Having a solid online presence is an essential part of business.
On the one hand, you need to be personal enough to appeal to your target audience, and on the other, you have to maintain a professional digital appearance.
But how do you make your brand look more professional?
There are things you can do right now to make your brand look more professional. Some will be more effective for your brand, some less so, but the sooner you get on it, the better!
1. Start with a Good Name and Follow Through
On the easier-said-than-done scale, creating a good name for your brand is a 10/10. There are a lot of things to consider and factor in when it comes to naming a brand. You have to think about how others will perceive you, especially people from your sector, both clients and competition. You can make things easier by using a business name generator. Finding a name for your brand is tiresome, and you need all the help you can get.
But naming a brand isn’t the only thing you need to cover. You need to think about the places and spaces your name will appear in. So, you should:
- Make sure your domain name is available – more and more people read the url bar in their browser when they want to do any kind of business online.
- Make sure that the logo matches your business niche (both in style and color palette)
- Work on a tagline that compliments the brand name – people will be more likely to remember it.
Think of your brand name as your name – it’s a word people associate with you, so make sure you pick the best one.
2. Make Sure Your Website Is Clean
Once potential clients reach your website, you have to make sure they stay around and check out what you can offer. Unfortunately, you only have mere seconds to lure them in and make them stay.
It’s best to start small. If your budget doesn’t allow you to hire a company to make you a website – less is more is a perfect tactic! Start with the most important things you want to convey to your audience and build your way up to the fine print.
3. Be Concise and Direct About Your Product/Service
If you want your customers to know the best things about your brand, you have to know them too. Way better than them, though.
You have to determine which services are the bread and butter of your brand, and put that front and center. Beating around the bush will only take time from the precious 10 seconds you have to get the customer’s attention.
4. Visuals Matter!
Humans are visual creatures.
We tend to judge everything based on the visual first, and only then does the decision-making part of the brain kick in. That’s why the visual aspects can make or break a brand.
For example, if your brand relies on photos to convey the service you’re offering, you have to make sure that those photos are the best they can be. The same goes for images and infographics.
Now, you don’t have to blow the bank on a professional photographer. But pictures taken with your smartphone on a cloudy day won’t cut it either.
5. Connect All Your Platforms
Clients and customers can come through all sorts of channels. Social media platforms are the biggest and most popular ones today. But there’s no single preferred social media platform out there. Some people like to do their business over Instagram, and some are still loyal email users.
All in all, the best course of action is to connect all your online platforms, so the clients can choose their preferred one. This won’t only make your brand look more professional – it will also make it easier for people to share it with their friends.
6. Introduce Yourself to Your Target Audience
Millennials started the everything-is-an-experience trend, and it seems like it’s here to stay. Besides the main thing your brand offers, people want to know who is behind the brand and what those people stand for.
You can answer this demand AND make your brand look more professional by creating an interesting “About Us” page. So, sit down and create a mission statement while steering clear of the “we are making the world a better place” trope.
It’s Always the Little Things
Building a brand is, at its core, taking care of a million smaller things. The small actions you do today are bound to have a large yield in the next weeks, months, or years.
Sweating the small stuff will get you far and make your brand look more professional and, above all, honest.
Good luck out there!
