Online Marketing Services for Coaches, Consultants, Trainers and Service Entrepreneurs

Shortcut to Branding Your Business

If you’re like me, you love short-cuts - ways to get things done faster without sacrificing quality. If you’re a coach or consultant struggling with branding your website and business, here’s help to get you started.

First, let’s define what a brand is.  It’s not a logo, although a logo can be part of a brand.  Your brand is your message about who you are, who you serve, and what you have to offer.

It includes your business name along with your tag line and the look and feel of your stationery and website.  When taken all together, it conveys a message and a feeling. You want a brand that authentically represents you and attracts your ideal client.  But when you’re just getting started in business, that can be easier said than done.

Ideally, you want to have a graphic artist create original images to put on stationery and websites. But if that isn’t in your budget yet or if you haven’t decided on your brand, there are some ready-made options available that can get you started.  Many of them are low-cost or even free.

I’m talking about WordPress Themes.  If you’ve been following my newsletter for any amount of time or participated in one of my teleclasses, you know that I’m a huge fan of WordPress blogs.  I think they need to be a part of any website in order to have a powerful online presence.

Not only are WordPress blogs easier and cheaper to set up than HTML websites, they’re also easy to use and have great search engine optimization features. And when it comes to the look and feel of your site, you can pick from thousands of ready-made WordPress Themes, many of which can be customized.

Here are some of my favorite resources for WordPress Themes to brand your site:

Most of these are free or under $30. A few are $59. There are definitely advantages to paying for a theme, such as customer service, cool built-in features, and coding that is compatible with the latest version of WordPress.

I don’t recommend using a ready-made WordPress Theme as a permanent branding solution because there could be dozens or even thousands of other people using the exact same theme online.  This is especially true with free themes. Then your site just looks like a lot of other sites.

But it is a great way to get started with a look and feel when you’re on a budget or when you don’t yet know what you want.  You may even find one that so closely matches your business it only needs minor customization to make it uniquely yours.

And when you are ready to create your own unique brand, upgrading your WordPress blog with a new, customized theme is very easy and a lot less expensive than building a new site.

If you need a customized WordPress Theme to brand your site, please let us know.   It’s one of our specialties, and we’d love to help.