Blogable A-Z ~ B for Branding

Why bother with branding?

Well I am back for the big letter B and this time we are talking about branding. Branding your website is so important and May and I wrote about this a while back in the post Branding your Site. Basically it is a tough world out there and you have a really short window to catch the attention of your reader. After that, you have a really long time to remain firmly placed in their memory so that they remember to return to visit you again.

We talked in the post about the importance of finding your thing and using that to find your way to a specific audience. There are a wealth of posts here on Blogable which will help you to design a site and create content which is going to impress your readers and make them want to return. But there are other things you can do in order to allow your own little space to stand out from others.

For loads of tips on just how to do this you will want to read the branding post at the bottom of the page, but I wanted to use our Blogable friend, Mrs Fever, to illustrate how clever branding can work.

Case Study: Mrs Fever

Mrs Fever has a site called Mrs Fever. This works because the person and the site share a name. Already we are twice as likely to remember the name of that great site we have found. Mrs Fever has a blog ‘primarily about love, SEX, and relationships.’ On brand to her site name – sex is hot. Her tagline is Temperature’s Rising – again, on brand. Added to the tagline are the words ‘still hot, it just comes in flashes now.’

It all ties up. Every word is intentional and it is chosen carefully. While Mrs Fever writes about love, SEX and relationships, she also loves words. She states on her About Me page, ‘Language was my first love, and I have had a life-long infatuation with words.’ This is evident from the outset on Mrs Fever’s site. She plays with words, has her own style and her originality and skill is clear.

Mrs Fever also writes that her ’emphasis has shifted over the course of the years, and (she is) not much interested in sex right now due to menopausal ‘meh’.’ Again, a clever reference to the ‘flashes’. Mrs Fever has a brand and she uses it across her site from her Saturday writing project, ‘Saturday Night Fever’, to her alliterative category titles, to the common threads which run through her posts. Her posts are quirky, original and have the unmistakable Fever stamp on them. When you read, you recognise her style and she feels like a friend. This keeps people coming back to what is a clever and successful site.

So what does this mean for me?

I am not suggesting, of course, that we all need to tie everything up in this way; this is the way that works for Mrs Fever and you should find the way that works for you. After all, there would be nothing memorable about us if we all were doing the same thing. But what I am suggesting is that if you want to be remembered and you want to maximise on returning visitors by being memorable, you need to think about your brand, what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it.

I am also not suggesting that all of the successful bloggers out there have planned things out so carefully. Many are here to just to write for themselves, and their style, love of language, and focus on certain areas means that it happens organically, in an innate way. I suppose what I am saying is that sometimes, a brand will evolve naturally rather than as part of a marketing strategy. If you are here just to write for you then I am sure you are having way to much fun to brand yourself, but if you are looking to make money from your site then it is probably something you should consider.

If you are interested then please check out this post where we share in more detail.

More on branding

Branding your Site

To read more tips from Mrs Fever on starting a sex blog why not check out her post about it.