How To Brand Your Web Site

Branding is very important. It can make or break a business venture. Branding is psychological. It exists in the minds of customers and  prospects. Repeated exposure to the brand is vital to producing a successful brand. The purpose of branding is to get people to recall your company/product/service from memory. The ultimate aim is to get
people to trust you more than the competition, and to think of your Web site before they think of the competition's Web site. With competition, those who do not brand would go out of business.

Kids Freesouls tips for several hands-on branding strategies for you to apply to your own Web site, using your business name and your own name with your own business E-mail id.

1. Get Noticed :  The first step is to get your site listed in the largest search engines and directories. This sounds simple, but doing it correctly takes quite a bit of info and time. First of all, you have to know the difference between a search engine and a directory. A search engine has a database of web pages - a user visits it, asks it a question and it returns relative web pages. AltaVista is an example. A directory is a categorized collection of web sites - a user visits and chooses a category they are interested in and "drills down" to find what they are looking for. Yahoo! is the best known directory. Many search sites blend the line between search engines and directories, but when promoting a site, you need to treat them a little differently. With search engines, you don't stop with your index page. Make sure all the large search engines index every single page of your web site. With directories the most important thing is to make sure your site is listed in the correct category.The most important place to be listed is in Yahoo! Now Yahoo has come up with Paid Links too. Next we suggest getting all your pages listed in the Google Search that handles the spill over search results for Yahoo and also powers Inktomi, HotBot, Direct Hit, Canada, Anzwers, and others. Finally we suggest getting all pages listed in The Open Directory Project, AltaVista, Infoseek, Lycos, Excite in that order and then concentrating on the smaller search engines. While these tips will not by themselves guarantee you a successful web site, they will point you in the right direction. Take an hour and surf the web checking out web sites that work - do they employ these three principals? Does your web site? So, just go ahead, surf and List your site in as many search you can. Just Get Noticed.

2. Repetition - This is very important: keep all of your design elements the same from page to page. Most importantly, display your logo at the top of each page, consistently throughout your Web site. Your Web site must have its own distinct "feel".

3. Newsletter/Ezine - Use your mailing list to push your domain name and slogan Mention  your Unique Selling Proposition. If you have an ezine, create a header that contains your domain name and your slogan. Use this same header in all issues of your ezine.If you have nothing to sell, make you ezine interesting and useful to create your Brand name website.

4.  Domain name - Use your domain name as your brand. Put it on all of your stationary (letter heads, business cards, post cards, statements, etc.).It should carry your Business E-mail address and not personal. For eg. ilaxi@sambhaav.com  and not ilaxipatel@hotmail.com. If you do not have a domain, we suggest you place in your regular hotmail, usa or yahoo id or add zzn like service to possess your own yourname@kidsfreesouls.zzn.com   

5.  Signature file - Implement your USP into your signature file, so with every email you send visitors will be further exposed to your brand. Check out the help file of your email software for more on setting up sig files.

7. Thank you pages - If you have online forms (for visitors to contact you, request more information, subscribe to your newsletter etc.), you most likely have a "thank you" page where you thank visitors for using your form. This is an excellent place to position your logo and slogan. Don't clutter with lots of banners and marketing material. Keep it plain and simple.

8. Publish free articles - With thousands of new Web sites and ezines popping up in Web land every month, the demand for high quality content is immense. You can provide articles for other webmasters/editors to publish on their Web sites/ezines. At the end of your article put your name and a link to your Web site, with short teaser copy to get people to click on your link You can offer ‘Free’ leading to ur links.  This is free publicity at its best,  not only will you get traffic back to your Web site; you'll also add status and credibility to your name (provided your article is of high quality). For eg. Quotes by Freesouls are provided in Ezine of web-intelligence.com with name & website address. Also www.kinderstart.com in their Kindertoday pops up Freesouls articles which target hits to them as well as www.sambhaav.com   (kidsfreesouls)

8. Auto responders - These are emails that are sent automatically to anyone who requests them (triggered by sending them an email). Auto responders are great as they work 24 hours a day without any intervention on your part. Use them to send visitor’s free reports,
articles, list of links, etc. And add your branding copy (logo, name, slogan, USP etc.) at the  top and bottom of the auto responder message, with a link  back to your Web site. Nowadays all good Web hosts provide their customers with free auto responders.

What Makes A Person Want To
Come Back To Your Site? 

The survey was conducted between  March 30 and April 3, 2001, and is based on responses from 990 online users surveyed by Knowledge Systems & Research Inc.

Source: http://www.webpronews.com/

According to Arthur Andersen, the highly regarded online information company:

The ratings were based from 0 to 100% with the higher the percentage,
the more important the issue.

Ease Of Use/Navigation:74%   
Fast Download Time: 65%
Regularly Updated Information: 58%
Quality Of Content:57%
Organization Of Content: 40%
Access To Customer Service:40%
Quantity Of Content:30%
Search Engine At The Site: 25%
Front Page Layout: 20%
Fun: 19%
Look And Feel Of The Site:             18%
Inclusion Of Animated Graphics:        9%

Interestingly, if your site is an online store, then the two most
important factors to your vistors are:

Easy Order Processing:     68%
Security Procedures:       65%

Computing
(Webmasters/Parents/Teachers Online)

Webproworld - The world's Forum for E-Business Professionals put 'Quote of the Day' of Kidsfreesouls regarding Discussion on current Search Engine Wars. Brittany Thompson is the Editor for Webproworld and Garrett French is alive on the scene bringing latest updates and Insider Reports.

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Webproworld 5th March 2004 kidsfreesoul: "Yahoo is not only providing serious competition for Google but also serious problems for webmasters who've got to dig deep into the World Wide Web and learn the newest and latest technology tricks..." View Post kidsfreesoul : "The search engine war continues and so will the tough competition continue to stay to the top..." View Post

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PAID SUBMISSIONS ???

Search Engine positioning strategies has changed scenario with the Online Paid Submissions

( The Search Engines may be checked from Time to Time for latest Updates!)

Yahoo / Google / Msn

Yahoo, Google & Msn are the Three major Search Engines which are great for Website Submissions. Assuming that you are in business to make money, paying $199 non refundable for probable inclusion in Yahoo directory is definitely worth it.Choice is yours! (They don't guarantee the inclusion!!)
For information, and to begin the process of "suggesting" a site, go to: http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add
Google Has a Good Search Results and Page Ranking Facilities. Their Adsense Earning tool is good for Website owners. Msn is a coming up Search Engine right now and their Email services tied up now with Gmail of Google.

You can submit site through Free Add url but one never knows when these services comes to a 'Halt'!

Freesouls & Kidsfreesouls dedicate the Computing column to
MR. DEVANG MEHTA - IT Genius "President NASSCOM"
Our Computing Role Model
May God rest his soul in peace
May his inspirations help us strive for Excellence!