3. Domain name - Use your domain name as your brand. Put it on all of your stationary (letter heads, business cards, post cards, statements, etc.).

4. Signature file - Implement your USP into your signature file, so with every email you send visitors will be further exposed to your brand. Check out help file of your email software for more on setting up sig files.

5. Thank you pages - If you have online forms (for visitors to contact you, request more information, subscribe to your newsletter etc.), you most likely have a "thank you" page where you thank visitors for using your form. This is an excellent place to position your logo and slogan. Don't clutter with lots of banners and marketing material. Keep it plain and simple.

6. Ebooks - Create free books on subjects of interest to your visitors and allow them to re-distribute to their own visitors. Brand your ebook with your logo, domain name and slogan on every page of ebook (also consider including your own name).

7. Publish free articles - With thousands of new Web sites and ezines popping up in Web land every month, demand for high quality content is immense. You can provide articles for other webmasters/editors to publish on their Web sites/ezines. At end of your article put your name and a link to your Web site, with short teaser copy to get people to click on your link (offer a free book, subscription to your ezine or some other enticing offer - see my resource box at end for an example). This is free publicity at its best - not only will you get traffic back to your Web site; you'll also add status and credibility to your name (provided your article is of high quality). Visit following sites to submit your articles:

- http://www.e-zinez.com/articles/index.html - http://www.ideamarketers.com/ - http://www.ezinearticles.com/

8. Autoresponders - These are emails that are sent automatically to anyone who requests them (triggered by sending them an email). Autoresponders are great as they work 24 hours a day without any intervention on your part. Use them to send visitors free reports, articles, list of links, etc. And add your branding copy (logo, name, slogan, USP etc.) at top and bottom of autoresponder message, with a link back to your Web site. Nowadays all good Web hosts provide their customers with free autoresponders.

If you don't brand, you'll have a hard time surviving on Web. If you do brand - properly - you'll have a hard time not laughing all way to bank. And as shown by above tips, online branding is not hard to do. Just implement tips and you'll be well on your way.

So off go coded emails with my 'latest hot offer'. For several days I post same offer testing different headlines, and adding essential 'this is a limited offer', just to cover myself - I didn't want this to be too successful and get inundated with hundreds of people.

And? Well I hit a hot spot. I got several new clients directly from those adverts and have had to introduce a waiting list!

Infact having discovered need out there, I'm getting some software written which will allow people to edit their own websites with no knowledge of html (the language of internet). Once that comes on stream, there won't be a limit to number of new clients that I can take on.

So do you get message?

*** Know exactly what it is that your product/service is offering potential customers, so that: ***You can discover what is lacking in your offer that is holding potential clients back from buying from you, because then: ***You can become an even better 'solution provider', and increase your business and customers satisfaction.

It doesn't matter whether you're competing with loads of other people selling same thing, infact that's great!

======================================== Sidebar: What do you mean? The more people promoting same thing means that prospects can get used to product/service name. It becomes familiar. Considering that most people don't buy anything till sixth or seventh approach, you're still in with a great chance especially as you are adding something extra to deal. =======================================

Whatever you are selling, find a way to be 'unique', in either presentation: don't use same adverts/leaflets as everyone else - delivery: repackage, add something extra - or customer service: faster, better refund (risk reversal) policy. In fact make up your own. That's really unique!

And to prove a point, I must compete with several thousand people with my web hosting affiliation. But now (as far as I know), none of others can compete with my offer.