Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

Holiday elf design

I figured that with a business name like elf design, it was about time for me to get into the holiday spirit. And, this is what resulted. Happy holidays!

2008: The Year In Articles

Logo Design

The Three-Part Harmony in Your Logo

Just as a harmonized song is made up of a set of three notes, every small business's logo should be made up of three pieces of art: the icon, the font, and the color palette.

These three pieces all work together, singing the same basic song, to tell your business's story. In your logo, each of them gives you an opportunity to build in meaning and symbolism.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Logo-Harmony.html

The 6 Jobs of Your Logo's Icon

Many entrepreneurs think that the icon for their logo should be a picture that appeals to them personally. They go into the logo design process looking to create an icon with personal symbolic meaning, because they think that the icon's job is to appeal to them personally as well as to look interesting.

This is a case of the icon's job description not being well written. In a perfect world, entrepreneurs love their logo icons—and personally identify with their meaning. But, that's the logo icon's last, and least important, job. First, it must do several more important jobs for your company.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Logo-Icon.html

The 4 Jobs of Your Logo Font

Many entrepreneurs think that the font for their business name is like a trophy wife—just there to look pretty, all perfect hair and manicure. So, they try to find a font that looks cool, often without looking at any of the features of the font itself.

But, the font in your logo is a busy little element. It works 4 jobs!

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Logo-Font.html

The 5 Jobs of your Logo's Color Palette

Picking colors for your logo can be difficult. Just how do you go about choosing appropriate colors? Everyone has favorite colors, and many people also have colors they hate. But, whether or not you personally like a color actually has little to do with its appropriateness for your business's brand.

You should make your choices based on the colors that will best perform the color palette's jobs.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Logo-Color.html

Keep Your Logo Simple

Have you ever seen a logo that looked like a jumbled mess of drawings? Where there are so many elements competing for your attention that you don't know where to look or what it all means? Or where there are so many layered elements that they're all confused together?

The job of your logo is to communicate what your business is all about in an instant. But if you try to say too much in that instant, it's more likely that your clients and prospects will either not get the message at all or that they'll get the wrong message—and wind up pulling the wrong information out of an overcomplicated logo.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Logo-Simple.html

Define Your Brand So You Can Design Your Logo

The first step in logo design: Define Your Brand and your Difference Until you know exactly what makes your business different from all of your competition, your marketing will be a struggle. And, it certainly won't be as effective as it could—and should— be. And, in order to know what makes you different, you have to first understand what your business is all about. You have to form a strong and unique foundation for your business brand. This workbook will help you to do just that. It takes you through all of the questions to form your business's Brand Definition, so that you can figure out Who You Are, What You Do, Who You Can Best Help and What Makes You Different. Once you have those 4 elements clearly defined, creating a clear and effective business brand will be much easier. Price: $15

Small Business Branding

The Four Red Light Factors For Your Business Brand

Where I live, there are 4 traffic lights between my house and the main road. So, before I can really get on my way in any journey, I usually have to stop, no matter where I'm going. Some days, I even have to stop and wait at all 4 lights. All this stopping and waiting gets tiresome—but it pays off by getting me safely to my destination.

Branding your business can be a lot like these traffic lights. There are certain things you must decide before you can really get started on the fun part—drawing your logo and designing your marketing materials. Frustrating, but making these decisions is a necessary part of making sure that you will create your brand correctly.

Making decisions about the 4 following Brand Definition factors does make you stop and wait a bit but ensures that you proceed through the branding process safely and create a brand that will help your business to reach its goals safely and comfortably.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Branding-Red-Lights.html

How Your Business Should Act Like A Snowflake

If someone walked up to you and said "you should make your business more like a snowflake" you'd probably think they were a little crazy. Do they think your business should be made from ice crystals? Be cold or melty? Fall from the sky? None of these seem like desirable business attributes.

But, there's one thing that each and every snowflake has that a small business should strive for—uniqueness. When the ice crystals that make up a snowflake all get together, they always assemble themselves in a new and different formation. Snowflakes always have a unique structure and a unique appearance.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Brand-Uniqueness.html

Why your Business Brand Shouldn't Be An Exact Mirror Image Of You

"Mirror, Mirror on the wall... Who's The Fairest One Of All?" The wicked witch uses this line to ask her magic mirror about her beauty, and time and time again, the mirror always says, "Why, you are, of course!" Then, one day, the mirror answers "There is one fairer than you—and her skin is white as snow." This simple truth sends the witch on a rampage. She disguises herself, poisons poor Snow White, and puts her into a magical coma.

This tale of jealousy and deception cautions children everywhere that nothing good can come of vanity. But if you ask the average small business owner what differentiates their business from the competition, one of the first answers you'll hear is "Why, I do. I'm the best at this in the land!"—or some variation on that refrain.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Brand-Mirror.html

Rebranding Is an Excuse to Party in Your Business

Once the redesign is done, many small businesses launch it silently. They change their logos, business cards, and websites one day—sometimes without so much as an announcement or a "By the way... " to their customers. Not only are they potentially confusing and alienating them, but they're also missing out on a great excuse to party!

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Rebrand-Party.html

Branding Is Like A Fairy Tale...

It may not seem like the story of Little Red Riding Hood has much of a parallel to your business's brand. But, a good brand can be a lot like a story. Instead of being a story of a little girl going on a journey, and overcoming different challenges, the brand is the story of how you take your customer from just learning about your business to becoming a customer.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Brand-Story.html

How To Avoid Having Two Separate Businesses To Market Even If You Offer Two Services

If you're trying to market two seemingly separate products or services, then it might be tempting to separate them and create two companies—one to promote service A and another to promote service B. But, along with two companies comes marketing twice, That means two logos, two business cards (and wondering which one to hand out to get the most out of networking events!), two websites (and maintaining and updating two websites) and two newsletter lists to keep in touch with your clients.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Find-Thread.html

Learn more about Brand Design

Brand Design For Your Bottom Line The Brand Design For Your Bottom Line series is designed to walk small businesses through the 5 basic steps of branding, so that you can get your business brand created in a way that will help your business grow and become successful. And so that you can do it right the first time! You get all 6 calls, with transcripts, for $69. It even comes with 2 bonuses—The Define Your Difference Branding Workbook and the Plan A Website That Works! Workbook—those alone are worth $30. The details on the bonuses are below.

Marketing and Marketing Materials

How To Stand Out At A Trade Show

Think of the last time you were on the midway at a state fair. Every booth was brightly colored, full of interesting things to see, do, and win. Hawkers yelled: "Step right up!", "Three tries for a dollar!", "Win a stuffed bunny for the lovely lady!" Lights flashed, kids ran around, and everyone seemed to be talking at once.

A trade show is like the midway at the state fair.

There may not be quite so many stuffed bunnies at a business trade show, but the level of noise and distraction is just about the same. There are lots of other businesses competing for your customers' attention, all with product demonstrations, service information, and free giveaways. On top of that, there may be speakers, new technologies to play with, raffles, food booths, and networking opportunities.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Trade-Show.html

Designing Temporary Materials to Get You Through A Branding Emergency

Raise your hand if you've ever "fixed" something important with duct tape. Come on, you know who you are.

I'll admit it—I know I'm guilty. In college, during a particularly low-income quarter, I fixed my broken backpack with duct tape because I couldn't afford to buy a new one right away. More recently, I fixed a tent with duct tape while I was camping, because there was simply nothing else around to repair it with. In both cases, these repairs were less-than-ideal but much better than not doing anything to fix a rather urgent problem.

What if your urgent problem is that you have no marketing materials for your business?

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Temporary-Materials.html

Website Design

How To Make Your Website Structurally Sound

You've decided to build a website. Great! Your first step is to determine its structure—the pages you want to include and the information you want provide to visitors. But how to begin?

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Website-StructurallySound.html

The Balancing Act of Making Everyone Happy With Your Website

When you create a website, you're trying to make several different audiences happy. You've got searchers coming in from the search engines, you want those search engines to rank you well, and you've got past and prospective clients. Referral partners are also out there looking at your site and sending business your way. Each different audience for your website has its own requirements, different things it's looking for, and unique needs.

You have to think about each audience you're trying to appeal to as you design and develop the different parts of your site. That includes navigation style, types of pages, text on those pages, design, coding, offers, and calls to action. You have to make sure that each of these elements balances all the others—so that there aren't too many pages with not enough content, or that navigation is so complex that it's hard for people to find what they're looking for.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Website-Balance.html

Start Planning Your Website

Plan a Website That Works Do you want to create a website that will do more than just sit there? A well-planned and well-done website can do more for your business than just, well, be a website. A website that's designed well can act as another employee in a small business, doing some of the tasks that keep your business successful. This workbook will walk you through all of the questions that you need to answer in order to create the best possible website. Price: $15

Search Engine Optimization

Getting Your Website Noticed by the Search Engines

You've just launched your website, marking the end of a huge effort and the beginning of a whole new way of doing business. Now, all you have to do is sit back and wait for visitors to flood in, right?

But, wait, people have to know your site's there in order to visit. So you go over to Google and search on your field to find your business. You don't see anything on the first few pages. Disappointing, but that's o.k. After all, your site's pretty new. Then you do a search on your company name, expecting to see your new site in the first position.

That's when the panic sets in...

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Website-Get-Noticed.html

Do You Really Need To Come In First Place?

Whenever I talk to a client about search engine placement, this track meet comes into mind. The client comes to me wanting to be #1 for their chosen search term. But for many small businesses, being ranked first is not truly that important—and depending on the search term, being #1 may hurt their business.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-Website-First-Place.html

The Search Engine Trinity

...Getting a small business listed on the search engines also is based on a trinity of components. These components give your search engine efforts a base to be built off of, and ensure that you'll be successful. Those are: the ease of getting listed, the effectiveness of your listing, and then finally, the level of placement.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Trinity.html

Your Small Business's Search Engine Ranking Emergency

Sirens blare. Ambulance lights flash. The paramedics jump out and attend to the things that they need to do to stabilize the patient. They check pulse and breath, administer CPR, minimize the bleeding, and brace the neck. Then they load the victim onto a gurney and rush back down the road to the hospital, where the doctors can really fix the problem.

No one wants an emergency—but if you've got one on your hands, it's good to know the steps to take to "stabilize the patient." If your small business emergency is that your website isn't showing up on the search engines, there a couple of steps you can take right now.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Emergency.html

Why Starting A Relationship With The Search Engines Can Be Hard

In a singles bar, patrons typically have the same sorts of insecurities running through their heads:

"I've been hurt before."

"Should I trust her?"

"Can I let my walls down and let him in?"

These insecurities really get in the way of finding a happy, lasting relationship.

Search Engines have a lot in common with singles. They've been hurt, and they aren't so quick to trust any more.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Trust-Issues.html

Why You Won't Get Instant Gratification From the Search Engines and What to Do About It

Today, people expect instant gratification. There's IM, instead of slow postal service. Instant video downloads, for those spur-of the moment entertainment needs. There are "instant noodles" when taking a few minutes to cook something just won't do. And, of course, instant coffee for people who aren't willing to brew a real cup.

So, when it's time to get your website listed on the search engines, it's only natural for you to want to be up on Google right away. I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten from clients right after I've let them know that their site is launched, saying "But, I Googled myself, and I'm not there! Why not?"

http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Instant-Gratification.html

Search Engine Optimization: It's Not Who You Know, It's Who Knows You

Many small businesses start their websites and put a "Links" page up as one of their first few pages—thinking that this will help them rank better.

While it's a nice gesture to link to your vendors, associates, resources, and products you like—and your customers may even find this page helpful or interesting—having a links page alone won't help your website to rank better.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Links-Known.html

Why All The Search Engine Secrecy?

The search engines try to be good at keeping their methods of ranking websites top-secret. You never quite know exactly why such-and-so company wound up in the #1 slot and your company is way down on page 3. You wonder if it's because the search engines like it better. Or because it knows the secret handshake.

http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Secret.html

Learn more about Search Engine Optimization

Raise Your Ranking: The Small Business Guide to Getting Found on the Search Engines Do you wish that your website would come up in Google? Well, you can stop wishing for it to happen and start learning how to make your site rank really well with my newest product, Raise Your Ranking. This product consists of 5 interviews about the psychology of the Search Engines, and an eBook that walks you through the process from a tactical perspective. There's also a workbook that walks you through the process step-by-step. 5+ hours of MP3 recordings plus 64-page eBook and a workbook Price: $77

Nina Price Logo: Brand Story

Nina Price Logo

Nina Price helps High-Tech Professionals stay professionally competitive by using a wide variety of tools — massage, acupuncture, Business and Wellness Coaching, Traditional Chinese Medicine, herbal foot soaks, and even Detox treatments.

This logo is a good example of the three elements that a small business's logo uses to communicate the business's personality to their best clients. Here's how it does that:

1. The Icon. The icon in this logo uses icons of the different senses and parts of the body that Nina works with in her business to impact the energy level (shown by the star) and the soul (shown by the heart icon) of her clients. The hand drawn look and swirls in the icons denote the energy and sense of humor that she approaches her work with.

2. The Font. This font, with its' sharp edges, adds a bit of the computer-industry flair to the logo without overpowering the hand-drawn icons.

3. The Color Palette. Though I don't often recommend using the entire rainbow in your logo, in this case, the broad-spectrum treatment is appropriate. It visually speaks of the range of services that she provides and the range of problems that she can help her clients through.

I also designed her stationery, website (http://www.ninaprice.com) and business card.

The Balancing Act of Making Everyone Happy With Your Website

When you create a website, you're trying to make several different audiences happy. You've got searchers coming in from the search engines, you want those search engines to rank you well, and you've got past and prospective clients. Referral partners are also out there looking at your site and sending business your way. Each different audience for your website has its own requirements, different things it's looking for, and unique needs.

You have to think about each audience you're trying to appeal to as you design and develop the different parts of your site. That includes navigation style, types of pages, text on those pages, design, coding, offers, and calls to action. You have to make sure that each of these elements balances all the others—so that there aren't too many pages with not enough content, or that navigation is so complex that it's hard for people to find what they're looking for.

It's easy to focus on one audience's needs over another.

Getting stuck thinking about one element of your site can result in an unbalanced site. And as you try to make your website do more, as you add complexity, it's harder and harder to keep the functions at equilibrium. The more elements your site contains and the more audiences you think about, the more difficult it becomes to keep everyone happy.

Focus on balancing everyone's needs and concerns.

If you focus on one of your audiences over the others, you'll wind up with a website that seems out of balance and doesn't meet some of your audiences' needs. For example, you can focus too heavily on writing your site content to appeal to the search engines and create a site that's so keyword-laden you look a bit crazy.

Instead, try to keep all of your audiences' needs in harmony so that everyone has a good experience and is impressed by your site instead of wondering what's wrong with it.

When you write, design, and code your site, think about:

1. Who is visiting it? Where are your clients coming from? Search engines bring searchers to your site. Past clients look you up for new projects or needs. There are potential customers who have been referred to you. And those who have met you at networking events or seen your booth at a trade show. Each of these audiences has different levels of knowledge about you and different issues that they want to address.

2. What do they want to know? Each audience has different needs, problems, and concerns. The search engines want to know what your site's all about, and they want to see your keywords. Past clients want contact information and to see if you can help them with their new need. Potential clients want to know if you can solve their problem, and they want to know if you're trustworthy and likeable. People who have already met you want to get more information on your services and find out what's next in the process of working with you. Think about why people are coming to your site and how you can help them along.

3. What you want your website to do for your business? Your website should be more than just pretty. It should do a job (or several jobs) for your business. Think about how it can most benefit your business—whether by bringing in new clients, getting noticed by the search engines, sharing your thoughts with the world through articles, helping you get the media's attention, or maybe some other function entirely. Whatever job your website must do, make sure that everything you put on it works towards making that happen.

4. Are you being accidentally contrary? Do any of the things you've put on your site for one audience contradict what you've written for another? You want to make sure that your site always makes sense, no matter who's reading it—or how much of the site they read. You also want your site to mesh with your printed marketing pieces, phone conversations, and the delivery of your products or services to ensure that your customers stay happy.

If you think about these 4 things as you're developing your website, you'll create one that keeps all of your audiences happy. The site will keep you happy in the long run, and you'll get more return on your investment in it as well.