6 branding mistakes I’ve made over the last 8 years

My biggest site is turning 9 next year. It’s kinda branded in the space but had I played my cards right it would be a bigger brand than it is. Here are the mistakes I made followed by the things I did right. 1. Too often had a short term mindset Too often I failed to focus on the long game by not putting as much of an emphasis on brand-building as I could have. My focus was on what worked fast (long tail ranking, social when it worked spectacularly) and ditching other worthwhile endeavors when they may have helped the long term. --------------------------------------------------------------- -PAID AD- Indexsy - The Enterprise SEO Agency ​[Jacky Chou](, the founder of Indexsy, recently [revealed on Twitter]( his all time high in revenue from selling niche edits. I guess he wants to continue to grow as he approached me for advertising opportunities on my newsletter. 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Quit video production prematurely For a time a couple of years ago I produced some great videos thanks to someone I hired. They didn't go "viral" so I stopped. That was definitely a mistake. I've resumed video production with this person. When revisited the videos they made, I was impressed and I'm not saying that because I have a personal stake in them. They are objectively very good. Not cheap, but good. 3. Focused more on traffic instead of serving an audience No question have I focused on traffic over serving the audience for most of the nine years. I'm not saying to ignore traffic but I probably would have been ahead had I published more content geared purely for audience members. I've done some of that. I had a humorous writer aboard for a while who penned a couple of hundred articles, but she ended up doing something else. I never found someone to take up the reigns when she left. Her column is priceless. I believe this aspect is more about mindset than any single task I did or didn't do. My mindset for nearly 9 years was traffic traffic traffic. I'm trying to change that by creating something people really like (at least some people really like... you can't please all the people all the time). 4. Failed to go as deep into some topics as I should have I went fairly broad and the cost of this was not going as deep as I should have on many topics. I'm fixing this by revisiting many topics and filling in the blanks. 5. Pursue a trademark sooner I'm a few months, so I'm told, from being awarded the trademark. There are some final formalities to deal with but it's looking good. I should have pursued a trademark in year four or five. I knew then the site was going to be a long term project. It takes a long time to get a trademark so if you believe your site is something you'll hang onto for a long time, get a trademark. 6. Lack of vision for the site Over the years I often reacted instead of being proactive. I reacted to trends, SEO methods and so on. This was because I never really had a vision for the site other than to get lots of traffic and make lots of money. I still don't have a firm vision for it, but it's coming along as I make adjustments in an effort to better brand it. ​ What I did well I didn't royally screw the site up. I did some things right. It wouldn't be what it is today had I not. It just so happens it could have been better. Here's what I did right. 1. Reinvested heavily into a lot of content Every month I reinvested revenue back into the site mostly in the form of content. This helped grow the site over the years. 2. Created some great content Sure, I published reams and reams of content targeting long tails and it worked just fine but I also published some really good stuff that serve as link and traffic powerhouses. 3. Invested a great deal of time and money into outreach within the industry Since day one I've done outreach to professionals in the niche who have contributed to the site over the years. This was probably one of the best things I've done over the years. 4. Collected emails even if it hasn’t paid off I still haven't made email pay off but I'm sending out newsletters... again. The ad revenue maybe pays for the email software but I'm doing it for the direct traffic and brand exposure. 5. Kept at it even when I experienced traffic drops The site has had big ups and big downs over the years. Every site will if you own it long enough. I'm glad I didn't throw in the towel at any point. I took breaks from it to adjust to situations, but I never quit. Another thing I'm glad I didn't do is sell. I nearly did 5 years ago. That would have been a massive, massive mistake. 6. Avoided publishing lousy reviews I know big, big affiliate revenue is in buyer content but I avoided that over the years. I've published some reviews of a few things I own but I never cranked them out systematically. I'm glad I didn't. I don't plan on it going forward. 7. Avoided link building I didn't have such a short term mindset that I built piles of lousy links to the site. I did not do this and I'm very glad I didn't. It delays rankings and in some cases I'll never rank for KWs because I don't build links but I've also not had to contend with any link spam Google issues. 8. Did NOT become the face of the brand Since I've been writing about branding, I get questions about whether in order to brand you need to be the face of it. My answer is no. I don't plan on becoming the face of it. I will continue branding it as it is. Most of the biggest, most popular sites on the Web aren't branded by their founder so there's no need for you or me to do it. In some ways it's easier/faster to brand with your name and face, but it's certainly not necessary. BTW, it's not bad to be the face of your brand. I only say this because I've been asked whether it's necessary. It's not but neither is it a bad strategy. Let’s talk content quality… what does that mean in the branding context? A FS forum member made a good comment recently saying most of us aren’t and won’t create brands if we’re publishing mainly Q and A sites. I agree but that doesn’t mean Q & A doesn’t have a place on our sites. I tend to really like this type of content as a reader and publisher. I too publish plenty of Q & A because it gets search traffic and when done well, serves readers. Here’s the thing… publish Q & A but balance it with epic brand building content as well. Promote your epic content across social and elsewhere. Let your Q &A (and similar long tail content) fill in the gaps and round out topics. And that's not to say Q & A can't go viral or be super interesting. Quora and Reddit demonstrate the right question with a good answer has wide appeal. It’s a way to have your cake and eat it too. In terms of how good your Q & A content needs to be, decent will do the job IMO. Usually these are the topics with little competition. More to the point, there is only so much you can say about this stuff. People just want the answer and info. If you can make it amazing, do so. If you can make it funny, entertaining or anything for it to stand out, do so. But don't beat yourself if some of it is merely just good enough. Good enough is still good enough. This point was made clear to me this week. I wanted to know how to do something. I searched on YouTube. The video I watched was terrible with respect to production quality. It droned on too long as well BUT I learned what I wanted to learn. I was satisfied. I did not look for another video. This video had hundreds of thousands of views and it wasn't great. It was good enough. Is there an argument for creating only epic content? You bet there is. Thing is, it’s not my style. I like my sites to fill in gaps with long tail topics and plenty of them. Thanks for reading Jon Fatstacksblog.com ​ [Unsubscribe]( | [Update your profile]( | 2016 Hill Drive, North Vancouver, British Columbia V7H 2N5