How can you make sure that your website branding is consistent with your brand?
As more consumers choose to spend their money online, the first question every business should ask is whether their website brand is making the grade. Having a website is one thing – having one that ticks all the boxes is another.
As more money is spent online, the competition grows and, in turn, becomes savvier. It’s time to make sure that your website stands out and that your customers recognise you no matter where you appear in their day-to-day lives.
As a web design and branding agency, we have witnessed first-hand how the connection between branding and web design can sometimes go missing. As a business owner, it’s essential you can objectively assess how effective your website is and how your brand and online home go hand-in-hand. Understanding this relationship strengthens your chances of success and makes sure that you convert all that valuable traffic into sales.
In this blog, we are offering an insight into how to create website brand consistency so that your website falls in line with all of the other aspects of your business. So, let’s get this show on the road and get into the important stuff.
Understanding branding
Before getting into the nitty-gritty, we should define what we mean by the term ‘brand’. As more businesses move online, branding has become more prevalent than ever before, explaining its emergence from the shadows.
Your brand is every aspect of your business, not just a logo, as some still believe. Your brand is the complete entity of everything you do, from the way you interact with people online to how your staff conduct business, and of course, everything in between.
Create8 branding
When it comes to developing eye-catching and memorable brand identities, we have your back. As branding specialists, we’ve helped produce and maintain some of the most exciting brands across several sectors, our experience could be integral to you, let’s share the skills!
How about you have a click around our website and check out some of the projects we’ve had the joy of working on!
Web and brand
When creating brand consistency across your website, the layout is a great place to start. Your website should scream everything about your brand, and one of the critical aspects of your business is how your branding feels to potential customers. If you are a funky and energetic brand, implementing a minimalistic design on your website can cause some confusion. Bring the funky energy to your website’s flow!
This may sound obvious, but trust us, it happens. Uniformity across your branding and the look and feel of your website is the best place to start to make sure that people notice and remember you.
Be recognisable, your business will be more likely to create a bond with potential customers. Those relationships that your brand builds are the ones you can nurture to develop long term loyalty and repeat custom.
You must make everything look like you because the minute it doesn’t, your money and time could be wasted. Bring your brand voice into your website style – are you modern and minimal? Clean and earthy? Retro and colourful? Bring these elements into your website and brand.
There’s something in the colours
In the world of branding, using splashes of colour is one of the best ways to evoke emotion within a potential customer. Overlooking your colour scheme is a massive faux pas.
As styles rise and fall in popularity, how you colour your website depends on what you want to achieve.
If you are a bright and easily recognisable brand, assuring that fluorescent and eye-catching colour palettes appear throughout your website is a great place to start.
On the other hand, if your business revolves around minimalistic high-end design styles, leaving open spaces and using traditionally rich and opulent colours could work in your favour.
The key to creating a great brand image is to make sure that it becomes consistent across all formats. If your website and the packaging of your product is a dreamy collection of cream, white and brown tones, your marketing should also follow suit. Try and keep everything in one big loop, branding, website, packaging, product – sync them all together.
The Create8 team
When you pick Create8 to build a brilliant brand, you get a team of people who’ve done it all already and are ready to offer advice and tips along the way.
We are an all-encompassing agency for branding, web design and marketing, so there are no chances of mixed messages when working with multiple agencies or freelancers.
Our team makes sure that we are fully on brief and each understand what makes you unique before building a brand to mirror your character. Why not check out some of our previous web design jobs.
Don’t forget the font
OK, so this is a pretty obvious one, but it’s also the most commonly forgotten when it comes to brand consistency… your font!
We have no doubt your website will have lots of helpful information about your business, from opening times to product details. Still, no matter how professional your content may be, it can look amateur if it appears in a flurry of varied types, sizes and colours.
Specific fonts fit the mould in certain sectors and finding a font that you truly love can be a complicated process. Just make sure you don’t pick six or seven different fonts, you do not need that many, trust us.
It would be best if you were thinking about your font across all aspects of your marketing and branding; although mixing your fonts may not feel like a bad idea, it can create an inconsistent brand and negatively affect your brand recognition.
Paint the same pictures
You know what they say; a picture is worth a thousand words. But that doesn’t mean a thousand different pictures builds a great brand.
When using imagery, your website should mirror your brand in every way possible. For example, if you have professional product shots, make sure you utilise them on your website as well as within your marketing and branding.
Professionally taken shots are an excellent way to highlight the intricate details of your products. They also offer your potential customers the opportunity to connect with your product before purchasing the item itself – especially if you go for some lifestyle shots within a setting, helping them visualise the product in their own home.
Consistent imagery makes your branding prominent throughout your website, creating more memorable imagery within the potential customer’s mind.
How do you sound?
The way you communicate with your customers allows you to build a rapport and portrays your branding all in one. Tone of voice is often overlooked in the branding process, leaving those businesses who utilise their tone to succeed where the competition misses out.
Your tone of voice is incredibly easy to replicate across every outlet of your business.
For example, if you are currently hosting a blog within your website, your tone should be the same as that used within your social media and online communication with potential clients. The way you portray yourself to potential clients through your language, topics of discussion and driving ethos behind your business all paint a more complex picture for your clients to engage with.
Do you want to be corporate and professional? Informal and pally? Knowledgable and in the know? Decide how you want to speak to your customers and stick with it.
Extending your brand to your website is crucial to the success of your business. Over 90% of potential customers will visit a businesses website for the first time without actually making a purchase. If your website isn’t reaffirming your brand, you aren’t making the most of those visits.
Understanding how your branding works and what it means to your business is the first place to start and is often the critical ingredient in the recipe of online success.
In this blog, we have mentioned some of the most straightforward ways for your business to connect with potential customers by championing your brand and the connection you build between your online and offline brand presence.
However, it’s important to note that all brilliant brands start in the same place, with forward-thinking and innovative brand strategies. Your strategy will prepare you for the highs and lows associated with business and also support your growth with well-informed research.
At Create8, we offer support to our clients from the initial brand strategy through to execution, including logo and web design along the way.
When you choose an agency like us, you’re in safe hands as we bring our team into meetings so that your business benefits from our complete range of and creative know-how and expertise.
If you need any more reasons why we would be an excellent fit for your business, send us a message and reach out! We can’t wait to hear from you.
Take a look at some more of our blogs for helpful tips, tricks and advice:
Stockport Business Awards & DEA - Shortlisted • 