A Brand by Any Other Name: The Importance of Brand Consistency
December 10th, 2015 by
In the world of SEO, consistency really is key. Any deviation from the norm can negatively affect you in search results and in the eyes of your potential customers. Consistency with your NAP (name, address, phone number) is important throughout your website, social channels, and on any directories you’re listed on. Your NAP isn’t the only thing you should be concerned with when it comes to being consistent, however. Branding consistency is also something everyone should consider.
Branding isn’t exactly something a lot of small businesses can budget to have concern for. The term itself implies hiring graphic designers, brand management firms, or other big-budget solutions you may not be able to even consider. For the sake of this blog, however, let’s assume branding only refers to your image and content consistency.
Your Image
For a lot of small businesses, branding ends at your logo. You may be working with WordPress or other do-it-yourself CMS systems that allow you to plug in your logo and make a few tweaks here and there to how things look, but that’s usually as far as it goes. Maybe you threw some of your colors in there too to liven things up a bit. Now, not all of us can be WordPress experts, but it can be worth the extra effort to make sure things look consistent throughout your site. Is your logo flat and modern looking? Make sure any elements, buttons, or boxes on your site are also flat and modern. If your logo is round and poofy, it might make sense to find some round and bold options instead. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but your logo and website should have the same look and feel.
The goal here is to have consistency throughout your site. When a potential customer clicks through your pages, you want them to always know where they are, what company they’re looking at, and to be greeted by pages that look like they go together. Much like consistency with your NAP, all you’re doing here is ensuring that the customer knows they can trust your business.
Your Content
Other than your image branding, another important thing customers factor into whether or not they’ll do business with you is your content branding. You want the customer to be able to search for something, see consistency with your brand being associated with that search, and trust you for that. Use your brand name as much as you can in your content. Not to the point where it seems spammy, but sprinkled in there enough for it to be associated with what people might be searching for.
When looking for someone to do business with, your potential customers are looking for someone they can trust. If they’re fumbling around a site that uses different color schemes than your uniforms or fleet, they might think they’re in the wrong place. Having consistency in your online presence is as important as your name these days, so get to it!
