How Brand Building and Web Design Work Together

Why Brand Building Is Important (If You Want to Stand Out, That Is!)

Did you ever notice how businesses and business owners have their own personality? It’s what makes them stand out and get noticed! That can include anything from their color scheme and logo to how their business location looks, how their team interacts with customers, and even their service and product offerings. One of our fave places sells things like banana-flavored dice, how fun! So let’s take a look at how brand building and web design can work together.

Brand building is an integral part of web design and development, or at least it should be. Brand building is effective in acquiring customers and turning them into brand advocates. Your business website plays an important role as it gives visitors a first impression about your brand, your products and services, and what potential customers can expect from you. Therefore your website is essential for brand building.

Brand building serves another important purpose. It helps your site visitors to understand what to expect from your brand, and if it instills trust in them. Without that your potential consumers most likely will look elsewhere. It is up to you to develop and build that kind of trust. Brand building is instrumental in winning customers and sustaining their loyalty. Let’s take a look at some effective strategies.

5 Brand Building Strategies for Your Website

Focus on Your Personality and Character

Ever visit a website for the first time, only to go “meh?” You know, the vanilla of website flavors? Not very exciting, is it? If you want to be boring that’s your business. But don’t expect much in the way of engagement that way. So instead of just throwing up a site (and hoping for the best!) why not make your website match your business? One essential aspect of brand building is your character. Infusing a distinctive character or personality helps clarify what your brand actually stands for.

Consider shaping the character of your brand around something that your audience can associate with. What kind of character are you trying to infuse in your brand? Are you safe and reliable? Or, is it about being colorful and having fun? The character or personality of your business must be an important consideration for your brand building.

To incorporate a specific character or personality in your brand you must define clearly what it actually stands for. Between taglines, color palettes, and logos, businesses invest a tremendous amount of time to developing their brands, but many of them overlook the importance and quality of character. That charisma certainly is the precise element transforming a brand into a real icon. So be yourself! You are the only one who can do it!

Evoke Visitor Emotions

When visitors come to your website you want them to do something. That can be anything from signing up for your newsletter to making a dinner reservation. Getting people to do what you want becomes much easier if you connect with them emotionally. Therefore your brand building needs to focus on the emotions of your target audience.

Before you can evoke emotions through brand building you need to determine the ideas and emotions that you want to be projected by your brand. How do you want your website visitors feel when they first visit your site? Do you want to excite your audience or calm them down? Do you want to evoke an immediate reaction? Instead of concentrating simply on current web design trends, you must focus your brand building on specific ideas and emotions that your brand wants to project.

Create a Brand Color Palette

A brand color palette is vital to brand building. Colors are known to stimulate a broad spectrum of emotions. Our brains are hardwired to associate different colors with different characteristics. Take the color red, for instance. It evokes immediate emotions of passion, love, power, energy and excitement. It also indicates a warning or danger. Blue is trustworthy, green is considered calming, and yellow indicates innovation. Here is some more info on the psychology of colors in marketing.

Brand building starts with selecting the best colors for your business, based on how your target audience perceives them. For instance, if you sell insurance or investments consider blues for your palette. A bar or nightclub can make effective use of reds. And if you are a healthcare provider greens are a good choice. Keep in mind that some colors look better online than others. Some reds may appear brown, and some blues can take on a black tint.

When selecting the colors for your own brand, you must understand these inherent implications associated with different colors. Choose the right color for your brand, and it will help build your brand and elevate it from your competitors. But if you select inappropriate colors you will turn away your target audience instead. Because the right colors are so important to brand building we recommend you don’t rush your decision.

Hidden in Plain Sight – How to Choose Your Brand’s Colors

Of course, selecting just the right color for your business or product company may be more demanding and time-consuming than you may believe. First of all, colors and their perception are very subjective. You may love a certain shade of green, but your partner reacts totally different. Secondly, not all colors reproduce well across all media and devices. This is especially true if you are aiming for an audience that may not use the latest technology. This includes especially large organizations who face additional challenges when it comes to software or hardware upgrades.

Since selecting just the right color or color combinations is absolutely critical for brand building we wanted to share a great resource with you. The nice folks at Custom Logo Cases have come up with an awesome post on the importance of selecting just the right colors, how color can affect your brain, and a guide on how to actually pick your own brand colors. Check it out here, and incorporate some of their ideas into your brand building efforts.

Be Consistent

Brand building must extend well beyond your business website if you want it to be really effective. Having a branded website is not going to help if you appear different on all your social networks. Even worse if you are using a different look for your business cards, signage, and any other printed materials. A surprisingly common branding mistake is to use different variations of your business name!

If you really want to create a memorable brand you have to focus on the little things. An effective brand compels people to remember it. Your brand building must be consistent throughout your website and online presence for building a personality and more importantly, presenting a uniform brand image. Otherwise your brand building efforts will only lead to brand confusion.

Final Thoughts on Brand Building and Web Design

Effective brand building is crucial especially for small businesses, restaurants and bars, and professional service providers. Big brands can afford to flood the market with paid promotional messages. But that doesn’t mean smaller brands have to give up. Instead you are in an ideal position to try some creative marketing ideas.

By making brand building part of your web design process you reach two goals faster. The first is that having an effective brand helps you market your business. A recognizable brand stands out more, which attracts a growing audience. And establishing an effective brand also helps you attract the right kind of potential customer.

Brand building and web design are an effective combination for differentiating you from your competitors. A branded website helps your target audience to assess your business quickly. The web is a brilliant platform for building your brand. Don’t underestimate importance of combining brand building and web design.

Need Help With Brand Building or Web Design?

We understand. This looks easy on paper, and turns out to be anything but. Sort of like that “easy-to-assemble” toy from last Christmas, remember? So here is an idea for you; why not let our team help you figure this out?

We are experts at helping our clients determine the best brand building and web design strategy for their business. From brand strategy to mobile-first web design and search engine optimization we can help your business rise above the digital noise. Why not get started by reaching out for your free web design consultation?

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Thank you! We appreciate your help to end bad business websites, one pixel at a time!

By ESPRESSO Team Highly Caffeinated Digital Creatives @ESPRESSOcreates