things, which if you don’t take care can ruin your blog?

In conjunction with the above points, you should also know the blunders to avoid while using WordPress blog and improve brand identity. Just follow a few handy “Don’ts” as discussed below:

• Don’t make things too much complicated for your visitors!!!

  You’re excited about your new WordPress blog and wish to add as much glamour as you can. But have you ever thought from the end-user perspective? You feel adding plenty of widgets and badges to your blog to make the most out of WordPress, but it will at the end complicate the things for the target audience or visitors.

  Instead of going wild on designing and technical part, go for simplicity while maintaining easy navigation for the visitors.

• Don’t go mad at variety and post un-relevant contents.

  When you’re busting on the branding of your blog, you’re conveying something to your audience. What if you’re working on a mathematical problem and suddenly you’ve given an essay to write on current affairs? Isn’t it totally weird? The same goes for your blog brand as well. If you’re into a science or research, posting celeb or page three stories will not make a sense to your audience!

• Don’t get greedy for sale, instead be informative!

  Of course, you are making efforts behind the branding of your blog to get more users. More visitors mean more traffic and more traffic means more ads on your blog. You’re going to make good money from ads, but don’t get greedy for it. Your motive behind a blog is not just money or more visitors, but the soul of your blog is to share something useful and informative to the readers.

  If visitors feel that you’re too much into business instead of providing informative content, they will feel less respectful and will leave your blog on the go! So don’t get greedy over it.

• You don’t utilize whatever is available with you!

  Most of the people think that branding of the blog is all about making a flashy web page and posting contents only. Of course, it does matter, but what about the social media and other online channels available to you? Have you tried to utilize the full power of online channels and resources available to you? If no, then go on fire with email campaigns, social media platforms and so on.

• Last but not the least; don’t overlook the power of WORDPRESS!!!

  Well, you’re doing quite well to improve the online brand identity of a blog by posting contents regularly, revamping the design of your blog, posting on social media, and more. But little later, you have to take your blogging skills to the next level and this is possible using WordPress only!!!

  Widgets, plug-ins, social proofs, comment management, promotion strategies, and so on. These advancements let you open up new doors of opportunity to let your blog become more mature over the period of time.

Final Verdict…

Establishing a strong brand impact is not an overnight journey. You’ve to start from the basics and go for a thoughtful strategy covering not only things to do but also covers grey areas of blogging platforms and branding.

We’ve tried to cover the things that every WordPress blogger should keep in mind while defining branding strategies to achieve a jaw-dropping success. How many of you have followed any of these branding mantras? Do you’ve any bad experiences while tuning up your brand value? Do share your experiences with us in a comment section below…