Businesses need to develop a comprehensive approach to web design. Web design isn’t just about aesthetics anymore. There’s a lot more going on.

For instance, web design must incorporate other aspects such as inbound marketing.

Hiring different agencies to handle individual requirements only results in failure to achieve cohesion and in turn, failure to achieve goals.

Content is just as important

The whole purpose of a website is to draw in more visitors. Now, just design can be quite helpful in achieving this objective. In fact, studies show that many users actually judge websites based on how they appear. For instance, it has been found that sites with too many pop-up ads, slow page load times, illegible text, or simply, a dull design don’t do too well in terms of attracting users.

But, the problem doesn’t end there. Content is something that users look at as well. A website must boast high-quality content, apart from a nice appearance.

Focus on identity

When designing, it’s obvious that you need to choose elements that make your site presentable. For instance, let’s look at color. Choosing the right color goes a long way in making your site design more palatable.

In fact, the right color does more than that. It can even evoke certain emotions. If you find that hard to believe, just Google “Color Psychology”. Color Psychology is an actual field that aims to study the impact that colors can have on a person’s emotions and thoughts.

For example, the color red is known to increase respiration, pulse, and blood pressure. As a result, it is often associated with energy, passion, danger, and excitement. Why do you think Ferrari chooses red as the default color?

The point we are trying to make is that your brand obviously has its signature colors. If you don’t, it’s time you settled on finding a color (or colors) that work for your brand; colors that can communicate what your brand is all about.

Colors play a key role in your brand identity and it’s important that your website reflects this fact. Why? Well, Google’s search algorithms factor in color and websites are, after all, an extension of your brand. So, your website needs to use the same colors.

This is true for all your design elements from logos to even images. Even your content and font choice should be consistent with what you’re using outside of your digital marketing channels.

Conversion

Not too long ago, it was assumed that web design had very little to do with conversion. However, that has been proven wrong. It is now an agreed-upon fact that web design has a direct role to play in boosting conversion rates.

More specifically, there are 3 key design elements that need to be taken into consideration here – the color scheme, the call-to-action, and navigation.

As mentioned earlier, color has a profound impact on a person’s emotions and thoughts. You can, in fact, leverage color to convince visitors about visiting a particular link or page. Your navigation needs to be outstanding if you want the customer to know where to go and what to click. Finally, your call-to-action must be noticeable and persuasive. There are A/B testing methods to determine where the CTA is best positioned.

Add character

Your web design needs to reflect the character of your brand. When we say character, we are simply referring to the personality of your brand. Having a personality can help you communicate what your brand is all about.

For instance, Volvo is a brand that stands for safety and reliability. Visit their website and one of the first words you will come across is safety. Everything from their images to the general layout suggests that the brand isn’t playing around and is very serious about innovation and automotive safety.

The reason brand character is important is because people actually use particular products to define their own personalities and interests. This is why a majority of the people who buy Volvos are family-oriented individuals who want the best for their families.

Your website needs to communicate this aspect. Failing to do so can create inconsistencies in the message you’re trying to send and cause customers to doubt your commitment to them. This is especially true if you’re a business that’s just entering the market.

Even for a major, established brand like Volvo, a sudden character-shift can turn out to be a risk. Your website needs to have the same qualities that your customers want to associate with.

About Digital Solutions

Our goal is to make our websites stand out from the crowd. We do this by creating a carefully constructed, clean experience in everything we build. We like to take the most complicated products or business models and present them to users in the clearest, simplest way possible.

Small businesses can reap enormous benefits from branding strategies. There are several things you can do to help your business grab customers’ attention and stand out, without going over your budget.

• 1. Incorporate Lots of Visuals
  Visuals play a central role in branding. For example, when you imagine Coca-Cola, do you remember their iconic red color, distinct typography, and their logo, “celebrate life”?
  Here are a few ways in which you can establish your business’s brand with key visuals:

• Company Logo
  Memorable logos are vital to creating a bold image for your brand. The logo will sum up your entire business, i.e., mission, values, vision, services, and products, etc. It’s fairly easy to create on a small budget. You can use online logo makers. These are programs that can create new logos in an instant.
  Company Website
  Your website is how potential customers and business associates will gauge your company. If your website is plain, with a poor user interface or simply looks unattractive, then it will deter visitors. It has become very easy and affordable to build good-looking and efficient websites. You can hire a local web development team or if you experience with content management systems, then consider WordPress and select their premium theme.
  Business Cards
  Business cards still hold value in today’s tech-driven world. When designing your company’s business cards, be sure to use your brand and logo style elements.

• 2. Exceptional Content Marketing
  Content marketing is a powerful and affordable tool for branding. It works on many levels. For instance, by launching yourself as a leading resource and subject-matter expert in your domain, your target audience will begin to trust you. When it comes time to pick a company to do business with, yours is probably going to be their first choice.
  Content marketing is also excellent for strengthening branding. First, you have to develop a strong brand voice with the right content. Then carry this brand voice throughout every content you develop. This will help reinforce what your business is all about to customers, which strengthens relationships and helps drive business.
  The key to success is to start with some research. Figure out what customers want. What are they asking and then create content to address customers’ needs, wants, and questions. For instance, if you’re a pizzeria and you determine that customers are searching for recipes on how to make pizza dough and other recipes that use it. You can create a blog or post videos that demonstrate how to make pizza dough, how it can be used to make other recipes, special tips, and techniques, etc. This kind of content will provide lots of value to customers. When the time comes that they’re looking for pizza, then it’s likely that they’ll first visit your pizzeria.

• 3. Form Partnerships
  One great way to accelerate and expand brand building is by forming partnerships with entrepreneurs like yourself. People prefer brands they can trust. So if you’re a new brand, it’s going to take a long time to establish trust with your customers. The best way to speed up this process is looking for partnerships with brands that your customers already use. This is similar to trust-building by proxy. If a customer is introduced to your business by another business that they already use and trust, they’re more likely to trust your business too.
  To succeed with this strategy, you have to find businesses with similar audiences that are also non-competitive. For example, if you’re planning to sell your signature pasta sauce. Consider approaching specialty food shops that sell pasta. You can also showcase your products at food festivals. Offer to write guest posts for popular food writers. These are just a few ideas on how you can form partnerships with other brands.

• 4. Stellar Customer Service
  Exceptional customer service will be extremely helpful in building your brand’s reputation. Word-of-mouth marketing is still very effective, so it’s important for you to keep customers happy, resolve their complaints and queries, and pay heed to their feedback. This will help grow your customer base and draw more attention to your brand.
  Branding is about more than a beautiful website or an eye-catching logo. It’s about how you connect with customers and what you do to maintain that connection. Your reputation is built with these interactions. To succeed in the long term, you must make stellar customer service your number one priority. This means looking for opportunities to improve your business. Examples include revamping your website design, simplifying the return process, etc.
  Social media is an invaluable marketing channel. One that can be smartly used for branding. Here are a few things you can accomplish with social media:

• – Use storytelling to appeal to larger audiences.- Interact with existing customers, potential customers, and followers by promptly replying to their tags, personal comments, and messages.- Promptly reply to customer criticisms in an appropriate and professional manner by first apologizing for their experience and offering a way to help.- Use your followers to seek opinions on your newest product/service.
  – Post-how-to videos that demonstrate your product so that it can be shared amongst your followers (who will share with their friends)

These are just a few, inexpensive branding strategies that can help your business gain a competitive step ahead in your niche. All you need is some creativity and hard words! Launch your branding with us!

Branding is a complex process that involves several stages, creativity, and plenty of innovation. The sole aim is to create an impression. A very specific one. This impression decides whether your target audience will want to know more about you or not.

Branding is essentially nothing but giving a clear picture of who you are and what your business does to the masses.

With this, I hope I have been able to bring home the importance of branding to any business. Branding is literally the proverbial bread and butter of any business, big or small. Despite this, many businesses continue to ignore the importance of brand campaigns and fail to integrate it into their marketing strategies. When asked why, the most common answer from these business owners were that branding is expensive.

So, is branding expensive?

No, not really. The expenses in branding campaigns largely depend on the way you have chalked it out. You can do it the expensive way, or you can do it the cheap way.

Here are a few tips for branding within a budget.

The brands logo says everything

Imagine that you are out buying shoes. In the store, most people are likely to reach out and take hold of the ones that have the logos of popular brands like Nike, Adidas, Puma, Reebok, and so on. Although these are brands that have established their presence long back, their logos are what attract attention. The logos of these brands have become a household name across the world.

A logo is very important for branding. It is a unique representation of your company, of the product you are selling. Logos appear on everything, right from business cards to the shopping bags available in your stores.

There are a number of inexpensive ways to develop a creative, yet meaningful logo. You can use logo making websites like AI logo designer or you can hire freelancers from platforms like Fiverr

Customer service can make or break you

A good customer service will bring back existing customers and help rope in new ones. Customers are the top priority in any business. A business that caters to the needs of their customers and offers an out-of-the-world customer experience is likely to remain etched in the minds of customers. Treat them bad and you will regret it for the rest of your business.

Customers are one of your greatest brand advocates. The way a customer feels will determine whether they will come back to your business or never step in again.

A satisfied customer is a loyal customer. He or she is likely to spread the word to friends and family, thereby increasing the likelihood of new customers for your business. Indeed, when it comes to certain things, I’d rather trust a friend or family member over an advertising campaign. Wouldn’t you?

Make your brand a part of their life

Nike continues to be one of the most popular brands when it comes to sports shoes. Today, Nike is more than just shoes, they offer their customers the opportunity to connect with athletes like Michael Jordan and Steve Prefontaine. Customers feel that somehow, albeit in a very small way, they are part of the lives of these great athletes.

Nike’s strong brand strategy transformed them from a brand selling shoes to a lifestyle brand. They are the trusted name in households when it comes to sports apparel. Their tagline, “Just do it” is capable of making a normal person feel like an elite athlete.

Drawing from this example, it is clear how it is important to become part of a customer’s lifestyle. The more a customer is able to incorporate and identify your brand with their everyday life, the better are your chances at reaching out to them and influencing them to keep coming back to you.

Social media is your best friend

There is absolutely no need to spend wads of cash on expensive branding campaigns when you have the greatest and most effective tool at your disposal. Social media.

Social media platform keeps people across the world connected and in the game. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, are platforms where people gather as a community and it is the best way to reach out to people.


Yes, certain social media campaigns do cost money, but you don’t need to get started with such campaigns right away.

The best you can do is to create a social media voice that interacts with individuals and communities. You need to create a persona for social media platforms. Your persona should be honest, inspiring, authoritative but still warm and friendly. Your aim should be to effectively engage the audience using simple but effective language.

In addition, it is extremely helpful to have a blog of your own. You want users to know what’s happening and a blog is one of the best ways to catch their attention. The key to branding using blogs lies in creating effective content. Effective content can include anything from infographics, images, articles, videos, and so on. The sky is the limit and creativity is your tool.

You need to engage customers by regularly posting on social media platforms. There are several social media scheduling apps available in the market. These apps can automatically update content in your social media platforms as and when required.

The key to establishing your brand lies in consistency. You need to be consistent in your activities and interact with the audience through comments, discussions, likes, and so on. You need to be constantly out there and always active to help people understand you and your brand.

If dealt with strategically, social media can become one of your best tools for branding.

The Importance of Brand Slogans

A slogan isn’t just a tag-line as it is usually thought to be. It has a more strategic role to play. The goal or objective of a slogan is to convince the customer that your product is unique and that you are a reliable brand. This is why a slogan it needs to be well thought-out; you can’t just incorporate anything you like.

For instance, let’s think of a classic brand. How about KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)? KFC has some of the most interesting slogans out there. The brand initially went with “Finger Lickin’ Good”, which was smart, extremely attractive, and yet so simple. It made so much sense and pretty much conveyed everything that the brand was about.

The current slogan – “so good” – runs along the same lines, but is more period relevant.

Anyway, the point is that these simple but well crafted slogans made these brands instantly recognizable and obviously popular.

Slogans are basically descriptions of what the customer can expect to experience once they taste a meal at KFC. They’re designed to cement KFC’s position as a preferred eatery in the customer’s mind.

This is exactly why a majority of people across the globe instantly recognize KFC and even opt for it as a preferred eating joint.

In general, a slogan should be complete and emotionally engaging.

Slogans are a Brand’s Shadow

The goal of any brand is to have a noticeable identity. A slogan serves this role as an extra identity. It is, pretty much, attached to your brand name and is used to wherever your name shows up. In that sense, it functions as a literal shadow.

Though it is possible for a brand name to stand alone, adding a slogan is always a good idea. It acts as an ice breaker of sorts and serves as a means to communicate the very essence of what the business is all about. KFC comes into mind again as a good example of this.

Slogans give meaning to a brand, which makes the brand more appealing. Other than that, it is far more elaborate than just a name. This means that you have more words to work with. Simply put, a slogan makes it easier for you to get the core message out there.

So when developing a slogan, make sure you let it speak for the brand.

Slogans Contribute to Product Desirability

A slogan is like the brand’s DNA. So a successful slogan isn’t just something that the brand can benefit from. It must be treated as a commitment.

The slogan goes beyond just attracting customers. It also works its magic on the management and employees.

Think of it this way – a chapter or an essay can be condensed into a summary or a precis that communicates the core ideas A slogan is the precis for your brand and has to mirror the prime ethos of your organization.

They remind customers and the management of what your brand means. This can go a long way in establishing your business as a serious contender.

So make sure your slogan is developed to reflect the essence of your brand.

Slogans Develop Positive Customer Relationships

Slogans can also serve as a connector between the brand and the client; like a bridge of sorts. This obviously leads to more robust customer-business relationships. The meaning that they give to a brand name can create emotional engagement and lead people towards the brand.

As a result, customers begin to relate and become more inclined towards your brand. This contributes to an increased ROI.

So make sure your slogans are connected to human aspects and typical life situations. You must touch the consumer on an emotional level.

Slogans Offer a Proper Perspective of Your Business

Slogans also offer an elegant perspective of a business. This attracts the right kind of audience and helps them engage with the brand emotionally. A good example of this would be NGOs. NGOs often come up with slogans that advertise their mission/objective and also create an emotional or sentimental connection.

So make sure you define your objective and goals before you come up with a slogan.

Slogans are Predictable

Slogans are predictable and that’s a good thing. Predictability means there is nothing vague or ambiguous going on. Taking the example of KFC again, a slogan like “Finger Lickin’ Good” or “So Good” makes it fairly obvious that the brand is associated with a food product of some kind. This sort of predictability is what creates an identity.

Slogans are Memorable

You want your brand to be memorable. That’s an obvious expectation and goal. But the problem with just a brand name is that it isn’t very memorable. You’re talking about a simple noun at best. How can one word communicate an entire persona or identity?

This is why slogans are used. Slogans are like an introduction. They give you an idea of what to expect.

Now, when a slogan is constructed well enough, it can even trigger a recall. In other words, a slogan makes your brand memorable.

For instance, the words “Just Do It” obviously triggered a recall in your head just now. You’re sure to have though of Nike and no other brand. But things don’t just end there. Even if you’re hearing those words for the first time, you can automatically guess that it’s talking about guts, courage, and determination – qualities associated with sports. So you’re likely to arrive at the conclusion that the slogan is for a sports brand.

This is the power of a slogan.