Blog Branding & Logo

Branding requires a central point in form of visual. You see ‘VW' logo you know it's Volkswagen, you notice a Swoosh (right tick sign) on any merchandise and you know it's Nike. These are logo's, and they represent each brand and help build a visual image of the brand.

Across history all famous brands have had a logo. It might be a simple as simple as using the brand name itself like McDonald does, or it might be something as complicated as a Starbucks logo. While the logo spectrum is large, common thread is that all major brands have had a logo.

So does your blog need a logo?

Hell Yes it does! Your blog is a service, and services require logo even more strongly. Because unlike products, services cannot be seen, or held. They can only be experienced. I can wear a Nike shoes, and it will last for years, which will keep reminding me of Nike all the time. Unlike this my stay at Four Season’s hotel is a experience. Once I have checked out, I am not in touch with the experience anymore. Unless I have some kind of visual marker or something to relate to, the next time I'm booking my hotel I'm quite likely to book Radisson mistaking it for Four Season, because I have no visual cue, and I'm quite bad at remembering names 🙂

Same is the case with a blog, it's a service. Unless I find something to connect to the blog, I will easily forget it, and it will be lost amongst hoard of other blogs crowding the Internet. So in order to make your blog stick in your reader's memory, a great logo is a must. This logo should tell your blog's story, define its personality, and be memorable all at the same time.

Benefits of having a logo:

• A good logo, improves the number of pages visited by users
• It increases the time spent by users on your blog
• It helps reduce your bounce rate

Matthew Woodward, has documented a excellent experiment he conducted about effectiveness of a logo. Here’s a snapshot of the benefits a professionally designed logo yielded for him.

• Logo creates trust and familiarity and this translates in improved affiliate sales & other money making efforts for you. (When Wendy’s changed their logo in 2013, their stores saw 25% increase in sales)
• Logo improves recognition of your blog. Simply by seeing the logo users will be able to recollect about your blog in an instant. Authority Hacker recently did a post on 23 successful bloggers, here's a collection of the blog logo's. Out of top 23, 22 blogs have logo. Can you identify each logo with the blogger and his/her writing style?

So now that I have you convinced that your blog needs a logo, how do you go about getting one for your blog?

If you are a designer you can make a great logo yourself, using Photoshop and other designing tools. However if like me you do not have the requisite imagination and designing skills then here are a few places you can get a logo designed from

• Fiverr – There are lots of logo designing gigs out here. Browse through a few and select which designers work suits your personal preference and place your order
• 48hourslogo.com – A cool place that allows you to create a logo contest. Various designers submit their designs so you get tons of option to choose from and then you can award the work to the best designer whose logo you choose to use. Best part is you can start a logo contest for as low as 29$, and scale up as per your budget. This is money well spent, because of the innumerable logo options you get to choose from
• Freelancer – Post your logo as a project and work with bidder most suited to you.

Things to Keep in Mind When Designing your Logo:

• If you already have a blog, and if you have some color scheme going across your blog, try to incorporate that into your logo. Kuler is a cool tool for finding similar colors
• If you have freedom to choose any color scheme, then choose something that will work well in your niche. Fashion blogs work with bright and peppy colors, they can be flashy too. Education blog generally do not use flashy color combo, they go for more serious tones.
• Use font that represent you and your niche well. Artsy fonts lend a casual/fun approach. Simpler and bolder fonts lend a professional and serious approach.

• Always design your logo in high resolution and in editable .psd or similar formats. This will ensure that logo quality does not get impacted when you resize the original logo.
• Always test your logo with your entire target audience, or you might end up with a case of Y front logo like RJ Metrics

• Be ready for varied reactions from your target audience. Like when Hershey’s introduced their new logo, there was lot of social media backlash about it being similar to the popular poo emoji. Did Hershey’s withdraw the logo? No they continued with their branding effort and the chatter died down on its own.

• However do monitor your key statistics including your bottom line once you introduce a new logo, because at times the chatter might not die down, and things might start going downhill, like they did for Tropicana when they rebranded their Premium line. In such cases a quick backtrack can save the day.

I have a logo, what now?

• Take the color scheme of your logo and use it across your website to create a continuity with your logo
• Use the logo in all your mailers, video's, images, downloadables, social media profiles you create for your blog
• Whenever you do any communication about your blog, make sure to include your logo.
• If your logo has a story behind it, make sure to share it with your audience. This helps them in building a connect with your logo.
• Go all out with your logo, look for inspiration in your favorite brand. How do they use their logo? Play around with your logo as much as possible. Make it commonplace, the more it gets seen, the better for your blog.

Does your blog have a logo? Tell us its story, in the comments section below.