How to Build a Brand Online: 14 Steps to Success

Before jumping feet first into building your brand, take a moment to look around at what you have already. Are you starting completely from scratch? Do you have a business that you want to expand, but no online presence? Perhaps you already have a brand that you want to revamp? Or maybe you want to make sure your brand extension is successful.

Now’s the time to sit down and hammer out the key values, goals, and principles you want your brand to reflect. What’s at the core of your business? How do you want your customers to see, think, and interact with you?

If you don’t have a business yet, that’s okay! It can actually be much better to start with your brand, and use that as a strong foundation to build your business upon. It means your brand is at the core of your business, rather than being lumped in as an after-thought.

If you already have a business or brand, you can make use of anonymous surveys to learn what your audience loves, and work out what to leave behind as you move forward.

Once you’ve pinned down exactly where you’re coming from and where you want to go, it’s time to figure out your route. Luckily, there are others who have already done the journey, who you can learn some valuable lessons from.

That’s right – we’re talking about good old-fashioned spying (also known as competitor research), and we highly recommend it. These are brands that have made it – they’ve been where you are, and got it right. And now they can (albeit unwittingly) help you get it right, too.

Don’t just head straight for the biggest brands you can think of – there’s no point channeling Coca-Cola if you’re running an independent beauty store. Keep it niche, and focus on brands you admire that are successful in your industry, or embody similar values to your own.

Alongside this thrilling undercover snooping, you also need to understand one of the most important parts of your brand – your target audience.

You can’t please everybody – it’s a fact of life. This means you need to narrow down your audience – who are you trying to reach? How will you engage them? Why would they choose your brand over your competitors’?

It’s all very well saying this, but how do you research your future audience? Here are some ways to get started:

• Talk to people – ask them about their buying habits: which brands are their favorites? Why? What’s missing for them in this category?
• Put yourself in their shoes – if you’re running an online store, get shopping. If you’re a service-based business, request quotes. If you’re creating a personal brand, follow blogs or relevant Instagram accounts. What can you offer users that these brands can’t?
• Get nosy – head to your competitors’ sites and do some digging. Check out any reviews or comments sections, and head to their social media accounts, too. What are their customers happy with or complaining about?

The main purpose of this step is to point out that you will probably need to spend some money to get your new brand off the ground. Yes, there are probably ways of creating a brand that are free – but the truth is, if you want a professional brand, be prepared to invest in it.

There are some basic things it’s always worth paying for, including:

• Your logo – nothing says shady like a weird, grainy, or downright ugly logo. It’s worth getting someone to design it properly! It doesn’t have to cost you a bomb either, if you use a site like Tailor Brands to design your logo. In fact, we even have an exclusive 25% discount code to use on any Tailor Brands plan. Just enter WBE25 at checkout to get 25% off!
• Your website – whether you pay a developer or build your own using a website builder, your website is worth investing in.
• Professional tools – upgrading to premium online tools can save you tons of time and stress down the line.

Remember, your brand is your business’s personality – it’s how people think about and interact with your business. Having a shoddy logo or website is like turning up to a business meeting in socks and sandals.

But my brand is going to be chill and cool! That’s fine – your brand doesn’t have to portray a suit and tie kind of vibe, but it should ooze trustworthiness. And that’s where putting some money in really helps – chill doesn’t have to mean cheap, after all.

Further Information

• Investing in your brand doesn’t have to be expensive! Read our review of the Best Cheap Website Builders to find out how low your costs could be.
• Investing in a professional logo and website will help boost your brand’s credibility. Discover 30 Factors That Influence Website Credibility in our helpful list, and learn how to create a trustworthy website!

Now you’ve researched – and made the requisite investment in – your brand, it’s time to figure out exactly what your brand is going to be – and how you’re going to deliver value to your future customers.

To this end, creating a Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is the next crucial step. It helps you communicate what sets your brand apart from competitors – and why potential customers should choose you.

Your value proposition needs to be a concise statement that captures the essence of your brand’s unique offering. It should communicate the benefits and value your brand delivers to customers in a compelling way.

Here’s how to go about planning your UVP:

• Determine your competitive advantage: Start by doing market research and thoroughly researching your competitors and understanding what they offer. Identify the unique qualities, features, or benefits that differentiate your brand from the rest. Exceptional quality? Superior customer service? Innovative solutions? A unique approach to solving customer problems? You need to be able to articulate this to yourself – before you’re able to share it with your customers.
• Define your brand positioning: Clearly lay out your brand’s position in the market. Consider your target audience, their needs, and how your brand fulfils those needs better than anyone else. Position your brand as the go-to solution for a specific problem or as the provider of a unique experience to establish a clear, distinct identity – and direction – for your nascent brand.

Then, it’s time to actually write your UVP! To do this, you need to address the pain points of the target audience you’ve already researched – which means demonstrating how your brand can solve their problems or fulfill their desires. To do this? Keep your UVP clear, concise, and memorable.

Your UVP should:

• Highlight the key benefits your brand offers.
• Emphasize what makes your brand different – nay, superior to – competitors.
• Use language that resonates with your target audience – and, more importantly, language they can understand.
• Be succinct: one to two sentences should suffice!

Finally, remember that your value proposition isn’t a ‘set and forget’ approach – nor is it a static, unchanging document that can ever be allowed to sit in a desk drawer and gather dust. So ensure you’re constantly testing and refining your UVP based on feedback and customer response.

This is the really fun part, and also a crucial step for creating your brand. It’s time to decide on your fonts, colors, and logo!

Our top tip here is to keep it simple. It’s easy to get carried away with the whole spectrum of colors and hundreds of fonts at your fingertips.

Colors

The trick with choosing your colors is not to be bland, but also not to throw every shade of the rainbow in there. Try to choose a primary color, and a complimentary secondary color.

For example, Coca-Cola uses red as its primary color, with white as its secondary color. McDonald’s is famous for it golden arches, alongside its red and white signs.

When you’re picking your color scheme, it’s worth taking a dip into the weird and wonderful world of color psychology. Certain colors cause certain reactions in us – for example, blue is calming and evokes a sense of trust, while red is powerful and energetic, but can also make people feel agitated.

Fonts

Fonts can also make or break your brand. You don’t have to stick with a single font for everything, but don’t go too overboard. Pick one for headings and one for body copy, and make sure they don’t clash. And whatever you do, don’t pick Comic Sans – you have been warned.

Logos

A quick note on choosing your logo design – it doesn’t have to be extravagant or complicated! When you think of the most famous logos, they tend to be very simple and easy to remember.

Don’t worry if you’re not sure where to start designing your logo. Online logo makers such as Tailor Brands are a quick and easy way to get professional designs. You simply enter your brand’s name and choose which styles you like the best, and Tailor Brands creates a range of logos for you to choose from.

With Tailor Brands’ premium plans you also unlock more professional services, including high quality files of your logo, a logo resize tool, a branded business deck, and social media logo sizes.

Do You Want to Save 25% On Your Logo?

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If you’re including both a symbol and your business name in your logo, it’s worth also having one designed that just features the symbol, as this can be useful on social media or to cement your brand. You get social media logo sizes on Tailor Brand’s cheapest Basic plan – it looks more professional to have your logos optimized for different platforms, to avoid them looking squashed or stretched!

Further Information

• Not sure which colors to pick for your brand or your website? Check out our handy guide on How to Choose  a Good Color Scheme.
• Read our guide on How to Make a Logo for some inspiration on turning your design idea into reality.
• Fonts can be tricky – avoid the pitfalls with our guide on How to Pick the Perfect Font Style Design for Your Website.

The final step before actually launching your brand is to find your voice. This sets the tone for your brand, and will lie at the very heart of everything your brand produces – from on-site copy to emails, adverts and social media campaigns.

Your tone, voice, and values need to be consistent and transparent across your whole brand. It’s no use having a friendly, informal voice on your social media, but then a dry, serious voice on your website.

A great example of a brand with a strong tone of voice that matches its vision statement is Innocent, the smoothie company. Its consistency is impressive – everything from the lack of capital letters to the simple, informal language. The tone of its blogs, emails, and labels all work together to create a clear brand image.

Playful, friendly, sustainable. These are just a few things Innocent wants you to associate with its brand, and it succeeds through its consistent use of voice. What are the three words you want to reflect your brand?

Now you’ve laid the groundwork of building your brand, it’s time to build (or improve) your online presence – and what better way to start than by creating your own website?

97% of consumers go online to find and research local businesses – will you be there waiting for them, with open arms and a beautiful website? Yes, yes you will. There are two main ways you can build your website:

• Hire a web designer: If you have a generous budget and aren’t in a hurry, then hiring a web designer to build your website for you could be the right choice. You’ll need to create a design brief, and work alongside your designer to make sure you end up with a site you can easily manage, and which matches your brand vision.
• Use a website builder to build your site yourself: You can easily build a professional looking site, without needing any tech skills, if you decide to use a website builder. This is a quick, budget-friendly way of creating a site, but that doesn’t mean you sacrifice quality – just take a look at the example site below!

One thing to make sure of when setting up your website is that it’s mobile optimized – this is absolutely essential, as around 57% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices. Because of this, Google ranks mobile-optimized sites higher up than sites which aren’t mobile friendly.

Another important feature is social media integration. We’ll get to the fun side of social media soon, but for now, make sure your website can integrate with your various social media accounts. This will make it easy for your visitors to follow, connect, and interact with you later on!

Whichever method you choose, your website is the perfect chance to put your carefully chosen brand colors, fonts, and logos into practice. Make sure all the copy is in line with your lovingly crafted tone of voice, and that your site itself also reflects your brand.

Now is also a good time to set up accounts for your social media – but first, you need some content to share…

Further Information

• Thinking about using a website builder? Check out our Website Builder Comparison Chart for details on the best brands on the market.
• Getting ready to hire a web designer? Read our Tips for Working With a Web Designer to make sure you set your site up for success.

Now you have your beautiful website, you need some content!

Whether this is content to fill up your website, shiny new blog posts, white papers, videos, or interviews, it’s killer content that will draw your visitors in (and have Google eating out of your hand!)

Remember to keep all your content in-line with your tone of voice. That includes any videos you create, or graphics you design – don’t let them clash with the tone of your content. Do have fun showing the world what your brand is all about.

Oh! And, when it comes to content, don’t forget about UGC (user-generated content). Images, videos, and comments that come from your audience – rather than your brand – serve as powerful social proof. And engaging with UGC regularly paints a picture of your brand as an engaged, interested one that places its customers at the heart of its approach.

Embracing social media is the next step in building your brand. You don’t want to give it the cold shoulder, but you should also avoid squeezing the life out of it – instead, aim for the middle-ground with a firm but loving hug.

Our top tip here would be don’t expect too much from yourself.

First, don’t spread yourself too thin. Pick a couple of social channels that will appeal to your target audience, and which are manageable for you. For example, you might choose Twitter and Instagram if you’re aiming for a younger demographic, or even Snapchat if your brand is feeling fun and adventurous.

Secondly, try to post regularly, but don’t exhaust yourself – or your resources. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to post something every three hours, or even every single day.

Keeping it relevant is key – you can have fun, as long as it relates back to your brand. Now is the time to integrate your social media with your website – share new content on your social channels, and put share, like, and follow buttons on your website.

Another hot tip is not to be too salesy on your social media accounts. Social media is where people go to relax, distract themselves during their commute, and connect with others – they don’t want sales shoved at them from every angle.

Interact with your followers, post engaging content, make use of relevant trends, and keep it fairly regular, and you should see positive results.

Further Information

• Social media doesn’t just have to be fun – it can be business too. Find out How to Make Money on Instagram in our in-depth guide.

Isn’t this the same as step eight? Well, yes, but also, not quite. Social media is definitely one of the main methods of promoting your brand – it got its own section, after all! But it’s not the only way.

The power of marketing covers an endless range of tactics, tips and tricks to get your business seen by as many people as possible. But you can’t just run through the streets flinging flyers into the air – as we learned earlier, you need to engage your target audience with your marketing.

Here are just some of the main ways you can promote your brand:

• Email marketing: It’s a big one – 92% of adults in the US use email, which is a huge market to make the most of. Website builders like Wix and Squarespace come with email campaign features built-in, which is a great way of ensuring your campaigns stay on-brand in terms of design.
• Blogging: Blogging can do wonders for your brand. Not only does it give you something to regularly shout about on social media and in emails, it also shows people (and Google) that you really know what you’re talking about. Plus, it appeals to a wide range of demographics!
• Events: Are you a local business? See if you can sponsor a local event to grow a positive awareness of your brand, or even host an event yourself to connect with your audience on a community level.
• Endorsements and influencers: We all love hearing about what our favorite celebrities love. This might be out of reach for modest startups, but endorsements of any kind can have a big positive impact for people’s image of your brand. You can also try approaching influencers (if you feel your target audience would connect with them).

Find out more

Make sure your marketing methods are effective for your target audience! Learn How to Use Online Reviews to Market to Different Generations in our handy infographic.

By this stage, you’re already using multiple channels – including social media and content marketing – to grow your brand’s influence. Now, it’s time to grow that influence even more – with influencers!

Influencers are online personalities with – sometimes large, sometimes smaller and more niche-oriented – followings on social media. They come in micro, macro, nano and mega form. Your job is to find out which ones are most relevant to your growing brand’s industry, style, and specific business goals.

To leverage influencer marketing, follow these tips:

• Identify influencers relevant to your brand and target audience: start by settling on influencers who align with your brand values, niche, and target audience. Look for influencers who have a strong following – and engagement within – your brand’s industry or target market.
• Establish partnerships or collaborations with influencers: once you’ve identified potential influencers, it’s time to establish partnerships or collaborations with them. Drop your favorite influencers a line through direct messages or email to express your interest in working together. In those initial chats, be clear about your brand’s values, objectives – and, crucially, what you can offer the influencer in return. You want to build genuine relationships with influencers – especially if you want to make sure their content aligns with your brand message.
• Track and measure the impact of influencer campaigns: from the get go, set clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your influencer marketing campaigns. Track metrics such as reach, engagement, website traffic, conversions, and brand mentions on an ongoing basis to assess your influencer marketing strategy’s impact on your brand’s visibility, awareness, and sales. Going forward, remember to adjust your strategy as your insights grow – to optimize future influencer collaborations.

For more information on how to use influencers to grow sales – and a full rundown on influencer marketing strategy best practices – dive into our dedicated guides.

Uh, what? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and this is what helps your website rank highly in Google’s search results. Without it, your beautifully thought out, crafted, and promoted brand will sit gathering virtual dust on page 10.

If you’ve used a quality website builder to create your website, you’re in luck – your site will already be optimized for the techy stuff, and the rest will be easy to get the hang of – even for a beginner!

If you’re using WordPress, we definitely recommend installing the Yoast SEO plugin, as it’ll help you manage your SEO and make your life much easier.

Either way, your SEO won’t magically take care of itself – here are a few basic things you can do to help climb up those Google rankings…

Get SSL Security

This is major – you need SSL security for your website, no matter what. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and encrypts data passing through your site – including card details and secure logins.

If you don’t have SSL security, Google will warn your visitors, and ask them if they want to continue – you can bet most people will say a big ‘no thanks’ and go elsewhere.

Fortunately, most website builders include SSL for free, or you can get a one yourself from Let’s Encrypt at no extra cost.

Compress your images

Images, videos, and other media can seriously impact how fast your site loads. And it’s not just impatient visitors who don’t like slow loading sites – Google hates them too.

However, you can avoid dreaded slow site speeds by compressing your files first – use a free tool like Kraken.io to compress your images before uploading them.

Use headings

Google loves structure, and so do your readers! Just like in a Google Doc, you can use different headings – H1 for your main title, H2 for your main headings, and H3 and H4 for little subheadings (like the one above!)

The list of SEO factors goes on and on (there are guides out there with over 200), so we’ll stop there – but you get the idea. Don’t neglect your SEO, or Google will neglect your website!

Further Information

• Find out the importance of SSL security in our in-depth guide to Why Your Site Needs HTTPS
• Feeling stuck for images? Our guide on Where to Find Professional Images for Your Website will help you out.
• New to SEO? Check out our helpful tips and tricks on:
  • Anchor Text
  • Backlinks
  • Website Architecture

You’re nearly there! Now, your brand is already starting to generate customers – and provide them with memorable, magnificent experiences.

Your next challenge? To spread the word about those experiences – and use the glowing feedback and endorsements from your early customers to help you win even more customers going forward? How?

Through the power of social proof. Here, we’re talking about anything that proves your brand is exactly what it says it is – and will do exactly what it says it will. Examples of social proof could include collecting customer reviews, star ratings, and – the holy grail – customer testimonials.

Of course, that all begins with requesting feedback from customers – and actively encouraging these reviews. (Even if you’ve really wowed them, they’re unlikely to offer a testimonial apropos of nothing!)

So seek feedback from your customers by sending follow-up emails after they’ve bought from you – or engage with them through customer service channels. Good customer follow-up is crucial here. Politely ask them to share their experiences and opinions about your products or services, or – to really sweeten the deal – offer incentives or rewards for their review, such as a discount or exclusive access to content.

Make it easy for customers to leave reviews by providing clear instructions on how to do this. As well as giving them multiple platforms where they can do this: such as review websites, social media platforms, or your own website. (Not sure how to go about it? We have some handy tips on exactly how to ask customers for reviews across various platforms).

Of course, it’s not simply enough to display these reviews .You have to showcase them, too! So be sure to add testimonials to your website and display reviews prominently on your landing pages and social media profiles. Highlight, in particular, testimonials that speak to the key benefits and qualities of your brand. And consider using visuals – such as customer photos or videos – to enhance each testimonials’s credibility and authenticity.

Finally, be sure to always respond to customer reviews – especially the negative ones. Engage with these less-flattering reviews promptly, professionally, and empathetically, addressing the customer’s concerns: and offering solutions or remedies to rectify their issues. This will demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and can turn a negative experience into a positive one. We know this can be tricky, so we have a full guide on how to respond to negative reviews as a business owner with more advice.

As for the positive reviews, that’s a little easier. Simply reply with gratitude and appreciation: acknowledging their feedback, and reinforcing all that positive brand sentiment and warm fuzzies.

This is only the beginning of your brand. Just because you’ve completed all our steps, doesn’t mean your brand is now totally finished. The final step is to keep going – you should constantly be evolving, growing, and improving your brand.

Tools like Google Analytics are great for tracking your website’s metrics, such as how long people are spending on your site, where they’re visiting from, and which pages are most popular.

But only your audience can tell you how successful your brand is – remember, your brand is really how people think about your business. You can control your side of that, but it’s important to make sure it’s being received in the way you hoped!

Once you’ve launched your brand, gather feedback to see how people are responding. Don’t sit back and relax – think about what you can make better, what’s working well, and how you can spread that success across every aspect of your brand.

This article has taken you through the stages of building your brand. Whether you’re building a business, creating a personal brand, or revamping your existing brand, these steps will set you on the way to brand greatness.

Here’s a quick recap of our 14 simple steps on how to build a brand:

1. Take stock of what you’ve got
2. Do the research
3. Invest in your brand
4. Create a Unique Value Proposition
5. Design a memorable brand identity
6. Find your brand voice
7. Build an engaging website
8. Create your content
9. Embrace social media
10. Promote your brand
11. Leverage influencer marketing
12. Don’t neglect your SEO
13. Encourage customer reviews and testimonials
14. Don’t stop now!

You’ll no doubt find some extra steps creep in when you’re actually doing this for yourself, because every brand is different – that’s the joy of it. But these 14 steps will see you through creating your own brand identity, and hopefully give you the inspiration to get started today!

Have you successfully built a brand? Got some top tips to share? Let us know in the comments!