Brand Identity

Definition of Brand Identity

The brand identity of a company comprises the visual elements that represent and communicate the company’s distinctive core values to the market.

A company’s brand identity stems from its corporate identity and positioning. It encompasses all the elements that give the brand a face in the marketplace. This includes not only visual expressions but also the company’s message. Therefore, brand identity pertains to the style, design, color, logo, and name of an organization, as well as the tone of voice in advertising communications.

How Do You Determine the Brand Identity of Your Product or Brand?

The brand identity is the face of your brand. It’s the visual introduction to your product. This visual introduction immediately evokes associations in the minds of your potential customers. And therein lies the challenge. How do you ensure these associations align with the characteristics and values of your brand? In this article, we help you determine your brand identity.

Discover the key principles for defining your brand identity in the article ‘Defining Brand Identity: The Principles’.

The Core of Your Brand Identity: A Strong Logo

The success of a logo is hidden within the psychology of color, shape, and meaning. Colors and shapes have an unconscious effect on the emotions of your target audience, often determining the first impression. Ideally, this first impression aligns with the character of the company. How do you translate the character of the company into a logo?Using a few examples, we answer this question in the article ‘the essence of your brand identity: a strong logo’.

The Best Color for Your Brand Identity

About 90% of impulse purchases are determined solely by color. If you’re shrugging this off because your B2B product or service isn’t so fleeting, you’re missing the mark. Even when the purchasing process is extended, color has a tremendous impact on decision-making. Color significantly influences our judgment of a brand.What effect does your brand’s color have? Discover it here: ‘determining the best color for your brand identity and positioning‘.

Typography Psychology

Different font styles often unconsciously evoke certain associations in the reader’s mind. Therefore, font style is an important factor—often overlooked—that should align with the brand identity’s positioning. A brand becomes stronger when the font style logically fits the positioning. Explore this in the article ‘font and brand identity: the psychology behind your ‘font.’

What to Consider When Choosing a Brand Name

What should you keep in mind when crafting the perfect name for your new brand or product? A good brand name possesses the following qualities:

• Easy to remember and pronounce;
• Evokes the right associations;
• Unique and stands out;
• Describes what the brand does.

Of course, a name can’t encompass all these qualities. The challenge is to find a name that embodies one or more of these traits. In this blog, we discuss the difference between descriptive and abstract brand names. When is it better to choose one over the other? Find out here: ‘how to choose a good brand name?’

The Influence of Your Brand Identity on the Customer Journey

The customer journey is the path your customer takes before making a purchase on your website. How do customers arrive at your website or store? What steps do they take before converting? Which message resonates best with customers? These questions are all part of your brand’s customer journey. In this process, your customers engage with your brand identity.In the article ‘The Influence of Your Brand Identity on the Customer Journey’, we delve into the effect of your brand identity on the customer journey. Using two well-known brands as examples, we demonstrate how you can craft a predictable customer journey with your brand identity. These essential components of your brand can enhance one another.

Developing Your Brand’s Visual Identity: Photography and Imagery

Your brand’s visual identity combines all visual elements of the brand identity, conveying the emotion and experience aligned with the brand’s positioning. Visual elements include logo, typography, color, design, photography, and video. The visual identity is a crucial component of the brand identity.

When thinking of visual identity, many people primarily consider the logo, colors, or product design. However, photography and video are also essential to a brand’s visual identity. In the article ‘Developing Your Brand’s Visual Identity: Photography and Imagery’, we discuss the visuals you use to establish your brand, emphasizing your brand image or clarifying your message.

Defining Tone of Voice: How Do You Approach It?

The tone of voice communicates or underscores your brand’s characteristics between the lines. It’s not just about what you say, but how you say it. Tone of voice pertains to all your brand’s communications, such as social media, email, and website. A consistent tone of voice that aligns with your brand’s visual identity ensures a uniform character and coherent perception, fostering trust with your audience.

‘Tone of voice is the verbal sister of your visual identity.’Read more about it in the article ‘How to Determine a Unique Tone of Voice for Your Brand’.

Finding the Right Tone for Your Website Text

The tone of your online and offline communication is intertwined with your positioning and the culture within your company. As discussed above, the tone of voice must align with the organization and its audience, as this reinforces your positioning. The same goes for your website text. Are you unsure? Ask yourself these three questions:

• Who is my audience?
• How do we want to be perceived?
• How do we view our own organization?

These questions can significantly guide you in determining the right tone for your website text. In our article ‘What is the Right Tone for Your Website Text’, we guide you further with six concrete steps.

Why is There No Text on My New Website?

Think your new website is ready for launch, only to see a site devoid of text. Writing website text is a specialized task, often not suited for technically inclined website builders. If your new website wasn’t built by a marketing agency that also writes website text, you’ll need to write it yourself.

Read more about this in our article ‘Why Websites are Often Delivered Without Text’.

Why is the Text on Your Website So Important?

Did you know that a first impression determines 80% of how you perceive someone? Online, it’s the same. Your website makes or breaks the impression you leave with potential clients. If the website doesn’t engage or lacks the information you need, you’ll leave the site, searching for an alternative that does meet your expectations.A good website is essential for conveying information, making connections, and driving business. Naturally, the design, functionality, and imagery are crucial in shaping your website’s impression. But no website can succeed without compelling text. Without website text, a visitor won’t know why the site exists, what it offers, or how to connect with your company. And we haven’t even touched on SEO and the captivating power of well-crafted text. You can read more about this in our full article ‘Writing Website Text: The Importance of Website Text.’

Which Website Texts Are Essential?

By now, you’re convinced that your site can’t thrive without quality website texts. But which texts are essential? This varies per organization and website. Start by asking yourself the purpose of visitors coming to your site. Consider different types of visitors and what they seek on your site. How do they arrive, which pages are needed for that, and what other pages might they want to see? Then, write website texts aimed at conversions.

Find more tips on essential website texts in our article ‘Writing Website Text: Which Texts Are Essential?’

How Many Words Should a Good Website Text Have?

A good website text should be long enough to engage your reader, share new information, and convince them of your strengths. But not so long that they lose interest halfway through. A third factor we consider when determining the word count for website text is SEO, as Google also forms an opinion on the length of your text.The answer is ultimately quite simple: a good website text is about 500 words. Want to learn more about the how and why? Then read our article ‘In Practice: How Many Words Make Up a Good Website Text?’

Why is writing website text so challenging?

Have you been given the noble task of crafting new website text? It can indeed be quite a challenge! Naturally, you want a unique text that represents your company as best as possible, but how do you achieve that? There are a few common pitfalls that can prevent you from succeeding in writing a new, captivating website text:

• You can’t articulate what makes you unique
• You consciously or unconsciously copy the competition
• Inactive or overly formal language
• You have no idea who you are writing the website text for.

In our article ‘Writing Website Text, Why Is It So Challenging?’, you can read more about these pitfalls and find some tips on how to write that text nonetheless.

Structure and Composition of Website Text

Writing a good website text works best when you follow the same process and adhere to a structure. The structure of your website text consists of three, not very surprising, components:

• In the introduction, grab the reader’s attention and explain why this piece is interesting. Convince them to keep reading!
• Next comes the body, which can consist of various paragraphs. By creating overlap in the paragraphs, you allow them to flow well into each other. In the body of your website text, the reader should find answers; the reader’s goal should be achieved here.
• You conclude your website text with a conclusion or closing where you briefly summarize the content and highlight the benefit for the reader. Furthermore, pose and answer the question, what’s next?

For a more detailed explanation of the structure and composition of your website text, read our full article ‘The Structure and Composition of a Good Website Text’.

Writing Website Text That Boosts Your SEO

Of course, you also want the website text you write to be read.But how do you ensure your website gets found? When writing your website content, keep Search Engine Optimization, SEO, in mind. This specifically means considering a few extra aspects:

• From an SEO perspective, the ideal text length is 400 to 500 words per page.
• Your text is better appreciated with visuals, but don’t forget to include alt text for search engines.
• Correct spelling and grammar
• Good readability, not only in sentence structure but also in the layout of your website.
• Links to your website and its various pages are crucial for Google’s algorithm.
• An overly general text will perform less well on Google, as our searches have become more refined over the years.

You can read the full explanation of these various aspects in our article ‘Writing Website Texts that Enhance Your Discoverability (SEO)?’, along with some myths and falsehoods about writing well-optimized website texts.

Input for Your Website Texts

Alright, you’re writing the new website texts for your organization. This doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the only one who can or should provide input. In practice, this is often nearly impossible, as everyone has their own role and expertise within the company. While writing the website texts and seeking input, you’re likely to encounter numerous challenges. With these three methods, you’ll still gather the right information from the organization:

• A question-and-answer form for various colleagues.
• A workshop with key figures who can provide you with the right information.
• Personal interviews.

Learn more about the challenges, solutions, and pros and cons of these different methods in our article ‘Writing Website Texts: How to Gather Input from an Organization?’

3 Pitfalls in Translating Website Texts

You have one more hurdle to overcome before your website text is ready to go live. If your company operates in several countries, you’ll need to translate the website text.It doesn’t have to be difficult, especially if you’re aware in advance of these three common pitfalls:

• The type of text. Ensure your translator knows what kind of text they are working with. A legal document, process description, or marketing text each requires a different approach, even for a translator.
• The right translator. Translation is more than just converting words. A translator must, like you, strike the right tone. Choose a translator with the same style and affinity, so they can maintain the correct tone of voice in the translation.
• The briefing. You’ve written the website text with a clear vision in mind. Make sure the translator understands this vision by providing a thorough briefing.

In our article ‘The Pitfalls of Translating Website Text’, you can read more about these pitfalls and how to avoid them.

A New Website: The Costs

How much does it really cost to build a good website, and where should you allocate most of your budget? In recent years, much has changed, and while programming might sound daunting to a novice, the costs for the technical side of your website have significantly decreased over the years. Content has become increasingly valuable for your online presence, requiring a larger portion of your budget. A typical budget for a new website ranges from €5,000 to €25,000, depending on the specifications and requirements. You should allocate your budget as follows:

Want to delve deeper into the true costs of a new website? Check out our article ‘Surprisingly, the True Costs of a Good Website’.

Website Design: How Important is Mobile First?

Your online discoverability is partly determined by the technical aspects and design of your website. But how crucial is a mobile-first website? While the desktop remains our main screen during work hours, 25-30% of searches are conducted on mobile devices (excluding tablets). We anticipate this percentage will rise in the coming years and understand that Google prefers mobile-first. Therefore, we certainly recommend a mobile-first design for your new website.

Want to read more about this? Check out our article ‘Mobile-First Website Design: How Important Is It?’