Guest Post: How to Brand Your Personal Blog
In the world of blogging, there are numerous niches that your blog can fit into. No matter what your niche is, if you want to run a successful personal blog, you’ll need to learn how to successfully brand it. Whether it’s finding your own unique style or discovering the best way to communicate to your audience, branding your blog isn’t impossible. Here’s how to do it:
What is a brand?
Before we get into how to brand your blog, it’s important to understand what exactly “branding” means. When it comes to a company or a popular business, a brand can refer to their symbols, slogans, or products that can be directly associated with them or their message. Whenever people see certain symbols or hear a certain slogan, they immediately think of the company that is related to that brand. A great branding strategy will evoke positive feelings or thoughts from people when they think of your blog and lead to successful advertising.
1. Find a niche
Luckily, as blogging grows as an industry, there are plenty of niches to choose from. Once you do choose a niche, center your posts around that topic. To grow a large, loyal audience, it’s important to stay consistent and create posts that relate to your brand and what your audience expects to see. For example, if you run a food blog, your content should mainly revolve around good eats and recipes. Here are some blog niches that you can choose from along with examples and some initial posting ideas:
Topic: Travel
Sub-Topics: Travel Tips, Language Learning
Blogger Example: The Blonde Abroad
Blog Post Ideas:
City guides to let your readers know where to go
What to pack to go to a certain location
Share useful, basic words your readers can use when they travel to a new location
Topic: Health & Wellness
Sub-Topics: Diet and Nutrition, Mental Health, Herbal Remedies, Skincare
Blogger Example: The Healthy Maven
Blog Post Ideas:
Healthy recipes
Tips to boost confidence; self-care tips
New products you discover for skincare
Topic: Fitness & Sports
Sub-Topics: Yoga, Healthy Weight-loss Tips, Training Journeys, Specific Sports, Hiking
Blogger Example: Fit Bottomed Girls
Blog Post Ideas:
Share your tips and experience for training and exercising
Tips and techniques for achieving certain goals
How to find the right equipment
Topic: Hobbies
Sub-Topics: Drawing/Painting/Art, Music, Writing, Photography, Makeup, Fashion, Beauty, Dancing
Blogger Example: YOYOKULALA
Blog Post Ideas:
Tips, hacks, and tricks for becoming successful in one of these areas
Great new products you’ve found
Try out trends in the industry
2. Create a unique name, design, and logo
When people hear your blog name, they need to be able to associate it with your niche and with a certain color scheme, logo, or design that is relevant to your brand. Keep your blog design simple to avoid confusion on your website – but make it unique to you. Your logo should follow the same rules since staying unique makes your blog easily recognizable. Look at Nike or McDonald’s; their logos each are easily identifiable and follow a specific aesthetic. Overall, your name, logo, and chosen design should be a true representation of you and what readers can expect to see on your blog.
3. Write and perfect an About Me page
Behind every successful blog is a successful blogger – so tell your readers about yourself! You are the face of your blog and thus, your brand, so your “About Me” page should be strong in order to create a solid brand image. If your followers are interested in your content, they’ll be interested in who’s behind the blog, so take it seriously. An About Me page is also important when keeping other brands that might want to collaborate with you in mind, too. For a strong page, include a bio about yourself, your blog’s mission statement, the vision for your blog, and your objectives/goals.
4. Find your voice
When it comes to branding your blog, your writing style, often referred to as your “voice”, plays a big role. Your voice should come through in all of your blog posts and the rest of your social media content so your readers can always identify with you. When thinking about what your voice could be, consider what you want your tone to be. Conversational? Funny? It’s up to you – just make sure to reflect who you are and consider how you want to represent your personal blog.
5. Choose a quality posting schedule
After choosing your writing style, you can start thinking about how you want to get your content out to the world to make sure you remain consistent. Consider how often you’re going to post and what you want to share, because your followers should always know when to expect content from you. Sticking to a schedule and a posting style is important to your brand in terms of appearing professional. Try to stick to your niche, too, in order to maintain your target audience’s attention. Posting regularly should also help you keep your content distinctive, of quality, and identifiable.
While branding your blog isn’t an easy task, these tips should be a great starting point. Remember to keep working hard, stay original and true to yourself, and remain optimistic!
Selena Ponton is an experienced Editorial Staff Writer for NeoReach, specializing in writing content that covers anything from influencer marketing to social media strategies. She has previously written for a variety of websites and publications, such as Tinder's lifestyle website SwipeLife and College Magazine.