Whether you’re a novice or a pro, setting up a WordPress site is pretty straightforward. You can choose from the multitude of free and premium WordPress themes or opt for custom WordPress theme development to set up a professional-looking website within minutes.
However, even a professional-looking website needs to be branded properly to represent a business. It’s indeed branding that makes you unique and sets you apart from your competitors. If you’re looking for some tried and tested ways to brand your WordPress site, here is how you can add brand value to your online space.
Invest in a Custom WordPress Theme
A WordPress site’s branding usually starts with choosing an appropriate theme that resonates well with your company’s ideology, vision, and goals. While WordPress offers you thousands of free and premium themes, it is highly recommended that you invest in a custom WordPress theme.
Having a unique design backed by a set of functionalities that are available nowhere, a custom theme helps you establish a unique brand identity online and gives you complete freedom to customize your WordPress site to fit your brand’s style.
Implement a Custom Logo
The logo is another crucial element that affects the branding of your WordPress site. It is one of the first things that your potential customers see, and they are most likely to remember even after leaving your site. Just like a well-designed custom theme, a well-designed custom logo sets you apart from the competition.
Your logo represents your brand’s identity, and therefore it’s always a good idea to make it appear on every page of your WordPress site. Hence, if you don’t have a logo yet, you can either hire a professional or try creating one on your own.
Use a Catchy Brand Tagline
While taglines and slogans are not always incorporated in logos/websites, they can prove a powerful way to communicate your brand message to your audience. Where they perpetuate your branding throughout your site, on the other hand, they’re also useful for branding outside your site, such as print media.
Luckily, most of the WordPress themes allow you to incorporate a tagline under the logo, often in the upper left-hand corner. So if you don’t have a tagline for your WordPress site yet, brainstorm a few to see what you can come up with.
Add a Favicon
Like a logo, Favicon also represents your WordPress site’s identity, particularly in web browsers and search results. A Favicon is a tiny icon that appears in the upper left corner of a browser’s tab when someone lands on your WordPress site. The primary purpose of a Favicon is to make it easier for visitors with more than one tab open to remember which one was yours.
Ideally, a Favicon is a 16x16px image in .ico format. WordPress starting version 4.3 allows you to add a favicon via the Dashboard area. To do this, go to Appearance >> Customize, click the ‘Site Identity‘ tab and upload the image you want to use as a site icon.
Use Images That Fit Your Brand’s Style
Visuals are undoubtedly a great way to brand a WordPress site. Images and other similar media convey critical information effectively to users and grab their attention at first sight. Hence, think carefully about the style of images you use.
When using images, make sure to maintain a consistent design throughout every page of your WordPress site. Keeping consistency within the images you choose goes a long way to developing a custom branded WordPress site. In short, use a similar theme for all of your images.
Set a ‘Voice’ for Your Website’s Content
Apart from images, the voice you use to communicate with your targeted audience through your content also plays a vital role in making your brand successful. By this, we mean the tone of voice. It can be anything ranging from serious or funny to witty or caring.
For example, if your website caters to web developers, you would like to use a technical voice tone within your content. Whatever type of your website is, the key here is to keep the tone consistent. For that, you should have a clear idea of your site’s targeted audience.
Build Must-have Pages to Increase Brand Credibility
Finally, if you really want to establish yourself as a renowned brand, you should focus on building credibility with a set of essential pages. While the “About” page is considered the most powerful page of any website, you should also focus on creating other crucial sections and pages, including Blog, Contact Us, and Portfolio. Make sure to maintain consistency in design on these pages as well.
