Online branding

So you’re a successful small business due largely to your personal selling techniques. Your face, speech, voice, and overall demeanor make up a unique and consistent brand. Well my friends, I’m sorry to say that those factors carry little weight in the online marketing world.

In cyberspace, your image is comprised mainly of written words and graphical images. What’s more, the extent to which prospects can find you online is controlled by how computer systems such as Google interpret those written words. Google’s formula for placing you at or near the top of the list is long and complex so we won’t tackle that here. For the sake of rush however, here are a few tips to always keep with you.

1) Write often in your blog and in micro-blogs such as Twitter and Tumblr. Google likes freshness of content a great deal. The more frequent your posts, the better.

2) Write helpful content. Online selling begins with giving the audience as much helpful information as possible without expectations of return. This technique will cause others to link to your information. Google sees each link as the public’s vote for you and thus increases your ranking in search results.

3) Maintain brand consistency. If you have distinctly different lines of service, then keep them completely separate meaning each will need its own website, blog, search engine marketing, and social networking campaign. It’s difficult for the audience to imagine that you can specialize in everything under the sun, and we know confusion leads to the prospect walking away.