In this “Blog Branding Guide”, I teach you the 4 most important tips and tricks to branding your blog, I learned over the past 10 years!
Branding your Blog is a crucial part of the marketing strategy you apply to attract the right reader, follower, and customer to your website.
Branding can include the color scheme you choose, the fonts you decide to apply, to a consistent theme you use and your Logo design.
1. Color Scheme
Typically, before designing your blog you select colors which work well together and define them as your brand colors. I love going on Pinterest and searching for “color palettes” as inspiration for colors which go really well together and are representing me and my brand best.
For my Website I have decided on 2 main colors:
- Sandy Brown
- Grayish Blue
- Orange for highlights
Additionally, I selected 3 sub-colors which would be different shades of my main colors for eg.:
- Very light sandy color
- A medium woody brown
- Dark grey color for fonts
So, if you are planning your blog brand you would end up with a color palette of around 8-10 matching brand colors.
If you want help creating your brand colors, you can download the free “Branding Guide Workbook”, to help you stay organized and on brand when designing your site.
Download your Free “Blog Branding Guide” HERE
2. Choosing the right Fonts
Readability
When it comes to fonts, it super important that the font you choose is easy to read and available for iPhone and Android. I mean, I don’t know your stats but 50-60% of the people visiting my blog are accessing it over their phones.
If I choose a font which is hard to read or too small or extremely “squiggly” (and yes, I googled this work and no I am not sure this makes sense in this context but stay with me…), how are people supposed to read and appreciate your content?
Also, you have to make sure the readability of your font works online! Personally, I prefer “sans serif” fonts for displaying my text paragraphs. “Sans Serif” fonts are fonts without any stroke embellishments or details.
Size and Line Height
In order to have a consistent brand appearance, you need to determine the optimal size and margin for each of your titles, subtitles and paragraph fonts. You should define the following sizes and margins:
- Title font: X
- Titles Line Height X
- Title margin X
- Subtitle font: X
- Subtitle font size: X
- Line Height: X
Font Pairing
My favorite part of this process is choosing font pairings for “Titles, Subtitles, and Paragraphs”.
Yes, there are fonts which go really well together and there are fonts which kind of don’t work. It’s also here where you can bring in your own style and personality.
Maybe you have already decided on one font and now you are looking for fonts which match, then I would recommend the Canva Font Combination Tool. Just select the font you want and the tools will make your suggestions for fonts which pair well!
Additionally, this article on “The Ultimate Guide to Font Pairing” is a super in-depth article by Canva which really goes into a ton of details on why certain fonts match and typical font pairings which work well!
[bctt tweet=”If you want help determining the right fonts for your blog and brand, you can download the free “Branding Guide Workbook”, to help you stay organized and on brand when designing your site.” whatiskatieupto=””]
3. Creating a Logo
Now, I think having a Logo is a very important part of your brand. It’s the thing you put on top of your website, in your favicon, on your business cards and email signatures!
You brand Logo should include your name, brand name, company name or initials and have a unique design.
On top of that, it should be consistent throughout your online presence. You really don’t want to confuse the people holding your business card when they visit your blog or website. Ps. this is true for all the branding aspects I talk about in this guide.
I am not a professional designer, and creating a unique logo which does not look like everyone else’s is difficult. So, what I usually do when clients ask me to design a logo or I need a logo for my own blog or business is I hire a professional designer.
Fiverr is a platform I use all the time to hire people for specific tasks which either take me too long or I am simply not an expert in. Obviously, a professional designer will do a better job designing my logo then I will, and most importantly take me way less time I can use otherwise!
On Fiverr you can search for your professional logo makers and build a relationship with them, explaining exactly what you are looking for and what vision you have of your brand logo. I would always read the individual reviews and you can also select more experienced designer by setting filters.
4. Blog Themes
“In WordPress, a theme is a collection of templates and stylesheets used to define the appearance and display of a WordPress powered website. They can be changed, managed, and added from the WordPress admin area under Appearance.”
Now, as this definition says a theme is a way for you to have a pre-designed blog layout which is a huge help if you have never designed or build a website yourself before!
This website is the first website, in my 10-year blogging career which I designed myself without a theme, but I promise this is not a good way to get started. If I had done that 10 years ago, I promise you I would have been so overwhelmed I would have stopped.
However, you can totally check out Showit + WordPress which is where my blog and website is designed with.
Now, there are literally, millions of gorgeous blog themes, created by professional designers you can purchase for usually around $70 /one-time fee.
Check out Envato which is the biggest library and marketplace for themes which work on you your WordPress blog. Themes I use or have personally used in the path are:
(sorted from easiest to implement to hardest to implement)
If you want to know more, head over to “The Most Popular Blog Themes Ever!” post where I go over a full tutorial on how to apply the Bluchic Theme to your Blog (one of my all-time favorites) as well as list the 10 most successful blog themes overall of the past few years.
Ok here we go, these were my 4 most important Tips to Brand your Blog and I hope you found this helpful.
If you did you enjoy this post or if you feel like there is something missing, just let me know in the comments below!
I hope you having a wonderful day and fun using your Blog Branding Guide to make your brand idea go from vision to reality!
