Stand Out with These Tips for Developing a Strong Website Branding Strategy

Does your website branding strategy grab people’s attention and pull them in? Or does it fade into the background? And how do you know for sure? A commonly misunderstood piece of the puzzle, your website branding strategy is the foundation for not just an engaging page experience, but an effective sales funnel that helps you meet your business goals. So let’s take a closer look at what website branding is, and how to do it well.

Why your website branding is so crucial

1. It differentiates your business

In a crowded online marketplace, it can be difficult to differentiate yourself and get your potential customers’ attention. Effective website branding helps you stand out from the crowd by communicating your unique value proposition, conveying a distinctive and memorable brand identity, and giving visitors a preview of what it feels like to engage with your brand as a consumer.

2. It builds trust and credibility

Your website is often one of the first points of contact potential customers have with your brand. If it looks or feels unprofessional, generic, or inconsistent, it’s not going to build credibility the way it should. A website that makes a bad first impression immediately calls into question the quality of your products or services. Effective website branding, on the other hand, showcases your brand personality, values, and professionalism. This, in turn, helps visitors feel comfortable learning more and taking the next step.

3. It increases conversions

In the end, well-executed website branding produces a more engaging, memorable, and user-friendly experience. And that means longer website visits, more pages explored, and increased website conversions through the AIDA process!

So, how do you actually develop a strong website branding strategy? Let’s look at some key components.

Plan for consistent website branding

Before deciding how to brand your website with messaging and visuals, you need to step back and answer some questions about your brand and business overall. Your new website will need to work within the context of all of your other marketing, after all! So starting at the business level will help create consistency down the line, across all aspects of your brand and marketing.

Align your brand messaging

It’s very common to find that while your business has been evolving and improving, the way you talk about it has not. Which naturally leads to a disconnect between you, and the right prospects for what you offer now!
You and your marketing team will need very clear and concise answers to questions like these:

What exactly do you sell?
Why?
Who’s your target audience?
Who’s your competition?
Why would prospects choose you?

The more specific you can get, the easier it will be to craft targeted marketing messages that speak to your audience’s lived experience. That’s what pulls them into engaging with your brand

Of course, getting to the bottom of this from inside your own business is almost impossible. Which is why at The Right Path Marketing, our lead messaging strategist can guide you through the process and help you find the clarity you’re missing!

Align your brand design

Once your brand messaging foundations are solid, your brand designer will have a much easier time creating your design system, a.k.a. brand identity design. This will convey the same concepts as your core messaging, but visually. It can include everything from colors and fonts, to logos and patterns, to templates and photography guidelines.

The goal is for every piece of your brand to feel like it’s part of the same consistent, strategically-designed experience. Keep in mind that while aesthetics matter here, brand design is really about solving business problems with design solutions.

For example, if you find your website is converting inquiries from people who can’t afford your services, you can test some changes. It may be that the copy is written to address the wrong audience’s pain points and questions. Or it may be that the design is snazzy, but doesn’t convey the high-end feel of your current brand experience.

Just remember that everything you create for your sales and marketing should be checked against the brand guidelines you decided on at this stage.

Optimize for user experience

With your website branding guidelines in place, now you can plan a strategic website designed to help maximize your digital marketing ROI. You want a website partner who starts with the end in mind, and crafts every piece of the puzzle so that it fits the big picture.

For best results, your website team should include a strategist, copywriter, designer, developer, and SEO specialist, all collaborating together from the beginning. By leveraging and amplifying each other’s talents, your team can produce the best possible website experience and performance.

They’ll also plan for security, privacy, page experience, and mobile responsiveness, ensuring a solid user experience before a single word gets written or graphic gets created.

Getting help with your website branding

If all of this sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry. With the right help, you’ll be able to launch a website that showcases your brand, converts more of the right prospects, and stays consistent with the rest of your branding. Schedule a consult with The Right Path Marketing to get a free website and SEO audit, and we’ll start you off with some actionable website branding insights.