How to Choose a Brandable (and Available) Domain and Name
It’s no wonder businesses today find it more and more difficult to discover a brand name and domain they can own. It’s increasingly more difficult with the proliferation of online businesses and online business presence. Being creative with your brand name likely makes it easier to find domain options that aren’t already registered…
What Importance Should SEO Play in Choosing Your Brand Name?
A loyal reader of the Gist Brands blog recently posed a great question on Twitter about brand naming and search engine optimization:
@gistbrands: What are your thoughts on start up businesses using SEO “specialists” to choose their brand name? Argument against/for it?
My response was pretty direct on the issue, but I thought the concept was big enough and important enough to warrant some in-depth discussion and the rationale behind my advice.
Why Mission and Vision Statements Can’t Be Passé (Even if You Hate Them.)
There’s been a lot of hating on mission statements and vision statements over the last decade. And some of it’s warranted. However, the idea that you can create a successful brand, or a successful business, without knowing some semblance of these “ugly step children” is a bit ridiculous. Trying to construct a brand while saying mission and vision statements are inconsequential is a bit like saying you’re constructing a building and have decided to ignore those out-moded laws of gravity and mass.
How Articulating Your Brand Creates Super-Fuel for Social Media
If an organization has a well-defined brand—not just a logo design and color scheme—they have a heck of a lot of fuel for social media, blogging, search engine optimization, public relations, and word-of-mouth. A logo, by itself, doesn’t go so far in these increasingly important and mission-critical channels that are all about messaging, targeting, content, and differentiation.
10 Tips to Simplify Your Logo
The talent of a good designer (in any discipline) is understanding restraint and when more is just…well…more. Here are some basic pointers to keep your logo concepts sharpened, or to explore simplifying an existing logo.