15 Ways to Make Your Brand Stand Out

Does the thought of creating images, brand statements, and style guides put a big smile on your face?

I wrote this post a while back about creating a branding system for your business, and since then I’ve learned so many things that I can’t wait to share with you.

Now, to be fair, I can’t say that branding is my favorite topic just yet. To do it right, you’ve got to be relentless about every single detail and element. Ugh.

And does “branding your blog” even sound half as sexy as getting thousands of subscribers?

No to that…

But that’s not the question we should be asking. The real question is Why do we need to brand ourselves at all?

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while, and here’s what I’ve got:

• First off, if we don’t define our brands, other people will do it for us, and that might not be a good thing.
• If we’re going to stand out the way we truly want, branding is something we can’t afford to overlook.
• Branding with purpose and intention will help us attract more of the right people to our blog.
• We want visibility, baby!
  

We’re not building wallflower businesses here, k? We’re building climb-to-the-top-of-the-mountain, shout-me-loud brands that people notice.

So what are the things you can do to make sure your brand stands out above the rest? Let’s take a look!

1. Be consistent

This is one of the most important aspects of building a strong brand. There are a gazillion ways that people will find you and a gazillion different brands out there.

How do you rise above all that noise?

Pay attention to everything. Deets like your website, social media, fonts, colors, vibe, voice, the people you hang with, the emails you send, the way you respond to blog comments…all of it frames the way people think about you and your brand.

Your goal should be to present a consistent and harmonious brand image everywhere, online and offline.

For example, if you saw your pin in your Pinterest feed, would you immediately recognize your brand? That’s the kind of consistency and detail we’re aiming for!

The best way to stay consistent with your brand is to use The Build My Brand Toolkit and choose styles for everything…colors, fonts, images, social media, messaging, web copy…all of it. It’s like a “brand in a box” FULL of everything you need to build an epic brand that attracts your ideal customer. It may be just what you’re looking for! Learn more about The Build My Brand Toolkit.

2. Take a stand

You may not think this is an important step, and I get it. Trust me though, it’s a biggie.

Not only for the reasons listed here but because taking a stand will help you guide your brand in the right direction. Think of this as if you’re drawing a line in the sand between your tribe and everyone else.

Everything you do with your brand is going to etch that line deeper and deeper. With me?

Being 100% confident in what you stand for is one of the things that will help you effortlessly attract more of your dream customers. Those who heart what you heart will naturally be attracted to your brand’s purpose.

No better way to stand out than that, in my book…

3. Let your personality shine through

So, this thing just happened that’s a perfect example…

I’ve been creating some nutrition products with my brother, Dave, and yesterday he sent me a video to review.

Now, I didn’t have the heart to tell him this, but I started watching the first video and nearly fell asleep in less than 20 seconds.

His voice was literally knocking me out cold! It was completely dull, flat and lifeless. I honestly didn’t even want to hear what he was saying.

The funny thing is that I was so mesmerized by his earlier videos… I listened straight through each of them, stopping and pausing to take notes and rewinding to make sure I got all of it.

See the difference here? I wanted to hear more vs. couldn’t listen to another minute!

#LONGSTORYSHORT It’s your shiny personality (even more than what you say) that makes your brand truly stand out. Don’t be afraid to show the real you! Your audience will love you all the more for it, plus you’ll have a much easier time driving traffic to your posts. Promise.

4. Be your brand every minute

Hmmm…this one can be scary.

Truth is that building an epic brand isn’t something that just happens. You have to steer the ship, and one of the best ways to steer it in the right direction is to live and breathe your brand ALL THE TIME.

When I asked my brother what happened with his videos, he said that he just “wasn’t into it anymore”. He’d been working on those video trainings for so long, he just wanted to be done already.

Sound familiar?

We’ve all been there, where you feel like you can’t muster up the energy for another post, podcast, video or freebie. Creating content requires a huge amount of effort!

But what happened with Dave is an example of what happens when you forget to be your brand every minute.

Your content will start sounding off-brand and just plain icky, like you’re talking to a corpse. Definitely not the way to make your brand stand out!

#MORALOFTHESTORY Don’t push yourself through a funk just to “get it done”. This is one of those things where, if we really want to stand out, we have to be fired up and in character all day, every day. If you need to, walk away for a bit and come back when you feel more energized.

5. Tell your story

Want to really stand out among the hundreds of people in your niche doing the same thing as you?

It’s right there on your About Page! Bump.

No one in the universe has the exact same story as you, special girl. When you share the why behind your brand, and the experiences that make you so uniquely qualified to solve X problem, that’s where the magic really happens.

When you think about it, telling stories is a natural exchange. It’s what we all do when we make new friends. See how I worked my brother’s bit into this post?

What ways can you infuse your story into your content? How will you shake hands with your peeps to let them know that you get them and give them a peak into your world too?

6. Host a challenge

This one is so exciting! I’m about to launch my first challenge and have to admit I have a butterfly-in-my-stomach feeling around it. Wonder if you guys are going to like it or not? Guess I’ll find out soon!

If you’re curious, it’s the Higher Purpose, Higher Profit Challenge. It’ll walk you important things like:

• Narrowing down all of your amazing ideas to just one
• Finding the sweet spot in your business
• Gaining clarity over the one thing you were born to do
• Building a tribe around your brand

If you’re interested in this, let me know in the comments and I’ll keep you posted when the challenge starts.

I get excited by challenges because I think they’re a great way to connect with you guys and get a feel for where you’re at in your business, what you’re struggling with, and how I can tailor my content to help you.

7. Create a brand style guide

I know you’re probably thinking Do I really need a style guide right now? There are so many other things I have to focus on with my blog business. I can’t even get my head around this yet!

I’m with you on this one. I didn’t even think about creating a style guide until I was 2 years into my business.

Here’s the thing though:

I started noticing that my brand was looking a bit fragmented and all over the place. I was feeling fragmented too, and I knew my confusion was seeping into my brand materials.

Every time I created a pin, I’d start with a blank canvas, which for me was a big huge playpen. Every pin was an entirely new creation and experiment. Looking back, everything took much longer as a result. Oooh, let me try this pretty font. I really like this photo too, can I make that work? My pink color won’t work with the photo, though. It needs a peach color – lemme change it real quick…

Can you see things unraveling here?

There’s nothing wrong with creativity like this. But when you freestyle your brand in this way, things can start getting confusing for both you and your audience FAST.

So if you want to really stand out (and I know you do!), you have to create clear boundaries around your brand’s style.

It’s ok to experiment a bit until you find your voice, but at some point, you’ll need to pull in the reins and decide exactly which colors, fonts, imagery, and graphics you will use for your brand.

Since we’re on track to build an epic brand AND blog biz, and since all successful brands use style guides, we need one too, don’t ya think?

A style guide is just ONE of the many brand elements you’ll create with The Build My Brand Toolkit. It’s a complete done-for-you branding system that includes all your visual brand elements (logo, colors, fonts, social media templates, style guide) PLUS your brand copy (About page, Home page, blog tone and style) and more! Click the image below to learn more.
8. Check your online presence

Next up, take a look at your entire web presence and make sure it all fits your brand’s style and purpose.

Here’s a quick list of places to look:

• Blog or website
• Blog posts
• Blog post images
• Secondary post images
• Opt-ins + forms
• Forms
• Buttons + links
• Landing pages
• Pins
• Social media image templates
• Social media profiles

I’m sure there’s more to add to this list. If you think of any others, please share!

As you go through everything, ask yourself these questions:

• Do I have the same colors, fonts, and graphics everywhere?
• Will people be able to spot my pins right way?
• When someone reads my blog, is it fun and relevant to them?
• Are there any odd graphics/images that jump out in an icky, outdated way?

You know what to do here…update, tweak, edit, delete. Woop Woop!

9. Update bios and descriptions

Your biz probably has experienced a lot of twists and turns as you’ve learned more about your audience and your business.

So my question for you is:

Are your bios and descriptions right there with you every time you shift gears or are they a few steps behind? If you’re like me, you check your Twitter profile every now and then and think Huh? That’s not me. That was like 6 months ago.

Let’s whip our bios into shape. We want to take people on our amazing ride, not leave them behind, right?

Here are a few places to look, edit, update:

• Author bio
• Blog sidebar bio
• Speaker bio
• Media kit
• Social media profiles
• Blogger outreach
• Short description
• Long descriptions

10. Master social media

Gotta get visible, baby!

Speaking of which, I wrote this post on creating a social media strategy that will help you stand out, get visible, and drive traffic.

What you want to do is to pick 1-2 platforms and really master those first. Don’t worry about trying to be everywhere at once. It’s not going to work (trust me, I’ve tried). Once you’re really making progress on those, move on to the others.

If you plan on starting with Pinterest, here’s how to get massive traffic from it.

What you’re really going for is to create a social media system where you engage and share on autopilot. That means your goal is to spend as little time on social media as possible. Social media can be overwhelming and time-consuming, so you don’t want to fall into a rabbit hole with it.

Ok, don’t shoot me for saying this, but…

When you’re starting out, you will need to spend more time than you want. If you hang in there with me though, this is another one of those things that will save you incredible amounts of time later on, once you set up scheduling, automation, and maybe even outsourcing. Pinky swear.

If you really want to level up your social media game, grab this social media cheat sheet and content calendar with 24 days of content to share.

11. Blog consistently

The second half of visibility, and something we can’t forget, is to post consistently.

It doesn’t have to be every day, and it doesn’t have to be 2x a week like some other bloggers tell you. I’ve tried like crazy to post more than once a week and just can’t do it! Grrrr…so frustrating!

Still, staying consistent with my blogging schedule (1x a week) has made it possible to grow my traffic to over 35K in just a few months.

So, we get it. We know that we have to blog regularly.

I’m so excited about the new content calendar template I created. It will help you plan the content you’re going to share so you’re always one step ahead of blogging instead of five steps behind. Been there, done that! You can download the done-for-you calendar template right here.

You’re probably thinking How do I get ahead of blogging? I always feel like I’m falling behind schedule!

Honestly, I’d love to know the secret to this one myself! Seriously though, there are a few things we can do to maintain a consistent schedule:

• First, block out time at the beginning of the month to write all of your blog posts (you can use my time blocking template if you want).
• Keep a laundry list of blog post ideas, arranged by theme. Use Evernote or Google docs for this.
• Gather ideas in Trello. I’m so pumped about Trello, guys. I’ve just taken a peak and can’t say a whole lot yet, but it looks like you can create boards/cards for just about anything. Editorial calendar, anyone?
• Create a weekly schedule where you write, proof, SEO, create images, and promote, all on separate days.

That’s all I have so far, but I’ll be looking into more ways to get ahead of blogging, because we need it!

Related: 32 Insanely Easy Ways to Boost Your Blog Traffic for Free

12. Watermark your images

Yep, you have to brand everything.

Add your logo, colors, fonts, and other brand elements to your blog and social media images. This way people will recognize your brand in their feeds.

And if you’re curious about how to share photoshopped images on Instagram, I highly recommend Planoly for uploading and scheduling posts directly from your desktop. Woo!

Related: How to Create Branded Social Media Images with Photoshop

13. Host a webinar

Another one I’m excited about. I’m no master of webinars yet (Amy Porterfield is all over this one). Buut, I have done 2 and they were much easier than I thought. Scary, but easy.

Here’s why you and I both want to do more of them:

Everyone’s blogging.
Not everyone is webinar’ing.

So if we host more webinars, we’re sure to stand out from everyone else.  Let’s set a goal to do at least one webinar by the end of the year, k?

14. Review your offers

Silly question, would you rather be:

• A commodity (just like everyone else)?
• The go-to-authority (people seek you out for your expertise)?

Uh, duh… Of course, you’re the expert.

That means you have to be fierce about narrowing down your offers to just those things that you’re crazy passionate about and/or know really well.

The reason is that when you try to be all things to all people, you actually water down your brand and confuse the customers you most want to attract. They just won’t get that you’re a good fit for them.

The way to switch that all around is to review your offers every 3-6 months and make sure that they:

• Fit your current brand statement and mission
• Are unique enough to charge premium prices
• Solve one specific problem for one specific person

If you want help here, grab my Find your Niche workbook, which covers all of this and more. Click the image below to download.

What you’re aiming for is to wrap your offers in a pretty peach bow (insert your brand color), so your peeps know what box you’re in. 🙂

15. Update blog categories

Categories are easy to overlook because, well, you just don’t think about them every day, right? I happen to be going through a rebrand right now, which is why they’re fresh on my mind (and how I know that as your blog biz shifts, your blog categories will too).

Is it better to have tons of categories or just a handful?

It really depends on your preference, but here again, I recommend cutting the fat where you can. The more focused you can be, the better.

First of all, when you give people too many categories, they won’t know what to click on. Even I’m confused by the laundry list I see when I’m selecting categories for my posts.

Since we’re really shining brightly now, let’s get rid of this last fuzziness, shall we?

Take a look at your categories and narrow them down to just the ones that are relevant to your brand and audience.

Tip: If you have a WordPress blog, leave your existing categories as is, meaning don’t delete. It gets a little funky with SEO and XML sitemaps when you do this. Instead, add new categories and then manually update your posts.

So there you go! Those are my top 15 ways to make your brand stand out. Which ones are you working on?