Most people start a blog as a hobby. It’s a space for them to share ideas and experiences and they don’t tend to think about where it is going to go in the future. But if you capture people’s attention and your blog starts to grow, you may start thinking about turning it into a business. If you build a big enough following, you can earn good money from your blog, but running a blog as a business is a lot different from doing it as a hobby. This is where building a professional brand for blog purposes is key.
You will need to start working with companies on sponsored posts and collaborations if you want to increase your income, and that means looking professional is incredibly important. For a blog to look professional, it needs a clear and consistent brand, and that’s something that a lot of new bloggers don’t think about too much. But it’s not always just about your site looking professional. It’s also about having a good reputation too. Of course, your blog and professional reputation will come with time. So, do consider what your personal reputation is like based on your online footprint before you get started on building a professional brand for your blog.
Here’s how to get started.
Be Consistent with Your Brand and Design
By far the most important thing that you need to remember is to be consistent with your branding. Choosing the right brand and having an attractive design is important, but it doesn’t matter how good the brand is if it isn’t consistent. Anybody that is looking at your blog will pick up on this immediately and it makes you look very amateur. You need to make sure that you are using the same themes, logos, and fonts on all pages on your blog. You should also use standard formats and include branding when you are emailing with companies about sponsored posts.
Staying on top of that and ensuring consistency can be tough, but a lot of businesses use corporate identity management systems and you can do the same with your blog. You can save templates for all branding materials so you have a database that is easy to access and you can always be sure that they are exactly the same.
Consider Your Writing Style
Branding isn’t just about what your blog looks like. It’s essentially the personality of your blog, and the way that you write is a huge part of that. One of the main reasons that your readers keep coming back is that they like your personal writing style, and so that is a very important part of your brand. You need to develop your own style and stick to it consistently on all of your posts. When writing emails, it’s important to be professional, but you also need to bring some of that personality out as well.
Find A Niche
If you are going to build a strong brand, it needs a focal point. You need something that people immediately think of when they see your logo. In other words, you need to find a niche for your blog. It could be that you have a different take to other bloggers on whatever topic you write about or it could be the style that you write in. Maybe you offer some great tutorials on your blog that are better than anybody else. It doesn’t matter what it is, but if you are going to build a strong brand, you need to find that niche.
If you can get these things right, you will be able to build a strong brand for your blog and improve your professional image.
