Be Consistent with Your Brand

by Shawn Collins on July 6, 2008

I was going through the list of registered companies for Affiliate Summit, because I post updates weekly to the Affiliate Summit homepage, and noticed that many companies are inconsistent with the way they represent themselves.

For instance, I’ve seen registrations for companies where five employees write the name of the company in five different ways.

Sometimes they write the name in all CAPS, random capital letters, no capital letters, first letter capitalized, with and without .com, etc.

Here is an example of how it looks for the same company listed in a variety of ways I’ve seen people use:

Brandmouthing
brandmouthing
BrandMouthing
BRANDMOUTHING
Brandmouthing.com
www.brandmouthing.com
brandmouthing.com
BrandMouthing.com
BRANDMOUTHING.com

Not only can this lead to confusion in the marketplace, but it also reflects poorly on a company to represent themselves in such an inconsistent way.

I’ve been guilty of this myself. Never too late to fix the problem, though.

{ 8 comments }

Simple Internet Marketing July 7, 2008 at 5:10 pm: Great information, but I wonder does this apply to anchor text in link building? Since it is wise to vary the anchor?
Thank you.
lisa July 7, 2008 at 4:52 pm: ah, the importance of having a copy editor and style guide – even if you're not a media company.
Simple Internet Marketing July 7, 2008 at 3:10 pm: Great information, but I wonder does this apply to anchor text in link building? Since it is wise to vary the anchor?
Thank you.
lisa July 7, 2008 at 2:52 pm: ah, the importance of having a copy editor and style guide – even if you're not a media company.
Shawn Collins July 7, 2008 at 10:09 am: I just realized I forgot to include a couple other options I see – with a comma or sometimes without and then Inc. (with a period after) or Inc (without the period).
Scott Fox, Internet Riches July 7, 2008 at 10:06 am: Good point. I have seen this happen even with major corporations that I have advised.
They can't seem to get the message straight even internally for the presentation of their URLS.
As you suggest, companyname, Companyname, CompanyName.com, http://www.Companyname.com, companyname.com, etc. are all common – usually because the people at the top still don't realize that a today a web address often IS your brand name.
Tom - StandOutBlogger.com July 6, 2008 at 10:14 pm: I have seen this a lot recently. Sometimes you wonder if it is the same company.
seosubmitter July 6, 2008 at 8:09 pm: This is really good input. i agree with oyu. Some people just dont understand. I think this will help. Great advice.