Online Branding is one of the methods you can capitalise on to differentiate your business from the competitors. A business with a strong brand quickly becomes perceived as a major player in its market.

What’s a brand?

Simply put, your brand reflects the thoughts and feelings consumers get when they hear your company’s name.

Think of Apple. A small word that says a lot. Apple conjures up the idea of high quality, cool, hand-held devices (iPod, iPhone, iPad) and of course computers. All this is backed by a sense of having great software.

You may think that branding or getting consumers to associate your business with certain thoughts or feelings requires great expense, as in television advertising campaigns, billboards, or the like. It’s true that branding can be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. As entrepreneurs we need to think a little smarter about our branding strategies.

Is Online Branding Expensive?

If you’re aim is to be recognised instantly as an authority in a particular niche, then branding doesn’t need to be expensive. Costs start to pile up when you focus on too broad a market. As an entrepreneur you must be very specific about what you want to be known for.

Here are three ways to start online branding which require an investment in time rather than in money.

Blog and guest blog. To blog effectively you need to become personally involved in your blog and connect with your visitors. The more you let your personality show, the more easily it will be for readers to connect to you.

Write an e-book. It should be related to your business, like for example to offer an insider’s view on the niche. You could sell yes however for online branding purposes you should give it away so a larger number of people have access to it.

Get involved in social media marketing. If you don’t already have a strong business page on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or YouTube try it. Social media has become one of the best tools for online branding. You don’t need to use all of them, it’s better to master one that suits you than do them all half-heartedly.

You can begin with all of this by yourself, to build awareness of your brand but never forget your website. Your website should be the mother ship. All these branding exercises should be driving more traffic back to your website where you can make sales.