Building a brand can often mean the difference between the success or failure of a business. Many business owners do a pretty good job when it comes to building their brand through traditional channels because they hire a professional graphic designer or marketing company to develop an effective corporate identity and ensure that all of their printed materials, signage and advertising utilize it in a consistent manner. On the other hand, most business owners are not nearly as effective when it comes to building their brand online because it is a completely different environment than they’re familiar with.

Company name/domain name

If you are still in the process of starting your company, you’ve got a bit of an advantage. Because you’re not tied to an existing company name, you can develop one while you search for a short and memorable domain name. Short and memorable is always better than having keyword phrases in your domain, but if you can have both, by all means do so, but avoid keyword stuffed or hyphenated domains. You should do everything in your power to purchase both the .com and the .net version of the domain you want. While you’re at it, go ahead and register your domain for at least five years, preferably ten years. It will cost a bit more but doing so can help to improve your organic search ranking because the length of time a domain is registered for is one of the many factors in Google’s algorithm.

Organic search optimization

Include your company’s name and tag line in the title tag and header tags on an about us page, which should be a separate page from your home page. Additionally, the file name should be the same as your company name.

  Example: http://www.yourdomain.com/your-company-name.htm

This ensures that your website appears in the organic search results without diluting the effectiveness of the search engine optimization of your home page.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)

Utilize Google and Yahoo’s PPC (Pay-Per-Click) programs with your company’s name as the keyword phrase. Chances are that your own website will show up in the organic ranking as well, but every impression counts. Plus, you won’t need to invest very much on this because unless you generate tremendous attention few people will actually search for your company name, and most of those that do will click on your organic listing anyway.

Display advertising

Utilize display advertising, such as banners or rich media ads (Flash, Quicktime, etc.) on targeted websites. You can search for appropriate websites through a company like Federated Media, which connects advertisers with publishers. Display advertising gives you the opportunity to put your company name, logo and message in front of a large number of people relatively quickly with a modest investment. The click-through rate of display advertising is generally low, often below one percent, but the key here is the visibility. Each and every impression you get to make with potential consumers adds up.

Blogging

Blog on a regular basis to create dialogue with your visitors and encourage them to return. The more often visitors return to your site, the more impressions you’ll be able to make with them giving you a greater chance to convert them into clients. You can even use free open-source software such as Wordpress, which is extremely powerful and highly customizable. Installing your own blog is far more effective than simply setting up a free account like those offered by Wordpress, BlogSpot or any number of other blog hosting services because it allows you to continually add fresh content to your own website which is something the search engines love!

As the economy continues to get worse, it’s more important than ever to stand out from your competitors if you want to survive the current challenges that most business owners are facing as well as the many more that are sure to follow. The knee-jerk reaction during tough times is to reduce costs in any way possible, which usually includes reducing or eliminating marketing budgets. Unfortunately this only increases the problem by reducing or eliminating any chances of producing new revenue. Think about it like a camp fire - if you stop adding wood to the fire, it is going to produce less heat. If you want to be warmer but plan to wait until your fire starts producing more heat before adding more wood, you’re going to have a long, cold wait ahead of you.

First and foremost, you will need to continue your marketing efforts and if at all possible, increase them. When the economy slows down and your competitors cut back on their marketing, it’s your opportunity to increase your market share by earning the clients they are losing. Your profit margin may be temporarily reduced during this period but your client base will increase. When the economy picks back up, your profit margin will return to normal levels if not higher than before, with even higher revenue provided by your new, larger client base.

You should also take a look at what is missing in your competitors’ marketing and fill the void. For example, if you run a custom pool company and you know that all of your competitors just build the pool and move on, while your company actually takes the time to replace any sod, plants and fencing that was removed or damaged during the construction, make sure that your marketing emphasizes that.

Another effective approach to add to your marketing strategy is to eliminate what isn’t needed so that more emphasis can be placed on what is. Cirque du Soleil did this when competing with traditional circuses by omitting certain aspects of their shows so that they could focus on the elements that provided the highest entertainment value while creating higher profit margins. You can and should do the same thing in your marketing strategy by determining what factors are not optimal, then eliminating them in favor of those that are.

A slow economy can be rough on small businesses, but it can also give them a serious advantage if they are prepared. Are you?

The short answer is no. You can achieve tremendous website traffic quickly, or you can achieve tremendous website traffic easily, but everything has a cost. When you utilize techniques that may save time, you’ll likely have to invest greater manpower. When you utilize techniques that may save you a lot of work, you’ll likely have to invest greater financial resources. The choice is your, but there is always a price to pay.

• One option that can work very well in some industries, provided that you have the budget and the manpower to manage it is PPC (Pay-Per-Click) marketing. By signing up with a search engine to display contextual ads based on search terms entered by their visitors you can reach a very targeted prospect and you only pay when they actually click on your ad. You also need to be aware that some of your competitors may click on your ads; some just out of curiosity, some out of malice, though the percentage of this happening is usually very low. To prevent this, you can ban certain IPs.
• If you’ve built an opt-in email list, you can utilize it to drive traffic to your website by publishing and sending an email newsletter. This can be an easy way to promote a particular product, service or event, from time to time, however, using it to promote your business in general typically take a moderate amount of work to develop the necessary content on a  regular basis. If you have the manpower, it is definitely worth considering.
• Display advertising (banners, rich media, etc.) can be a powerful tool not only to increase traffic, but also to fortify your branding efforts. If you plan to utilize this medium, be sure to focus on quality over quantity. Advertising on websites that are geared to your ideal prospects will be far more successful than advertising on websites based strictly on the volume of visitors they have.
• Redirected traffic is usually very cheap, and there is a reason for that. It is almost completely worthless. Not only is the traffic extremely untargeted but more often than not, you don’t receive anywhere near the number of visitors that they claim to send you. Avoid this medium like the plague.

Marketing your website is more like a marathon than a sprint. The business owners that develop extremely successful websites do so by working hard at it day in and day out. Over time, this dedication is what allows them to make their way to the front of the pack while others are quitting all around them.

When you make a claim as a marketer trying to sell something, people tend to doubt you. When you contradict yourself or make meaningless statements, they immediately discount just about everything else you say no matter how true it may really be. This makes your job significantly more difficult, so why not avoid it to begin with.

We’ve all seen “New and Improved” emblazoned on a variety of products from breakfast cereal to personal care products to auto accessories and more, but what does it really mean? Nothing. In fact, the message it conveys is that you didn’t even take the time to think about why someone should use your product. Why? Because “new” means it has never existed before. How is it possible to improve on something that never existed before?

 Another classic example is “Under New Management,” usually displayed on a gigantic sign outside retail establishments and restaurants. What’s the problem here? The people who are no longer patrons because they were dissatisfied with the previous management don’t pay any attention to that establishment anymore and those that were happy with the previous management most likely don’t want to see someone new running the establishment. At best, they will be indifferent, at worst, they will move on to another establishment. The statement does nothing to inspire new customers to visit.

Think not just about what you’re trying to tell your customers, but exactly why you’re trying to tell them that and what it would actually mean to them.