An Easy Blog Branding Guide: Brand Your Blog In 2024 To Attract The Right Readers

Your new blog is finally up and running! Congratulations! But how can you be sure it’s connecting with the right readers and giving them a professional first impression? You’re probably also wondering about how to brand your blog so that you stand out as a niche authority!

Learning about blog branding is a priority in 2024.

After all, that’s what will make your site and you a success!

This, my friend, is where branding comes into play.

What is blog branding, though? Am I going to have to spend a ton of money on one more thing after getting my blog set up? Is this something that a beginner like me can do myself?

Those are all valid questions that you may be asking yourself.

Let’s break it all down and talk about what blog branding means in 2024 and the options you have to do so as a beginner.

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Blog Branding – What Is it?

Before we delve into questions of how to brand your blog, let’s get this one thing out of the way.

To put it simply:

Branding includes your mission and values as a business and is conveyed through the way your brand looks visually as well as the tone you take on when speaking to your audience.“

It is often thought that branding includes just a blog logo and a few of your favorite colors. However, while it does include your business logo and a brand color palette, it is so much more than that.

Branding is strategic.

It evokes the right emotions in the right audience and even turns off the wrong audience. Which is good, because you want an engaged audience of your biggest fans!

Branding Visuals You’ll Need

So, what type of visuals help convey your mission and values, and help you reach the right audience?

The visual part of blog branding would include the following things:

• Logo & sub-logo/different logo variations for different uses

• A set of strategically selected brand colors

• Icons and patterns

• Brand fonts (I recommend using no more than 3 different fonts, otherwise things look inconsistent)

We’ll delve into these more in just a bit!

Why is Branding Important For Blogs And Online Businesses?

Now that we have an idea about what branding is, let’s talk about why it’s important for your blog and your business.

Have you ever seen someone’s social media post or read a blog post without knowing who published it but you immediately recognize exactly who is speaking to you?

Yep, that’s why branding is important. It makes you stand apart from the crowd and competition. 

When your branding is done properly, it becomes extremely clear who you are speaking to and who you aren’t. 

And when it is extremely clear, that helps build community and your audience forms an emotional attachment to you (and you to them of course)!

This means that ultimately because your audience feels close to you, they are going to choose you, your content, and your products to invest in – both with their time and possibly monetarily, too.

| RELATED: Key Reasons Why Personal Branding Is Important For Bloggers

How To Choose The Perfect, Unique Blog Name For Your Blog Brand

Get Started With Branding Your Blog

So we have gone over the basics. How do I brand my blog as a beginner?

We need to get clear on some things before we begin the fun part of branding (you know, like choosing your brand colors and creating your logo).

The fact of the matter is that if you don’t have these things figured out before jumping to the fun stuff, it won’t create the impact you are looking for.

Ask yourself the following questions…

• Who is my ideal audience?

• What type of blog do I run? / What is my niche?

• What emotions do I want to evoke in my audience?

• What are my brand values?

• What is my mission?

Getting clear on these questions is a wonderful place to start when you begin branding your blog. 

Once you complete that (and take some time with this! Dive deep! Get specific! It will only help you in the long run), move on to the fun stuff.

Let’s figure out what you want your brand to look like.

Using the information you did a lil’ self-discovery on, start by creating a Pinterest board totally dedicated to what you envision your brand to look like!

Include things like:

• Color palettes
• Photos
• Logos that inspire you
• Anything that gives you the overall vibe you want to convey with your brand

You will probably start to notice a pattern and similarities between the things you add to your board.

Hot tip: read about color psychology and branding. It is super interesting but totally makes sense that certain colors make us feel a certain way or are associated with certain feelings. 

To help you out with branding your blog and business, I invite you to

Options For Brand Design Development

There are a couple of options out there for beginners looking to brand their blog and business. 

1. DIY it – great for beginners, especially those of us on a budget in the beginning (hi, this is me, too)
2. Hire a professional – great option for the long run, as professional Brand Identity Designers know how to implement a strategy that works into your branding.

We’ll focus on the DIY options in this post.

DIYing Your Blog Branding

Some popular options for DIYing your blog branding are using Canva or Adobe products such as Illustrator or Photoshop.

Now if you aren’t trained in using Adobe products, I highly recommend using Canva.

You can use it for not only branding but also for pretty much any other graphic design-related project you have. It is simple to use and beginner-friendly. 

Even though I highly recommend this route as a beginner, there are some things to consider…

Your logo is part of your branding, and Canva does not allow logos to be trademarked.

This is because they are often made from premade elements that are available to everyone and there isn’t a licensing option that provides the rights of said element to one person.

You can, however, trademark a logo made with Canva if it only uses text and basic shapes such as circles, squares, and lines. 

Now, most people aren’t really worried about trademarking their logo, at least not in the beginning.

So like I mentioned, each option definitely has a time and place. Trademarking is something you may want to consider as your business grows and different things in business become more important to you down the line.

Let’s do this thing!

Using Canva To Brand Your Blog

Okay, so obviously I’m a fan of Canva, and it has several awesome tools that help you brand your blog (and business) all on your own, with no design experience required!

Create A Logo Using Canva

There are a couple of ways to create a logo for your blog on Canva. One of them is to create it from scratch. This means using text and basic shapes and lines.

Canva’s user interface makes it super simple to create designs from scratch. You can drag, drop, enlarge, and downsize all design elements.

Another way to create a logo on Canva is to use text and look up premade elements in the Canva library.

All you have to do is type in the type of element you are looking for and you will be flooded with thousands of beautiful options! 

Logo Templates are also available on Canva.

While this is super helpful especially if you feel you don’t have an eye for design, it wouldn’t be my recommended way to create a logo on Canva.

When using logo templates, you are way more likely to have a logo exactly like someone else.

And you want to stand out, right?! Ultimately, I would either create one from scratch or find an element that you really love in the Canva library and incorporate that into your logo.

Develop Your Brand Kit Using Canva

This feature on Canva is so helpful.

The free version of Canva allows you to add 3 colors to your brand kit.

However, the Canva Pro version allows you to upload multiple logos, color palettes with more than 3 colours, and your brand fonts. You can even add fonts you have purchased elsewhere! You can upload them to your Canva Pro account. This is why it’s worthwhile upgrading.

With a brand kit on Canva, everything is housed in one location that can be easily accessed when creating a new design, making all your designs cohesive. 

Here’s an example of Margaret’s Brand Kit in Canva – you can see how she has all of her logos, preferred colours and fonts all set up:

Create And Use Brand Templates On Canva

When you brand your blog, you also use consistent visuals and templates.

There’s a little Canva hack that saves you time that I’ll share with you!

If you tend to use the same template for social media or a design for something else like images to insert into your email newsletter and other communication, you can save them as a Brand Template in Canva.

If you have other people on your team on your Canva account, they can access those templates and help out with designing as well.

You can even set your Brand Controls to where other people can (or can’t) change brand colors and fonts in said Brand Templates. You can also turn on the option to approve a design before it is published.

Styles And Color Palettes

Another cool resource in Canva for designing blog branding elements are Styles and Color Palettes tools.

Styles

When you are working on a design there is an option called “Styles” in Canva. Here you’ll find several color palettes paired up with different fonts that look really great together.

If you’re stuck trying to figure out your brand “look” this is a good place to start exploring.

Color Palettes

Under the “styles” option you will also find “Color Palettes” that just give you different color palettes without the fonts to use, expertly put together with colors that look great together.

Another way to find premade color palettes in Canva is to click on the background of your design and go to the color selector to change the color of the background.

Then, instead of choosing a color, type into the search bar what color you are looking for and several color palettes will show up in the results that contain that color. 

Here’s what that looks like:

This is a great way to get inspiration for your brand color palette (or go ahead and use one of these premade palettes!).

Search Result Filters

No matter what you are searching for on Canva, whether an element or a photo to use, you can filter your results by color.

Copy and paste your HEX code (the code that looks something like this… #ffffff… it always starts with a hashtag and is followed by a combination of 6 numbers and letters). This is an easy way to ensure your designs are staying on brand.

All in all, I recommend using Canva for all your content creation needs.

Canva has everything you need in one place and makes creating on-brand content easy and convenient.

Keep Your Blog On Brand!

Once you brand your blog, what can you do to ensure you remain on brand? …Not just on your blog but across all your social media platforms and anywhere else you connect with your audience.

Here are some tips that will set you up for success!

• Create a clear About Me page. Make sure your mission statement and ideal audience are made clear the moment someone lands on your blog. This is the first step to a good impression and to creating a strong connection with your audience. Use your messaging for your social media accounts as well.

• Remember at the beginning of this post how I talked about the tone you use being part of your brand? Well, make sure you are writing in your brand voice! This plays a big role in readers immediately recognizing that it’s you who is talking to them! It’s called personal branding. Of course, certain subjects call for a higher level of professionalism than others and perhaps a more serious tone but always write in a way that is true to you.

• Use the same brand colors and fonts everywhere. This also plays a part in being easily recognizable, but it also comes across as more professional. There is nothing more confusing than using completely different colors and fonts, etc. with each new post. Just like writing blog posts… consistency is also key with your branding!

• Use imagery that aligns with your brand! For example, if you are a luxury travel blogger, you would want to use stock photography that showcases that. It wouldn’t make sense for a blogger in that niche to use imagery that is more playful and childlike. That would be something better suited for a family blogger!

| RELATED: 10 Quality Stock Photo Sites For Female Bloggers And Entrepreneurs

Beginner No More! Make Your Blog Look Pro

I hope that this helped you learn more about how you can brand your blog as a beginner… one might even say you are a beginner no more😉! 

Yes, branding your blog involves fun stuff like colors and logos, but it also includes the way you speak to your audience and your values as a brand.

Getting clear on this is important because it helps you stand out from the crowd and form a connection with the right kind of people! 

Now you can make a more informed decision when it comes to how you are going to go about branding your blog – whether you choose to DIY it with Canva or hire a professional. Remember, both are great options and ultimately both have a place in your blogging adventure!

I can’t wait to see what you do!

Before you go, remember to snag this free workbook:

To help you out with branding your blog and business, I invite you to

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This post was written by guest contributor, Gia Mayo.

Gia Mayo helps bloggers save time creating content for social media by teaching them how to use Canva confidently & efficiently with tips, templates, and other resources. She has a longtime passion for design and creative projects, specializing in Canva. A stay-at-home mom, she teaches people time-saving content creation tips with Canva. You can find her tips on http://www.hellogiarose.com

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