You’re an entrepreneur or small business owner kicking the tires every day in an effort to build your company’s reputation. You are already involved in marketing, sales, billing, human resources, and customer support.

With all those responsibilities to juggle, you’ve got to be looking for cost-effective tools that make your life easier. How can you build a blockbuster brand that will enhance your reputation and get your customers talking?

Here are 3 tips and some resources to help you get going:

1. Get a Professional Brand Identity

Your brand is your company’s promise to the market. Your big idea. Your brand begins with a name and logomark and embodies the expectations of the customers who pay for your product or service. Make it count.

The vast majority of small businesses see branding as an afterthought, when in fact it’s one of the most important factors influencing your customers’ decision to buy. Put your best foot forward and develop a professional brand identity.

Your logo should be authentic, meaningful, and differentiated from your competition.Services like Logo Design Guru, Logosnap, and Logoworks make it easy to get a professional identity at a fraction of the cost of a marketing or branding agency.

2. Build a Professional Web Site

There are dozens of potential moments where your brand will come face to face with current and potential customers.  These are your brand’s touch points and your web site is undoubtedly one of the most important.

This is part of your company’s marketing strategy where it pays to do it right. If you don’t have in-house design resources, hire a professional. The difference between a professional and amateur designer will drastically impact your company’s professional image.

Translate your brand identity into the look and feel of the site and keep it consistent across all of your other touch points. Resources like Haystack.com and BestWebGallery help you find designers that have the right style for your company.

3. Optimize Your Site for Search

After you’ve got your site up and running it’s time to optimize for search.  Many of your potential customers will sit down and do a Google search on your product or service before they buy.  If your site is optimized correctly, you’ve got a chance to show up in those results organically.

Do your homework and find out which relevant terms apply to your business. Use Google’s Keyword Planner tool to start assessing which keywords have the most search traffic and which ones to avoid. Build those keywords into your site’s copywriting, page titles, image tags, and meta data.

If you can get your site onto page one of Google, you’ll have positioned your brand so that it’s synonymous with the keywords your potential customers are using to search.

A great brand identity will be expressed in every touch point – serving to remind your current and potential customers about your company culture, your promise to the market, and the professional manner in which you conduct business. A great identity gets you recognized from afar and will instill confidence in your company.

Make it easy for your customers to buy from you by first managing their perception of your organization with a top-notch brand identity and web site.  Oh yeah, doesn’t hurt to have a professional sounding phone system either!