First Steps in Branding Your Business

January 20, 2006 at 11:34 pm · Filed under Affiliate Tips

I have just written about the importance of registering your domain
names. That is really the first step in branding your business Business name.
This is an important step, even for small businesses Businesses. Branding is about
reputation and respect. The more of a presence your business
represents, the greater your reputation and respect.


Steps:

1) Register your .com, .net, and .org names.

2) Register close spellings of your domain name.

3) Set up e-mail forwarding, i.e. orders@, customerservice@, retailsales@, returns@yourcompany.com.

4) Register your business name as an eBay Ebay user’s name.

5) Register your business name on AOL’s IM Service.

6) Register your business name on Yahoo.

7) Design a logo for you business ($99 at LogoYes.com, it is easy to do).

8) Incorporate or register your business name with your state and get a Tax ID Number.

9) Make sure you have a good bricks-and-mortar street address (not a PO Box and not an address like Poppy Court Apt #12).

10) Think about getting a toll-free phone number and business Internet answering service. Have someone with a nice voice record your voice greeting.


11) Get you business website, even if it just a very simple page with your business name, logo, and mission statement.

12) All along the way, develop your business mission statement, business values, and business policies. Post these on your web site.

Steps 5 and 6, the IM screen name and Yahoo name, are not necessarily for you to use, but it is free to register at these popular web services. You are trying to mark your presence on the web.

Originally from eBusiness Power Tips on February 4, 2005, 10:30am

3 Comments »

  1. Phone Answering Service said,

    February 6, 2006 @ 9:59 pm

    Thats interesting how all of the internet related “must do’s” come before going through the proper channels to get incorporated. Shold incorporation & tax id be one of the last steps to starting a business ot one of the first?

  2. Rave said,

    February 8, 2006 @ 1:25 pm

    I think it is important to get the same domain name as the company name that you are registering, all the above steps are similar to a company name search, you would only register the company when your name is unique, I guess all these steps are not done sequentially they could be done in parallel as well

  3. dynn said,

    February 14, 2006 @ 2:11 am

    other ppl said don’t register .net or .org…if the .com is taken…since .com is more value than .net or .org.Any comment??

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