“Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful.” - Brian Tracy

I have to admit, it’s been a while since I’ve fully attended to my blog. I rested, wrote, read, worked, played, argued, slept, ate, drank, played some more, ate, worked, researched, wrote, studied, climbed, stumbled, walked, typed, googled, designed, apologized, organized, and mused since the last time I posted regularly on this blog. It’s been a hiatus, a sabbatical, but without purpose or direction.

So why all the work earlier this year to build such a great blog, with awesome readers, if only to leave it a few months into its inception?

I’m working on bringing this blog back from the ashes. The proverbial phoenix rising from the ash. At the high point, this blog brought in close to 500 visitors a day. Now it’s at an all time low. What better way to test my determination than to belly up to the table and begin working?

Steps to Bring a Blog Back to Life

Step One - Question Your Purpose

The first step always has to be a personal question. Does the blog still meet some internal goal? Do you have time to do the writing? Does it still feel rewarding? Does it still interest you? If you answer these questions, like I have, then you can probably determine if you want to bring the blog back or give it up. If you want to sell, then you can likely find interested parties at forums like DigitalPoint.com and SitePoint.com.

Step Two - Update Software

I use WordPress. I have posted since 2.5, but I never updated my installed version. I was too lazy to go through the process. Frankly, I was a little afraid it would be a disaster. I’ve already completed this step on the blog, since I think it’s crucial to be safe and secure. It also helped me get a recent backup of the database.

Step Three - Reacquaint Yourself with Social Networks

I have a lot of this to do still. I used to Twitter all the time. I haven’t been active on there at all recently. It sounds like a good place to turn on the lights and see what I can uncover. Entrecard is another useful place to start. I can drop, drop and drop some more. That should help in the long run.

Step Four - Write Content

A post like this is good, but it’s not the only one I need to write. I’ve said before I wanted to pay more attention to my blog. With anything, it takes time and effort to earn back reputation points from previous readers. If your blog has been dormant for a long time, consider doing a post series, reanalyzing your site’s content direction, and even spinning the viral marketing wheel in your favor. A good place to start would be to welcome back readers in comments, be active in your niche, and bolster your reputation with quality writing. Just keep with it.

Step Five - Stay Active

Mistakes will be made. It happens. It happens to me, to you, to our mothers, fathers, grandparents, and elected officials. It happens everywhere. Just suck it up and move forward. If you lose a few readers, then fine. If you stay with it, then you’ll see the reward soon enough. A few months and the internet will have changed yet again. Other bloggers will fizzle out and new ones will pick up the torch. If you write content, post comments, and interact with other bloggers then you have a good chance of staying in the saddle.

Just as your blog has a brand, a web store needs a face too. A unique brand keeps your site in the mind of users when they want to buy a certain product. The Snorg Tees ads have supplanted that brand into my psyche. I’ve seen it everywhere. So how can we begin to build a brand for a new e-commerce store?

The branding begins with the domain purchase and naming of the store. If you can find a domain that clearly marks your store’s product territory they you are on the right track. A site with the name af84goods.com probably won’t cut it. There’s two ways to go with this. One way focuses on SEO and requires you to lock down a domain with a specific keyword in the title, like beachtoweloutlet.com. The other approach focuses more on the brand, than the product, like Balamba.com. The ultimate way to go would be to mesh the two methods and to secure a domain that features both the branding and the keyword, just as Snorg has done - Balambabeach.com or Balambabeachtowels.com.

Logo for the Site

Once you’ve chosen a domain name, then you also need to consider your site’s logo. Your store’s logo should be prominent, but not obtrusive, memorable, and well designed. It’s best to consult professionals for this. Even though I know my way around Photoshop, I’m no logo design expert. I also don’t work in Illustrator and I like to have logos as vectorized images so I can resize them to cover the wall of my office building someday — (you know, Boom HQ).

The web has turned the logo market upside down. While it used to be rather expensive to have a quality logo designed, you can actually find logos for fairly cheap. This doesn’t mean the results are cheap looking — they can actually be quite nice. The Jason Boom logo is a prime example. Get your own today!

Once you have a sleek new logo, you can begin buying up large amounts of ad space. Well, not necessarily. Of course, advertising will come into play. It’s a necessity. First though, a new business should brand its internal materials. This means creating emails off the domain, setting up letterheads with the company logo, and adding a signature to all outgoing emails. The point of all this would be to keep your sites name in people’s faces.

Head On Apply Directly to the Head

The commercial for Head On pain reliever has quickly become annoying and supplanted in my head. While I steer clear of annoying tag lines, I do realize the benefit of a catchy one. When considering your site’s tag line, there’s a lot to think about. For the most part, the tagline should embody the business purpose. Why not do an exercise to capture the perfect tag line?

On a sheet of paper write ten verbs that embody your business. If you’re a web designer then you would have verbs like copy, paste, crop, sheer, resize, etc. Now on the other side of the paper write down ten adjectives you believe a customer would like from your business. For instance a customer would want quality, timeliness, trustworthiness, honesty, integrity, etc. Now that you have two lists — take one word from the left side and write a tag line using an adjective from the right side. You may come up with some interesting variations. The best you can run by your trusted associates. Never make a decision about a tag line on your own!

Branding as an Expressive Outlet

We can have fun with branding. We might have a unique ad we place on websites or we may find a way to cleverly represent our brand in the real world. Most of all we should be proud of our brand, confident in our approach, and more than just satisfied with the images the brand brings to mind. Choose something powerful, imaginative and catchy. The rest will come in time.