“Branding” is basically the process of giving a market identity to a product. For blogs, it’s essential. Not all WordPress blogs look alike, but with common themes and way too many cookie cutter templates, anything which makes your blog stand out is a plus. For marketing purposes, you have to do a lot more than stand out; you must have a marketing identity. SEO and good content can do that for you.

Branding, basics

The fundamentals of branding are like creating a logo. The key requirements for a brand are:

  • Unique visual identity
  • Unique selling points
  • Unique market image and presence
  • Unique marketing elements like keywords, advertising slogans, etc.

This is the “one orange in a crate of apples” approach. What’s different and unique inevitably stands out. In many cases, branding works best by being as different as possible from its peers.

Content is critically important to branding. On blogs particularly high volume types of blog like WordPress, it’s even more important. If you look at some of the best WordPress blogs, you’ll see a huge difference in quality between the most successful blogs and the herd. They’re as different as possible, always showing a very high level of emphasis on getting excellent materials.

The best blogs never use “so-so” materials. The artwork, in particular, is always best quality, and usually always newsworthy, interesting and uses cutting edge materials. The result is a huge audience, always engaged with the blog’s latest posts.

Branding and SEO

Branding, simply because it’s based on identity, is also extremely useful for SEO purposes. What page ranking would you expect the world’s most famous brand, Coca Cola, to have on Google if you searched “soft drinks”? It’s number 3, directly under two Wikipedia entries. That’s what branding can do for any product, if it’s done properly.

Blogs, which are usually directly plugged in to some industry or interest group, work much the same way. Search engine rankings are based on rationalizing search results.

Say your blog’s about golf. Your blog includes:

  • Golf news
  • Rules of the game
  • History of the US Open
  • Champions of golf, with biographies
  • Golf equipment
  • Golfing blog articles
  • Adsense golfing ads
  • Online golfing store

So far, so good. These are all the basics of a good golfing blog which would rank well from day one, simply because it’s so obviously useful and relevant to anyone searching for golfing information.

What’s missing is a brand identity.

This is a great blog, but it’s anonymous. How do people know who you are? There are literally millions of WordPress blogs, and plenty of golfing blogs. How to distinguish your blog from the others, and get a higher ranking? Search engine optimization is the answer. SEO works both ways, associating brands with subjects and subjects with brands.

Search the word “coca”, and there’s still no getting away from Coca Cola. That’s branding at its best, and it’s what your blog needs for a market identity. Take the time to think up a good brand name, and it will be worth it. Your blog will thrive.