12 replies to this topic

[Randy]

Well, you certainly don't want to start telling a fake story. Those always come back to haunt you.

There are as many ways to build a brand as there are brands. Almost without fail if you've been around doing stuff online, even if you weren't necessarily making money at it, you've got experiences and knowledge you can use to start building your brand. In fact, if you're coming from a black hat side of things you already have a built in brand and market niche you can target !

Think about it. You can tell your story of how you bent and broke the rules and managed some financial success in doing so. But then your story changes into how taking this fast and easy route ended up destroying your business, causing you to re-think things and change your entire business model to take a longer term view and build a self-sustaining business that gets better month after month, year after year. Then share how you did it, hopefully with a target market of others who were either involved in the dark side or who ended up being in that particular boat by hiring and trusting someone who took shortcuts.

It's a market with huge potential if you're looking for a marketing niche. And you'll be coming at it from a totally different angle than someone who has never strayed to the dark side.

[Jill]

One good way to brand yourself is to have a niche. If you're simply another affiliate marketer, that won't cut it. But if you sell only one specific type of thing, something that not a lot of others are selling, you might be able to create a niche and become THE go to person when it comes to everything having to do with it.

[Scottie]

I would think branding yourself would hurt.



Maybe a tattoo wouldn't be so bad...

[Zishan Ahmed]

It will not going to be an easy task upfront.... As randy said in order to become a brand for yourself you have to create a niche for yourself.....

Participate in online forums and post quality blogs by using your expertise in the internet marketing field........... Hopefully if other people start getting interest in your post and fine your post interesting and of qality stuff... then you can also become overnight star..............."BRAND".

[madams]

I would think branding yourself would hurt.

Yeh, Best way is to get someone who hates you to do it. They will make a good job of it.

[chrishirst]

But maybe they would make a bad job of it ...






... several times!

[Scott Simmonds]

Start branding by starting relationships.

First, everyone is in the marketing business. No marketing, no business. Every business must invest significant resources to marketing. For most of us sole practitioners, that means time. Set a goal of spending 20 or 25% of your day in marketing activities - writing articles, building your website, posting on forums, speaking to business groups...

Second, marketing should be based on making yourself a person of interest to your market. That comes from marketing by providing value. We all do business with people who provide us with value.

Third, follow Seth Godin's advice... Your business and you must be remarkable - worthy of remark. You must be of such interest and of such value that your customers and prospects remark to others about you and your work.

Read everything written by Seth Godin and Alan Weiss.

[nethy]

Branding for what purpose? Are you planning on becoming a consultant?

[Kian88]

Wow!! All are great ideas and thoughts...

my opinion is that branding refers to dominating a particular niche. If you have brand yourself well in the dog niche and when dog owners talk about dog, they will literally think about you or visit your website.

Zishan, you did mention about posting quality blog to build a brand in a certain niche but.... even if the blog is of quality how do we actually drive traffic to the blog itself. Could anyone elaborate on this?

Regards,
Kian

[SEO_Gal]

Network, network, network. Build relationships with prospective clients. Do a good job for them. Get referrals. participate on forums & blogs, write articles, send out press releases. Get out there and build a name for yourself - online and in person.

[hoszke]

We have a software developer company, and we have a special software with about 1000-1200 customers.

We have made a website containing lot things of our company, and with some content with our product. I see, our customers want solutions and they are not interested in our company. That is why we would like to start a new site with our PRODUCT, not company.

Firstly, I would like to register a new domain, but I can not choose:

(A) www.keyword.com (keyword is the most important keyword to my product)
(B) www.productname-keyword.com (long a little bit? Does it matter? I would not like to advertise in newspapers, so our customers will click, not type the address)
© www.productname.com (I think it is not good idea this moment (not so much promotions))

And bonus question:
Does it matter what the ending is (.com, .de, etc). I would like to promote our product in a specific region, and country (for example Hungary, or Romania).

thanks a lot!

[Randy]

Wow! We found an oldie but a goodie.

Welcome Hoszke !

First, I wouldn't let any potential SEO benefits or detractors factor into the decision at all. The domain name just doesn't matter all that much where SEO is concerned.

Therefore the important things are how are you going to build your brand and what is going to resonate with potential buyers?

Often the branding has to do with the outcome people want and will get from using your product or service, which may or may not be part of the product name. Or keyword. More likely the keyword than the product name though if the two are different.

So can you get a reasonably short, memorable domain name that indicates the solution to whatever problem your product/service provides?