Think of a really successful business. A business that is just great, works well and looks good.  Questions; can you draw /describe their logo? Sing their jingle? Or repeat their company tag line?

It is no surprise that you are able to perform the tasks above, because large corporations spend millions of dollars in advertising encouraging you to do so.

Creating a specific look and feel is important because it is the goal of business to be instantly recognizable and subsequently engrained in a consumer’s mind. A logo or name is in essence a business proposition: Buy me. Sell this. Believe. Disbelieve. Love. Hate.

In a glance, we can sense whether we support a company based purely on what we see. Good branding provides clear communication as to who a business is, what it represents, and its goals and outcomes.

This is all done so that we can feel that we are personally connected to a product or service as it endorses our personal beliefs and value systems. In essence a brand is the touch-point to which we connect with a product, service, location or idea.

Branding is an investment. What is put into the development, marketing and advertising of a brand will eventually be what will come out of it. A logo and name will resonate, embedded in the mind of a consumer so that Nike can ‘just do it’; more ‘two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, pickles, cheese, onion on a sesame seed bun’ will be eaten and; Valvoline – we will know what it means.

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Tips for selecting the right company to design your brand

• Do they have good branding for themselves?
• Do they ask what your business goals and desired outcomes are?

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Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget. From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

1. The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females.
2. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook daily.
3. There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
4. More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC has been airing content 24/7/365 since 1948 (when ABC started broadcasting).
5. It would take approximately 412.2 years to view all the content on YouTube.
6. 95% of all songs downloaded last year weren’t paid for.
7. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the web.
8. 55% of the blog sphere drinks more than 2 cups of coffee per day.
9. MrBabyMan, the number one user on DIGG, has dugg 142,913 stories (23/10/2009 12:58pm).
10. If MySpace were a country, it would be the 5^th largest in the world (between Indonesia and Brazil).

SOURCES

1. Inside Facebook, (2/2/1009), Fastest Growing Demographic on Facebook: Women Over 55, http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastest-growing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/
2. Facebook Press Room, (23/10/2009), http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
3. Facebook Press Room, (23/10/2009), http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
4. Mashable: The Social Media Guide, (20/05/2009), YouTube is Huge and About to Get Even Bigger, http://www.mashable.com/2009/05/20/youtube-video-uploads
5. Alexa: The Web Information Company, (23/10/2009), YouTube, http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=youtube.com
6. Reuters: Kate Holton, (16/01/2009), Global digital music sales up 25 percent, www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE50F6NE20090116
7. Reuters: Belinda Goldsmith, (16/09/2008), Porn passed over as Web users become social, http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSSP31943720080916
8. The Future Buzz, (03/06/2008), A Case Study in Building Buzz in the Blogosphere: Joffrey’s Coffee & Tea Company, http://thefuturebuzz.com/2008/06/03/case-study-building-buzz-blogosphere-joffreys-coffee/
9. Twitter: MrBabyMan Profile, http://digg.com/users/MrBabyMan
10. Alexa: The Web Information Company, (23/10/2009), MySpace, http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/myspace.com

A business that maintains a blog is enabled to present a human face, personality and character by being a voice to the public. Whilst a website provides for a professional and corporate online presence – a blog builds an interactive relationship between online clients.

Unlike a conventional website, a blog allows business to join customer discussions, respond to concerns, provide tips and insights or receive feedback. It can also act as a testimonial platform whereby clients can provide endorsements through the commenting system.

Creating original and topical content provides an added benefit in relation to search engines. Articles that include topic based keywords and phrases perform well as search engines pick up on these unique phrases (otherwise known as ‘long-tail’ keywords) resulting in higher visibility.

The next step to generate interest and traffic is to submit blog posts to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, DIGG and Technorati.

Having a blog as part of your marketing mix is a positive way to connect with your audience.

QUICK TIP:
- Create articles that are both interesting and unique
- Ensure your blog is relevant by updating content frequently

Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget. From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

Small business has a huge hurdle in driving traffic to their website – the obstacle being those competitors who have been online for years with optimized and trusted websites and many websites linking to their domain (an important factor for Google search engine results).

So can one achieve good rankings? The best place to start is with good continually maintained content.

When a user visits a search engine, they are either looking for something specific or are just surfing the web in general. Those who have a need for certain information will type in a phrase that is a detailed description of that something. This is called a long-tail keyword.

When implementing long-tail SEO for a website, the idea is to examine specific areas of the business niche. What makes it unique, what specific services are offered, what do the clients come to the business for? Instead of utilising general, broad keywords and focusing on optimizing a web page based on these, descriptive phrases should also be considered and implemented.

Through the implementation of long-tail SEO, traffic to a site will gradually increase due to the improved visibility on search engines. Not only will site viewers increase, these viewers are potential buyers because they know what they want and therefore they may be more likely to convert after viewing an optimized website that caters to their exact needs.

Let’s look at Real Estate. A small real estate business would not rank in a general search query such as “real estate Brisbane”. However, it is often the case that buyers tend to be look for exactly what they are actually going to buy. A search may therefore be, “three bedroom affordable waterfront property Kangaroo Point Brisbane”. The aim then, for a smaller business is to optimize the pages of their website to cater to buyers specific wants and needs in order to feature on these long-tail keyword searches.

As a small business, if you have specific products to offer or you simply want results from your website, pay the extra to optimize your page for long-tail keywords. You may not rank on the short tail searches, but those that do visit your site will be ready to act.

QUICK TIPS:

• Don’t “just guess” when optimizing your webpage for long-tail keywords – research and determine which keywords are worth utlising
• Aim to optimize your website for both short and long-tail keywords

Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget. From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

To choose a successful, memorable search optimized domain name involves the right SEO strategy and the necessary attention to linguistic design principles. A domain must not only adequately describe your business, but most importantly, should be search optimised.

STEP 1. KNOW YOUR KEYWORDS
Brainstorm a list of keywords that describe your business

STEP 2. KEYWORD RESEARCH
Subscribing to a reliable keyword research service to generate the most accurate and customised keyword lists. Two well known applications are Wordtracker and Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

STEP 3. TOP PHRASES AND KEYWORDS
Sort through the results provided to you by your chosen keyword research application and choose the most relevant and commonly used. Also remember to select those that are linguistically interesting.

STEP 4. BUILD YOUR NAME
This is the creative side of choosing a domain. With your list of top keywords start conceptualising an appropriate name. There are six ways in which you can build your domain name from pieces in a unique, yet successful way:

• Compound:
  Two whole words, often two nouns, stuck together, eg. YouTube, Facebook
• Phrase:
  Words put together according to normal grammatical rules, eg. Six Apart
• Blend:
  Combines a part of a word with another word or word part, eg. Microsoft
• Tweaked:
  A real word that is changes in some small way, such as modified spelling, eg. Flickr
• Affixed:
  A word with a prefix or suffix added to it, eg. Friendster

Come up with several ideas, so if the first one is taken, you have a few to fall back on.

STEP 5. AVAILABILITY
Use a domain registration website, to discover if your ideas have been taken. If you have identified a domain that is still available and it strongly relates to your product/service you should register it straight away.

EXTRA TIPS:

• If all the domain names that you have created are taken, then try using a dash (-) between words. Also try adding words to the domain, like “the” or “buy” to get as close to the highest searched on term that you possibly can.
• As well as search optimised, your domain should be:
  Short; Catchy and memorable; Easy to pronounce; Easy to spell; Not too similar to competing domain names; Not a violation of someone else’s trademark.
• When setting up a new business / idea, be careful as to whom you tell the idea to prior to buying a domain. They may just go ahead and secure it before you do.

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Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, Internet marketing services website design Brisbane. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget. From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

Effective websites influence beliefs and change behaviors and do so using emotions.

To some, a website is seen as a glorified yellow pages advertisement – a convenient and speedy way to hunt for and find information, but in an age where Australians aged over 16 spend an average of 16.1 hours on the internet each week (view source), websites must be engaging and persuasive, like a charismatic salesman.

But what creates emotion? How does a designer create a website to make people feel?

Designing effective content involves a two-part process. Even before an idea forms, a designer must understand the users emotions, aspirations and fears. Everyday rigorous research is performed identifying the emotional triggers that will drive customers to successfully fulfill website goals – to sell, spread a message, engage and interact with users, etc.

When the triggers are established, the second part of the process may take place and the designer can actually start designing. While considering the use of colours, space, words, graphics and navigation a designer creates a website that anticipates and addresses these emotions.

Websites are first and foremost an emotional experience. For a website to convert a goal, it must be created to make people feel.

Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget. From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

What social media can do for your business.

Is your business online AND 2.0 Savvy?

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and Youtube. These are all social media websites where users control the content. It is the new way that users interact and are involved in the virtual world and is referred to as the second generation of the web, or Web 2.0 for short.

The focus is on delivering news and information that is relevant to consumers and interacting with them on business to business and business to consumer levels, and encouraging consumer to consumer interactivity that will promote a brand.

Communicate and connect with a consumer base on a one to one or one to many basis.

So does joining a social media site increase the risk for bad publicity? In a short answer, no. If you are perceived to be doing something not right, people will be talking about you in these networks, regardless of whether you have a presence or not.  The difference about being online is business is given the opportunity to monitor discussions and most importantly the ability to respond, advise and rebut.

If you think your business needs to be 2.0 savvy then research the options that will best suit your business, but do not hesitate. Web 2.0 is rapidly advancing and changing. Customer service will be taken to a whole new level and the opportunity to reinforce the prominent brand message of the business is heightened.

QUICK TIP

• Before engaging and responding to clients via social media, ensure your customer service guidelines, including your professional grammar/tone have been established.

Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget.  From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

How to dominate online using social media.

Why successful businesses acquire as much “presence” online as possible.

Consider a website as a virtual office building. It is important to lead people to that building by advertising elsewhere – by getting the word out through other means.

Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide business with greater reach. In order to engage, promote and collaborate with customers, clients, suppliers and interest party groups.

Social media allows for business to evaluate their digital brand perception and ensure the online presence matches the tone and feel of the business and the values it endorses.

So how do you know whether you brand is dominating? Monitoring a digital presence for a business extends far beyond website statistics / graphs and Google ranking.

Evaluating a business online requires ‘listening’ to what the public opinion is saying. There are applications available that can aid a user to do this. Tweetdeck (http://tweetdeck.com/beta/) reports information back to a user every time the business name is mentioned. Similarly, subscribing to websites such as Copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com/), a service that reviews a website URL and matches any text on that page against all websites around the world to locate copied plagiarised text.

Programs such as the ones above allow a website to measure feedback on their business, products, sales team, prices and reports and ultimate evaluate how a brand is performing.

QUICK TIP

• Support Advocates. If you locate a party who is promoting a press release or product information from your website, contact them, thank them, and see whether you can supply them DIRECTLY with information.

Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget. From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au

What’s in a name? In digital branding, everything.

Important to all business, for many reasons, is securing a ‘great’ domain name that Internet users will easily find.

Domain extensions such “.com” and “.com.au” are universally accepted as the premier addresses to find relevant information. The availability of these extensions however, is diminishing as more and more business come online.

A comparison for domains would be to refer them as virtual real estate – likening a “.com” address to owning a plot of land in New York.  Always desirable, and always the best place to live.

So how does this apply to social media, such as Twitter and Facebook?

Most social media sites offer vanity URLs. A vanity URL, like a domain, is created to point to pages that are relevant and / or related to a product / brand / or service, in the name of the URL.

For example, Brandrally’s URL for Facebook is: http://www.facebook.com/brandrally and http://twitter.com/brandrally for Twitter. It is the latest form of digital real estate and is very popular and useful for marketing.

Best practice in this arena for business should be to acquire all vanity URLs in your social networking arenas.  It is a way for business to invest in the security of their digital brand in the social environment to ensure others will not and cannot take their virtual real estate.  Best of all, it will provide business to connect with their consumer base directly, unimpeded by competitors.

QUICK TIPS

• Business policy needs to be created with the aim to secure. Secure the domains as appropriate to the business – as many domains as possible. Safeguard the future
• Establish whether it will actually hurt your ‘vanity’ if someone takes a name online that you have worked so hard to obtain.

Brandrally provides comprehensive design solutions by offering strategic graphic design, website design and Internet marketing services. Servicing clients in Brisbane, throughout Australia and internationally, we apply significant emphasis on design, strategy formulation and process and deliver successful outcomes for our clients, every time, on-time and in-budget.  From Corporate Identity, through to full content managed websites, we provide professional solutions to suit your business needs.

For more information contact:
Brandrally ~ Web Design Brisbane | Graphic Design Brisbane
Address: 4 / 205 Montague Road, West End, Brisbane QLD 4101
Find us on Twitter http://www.twitter.com/brandrally
Find us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/brandrally
www.brandrally.com.au