Mine used to be Infoseek. For a while Infoseek was only search engine I used, and name "Infoseek" was fixed on my mind as place to go whenever I wanted to find something on Internet.

But I could care less about Infoseek nowadays.

I never use it anymore.

After Disney bought Infoseek in 1998, they changed name to Go.com. "Alright", you might say, "can't you take a name change?" Well, problem is, it wasn't just a name change, it was a total elimination of Infoseek brand.

The whole visuals of site were changed, and what's even worse, Go.com site became an entertainment oriented search engine. It was still a search engine, but it neither looked nor felt same as good old Infoseek (and search results were not same as before).

Infoseek was struggling, which is why Disney bought it. But it was still a heck of a brand name, an asset which Disney completely neglected. The result is that a lot of people who used Infoseek before have now switched to other search engines.

In fact, brand kill was so destructive that Go.com doesn't maintain its own index anymore (it serves results from GoTo.com). Infoseek/Go.com is as good as dead, and brand change by Disney had without a doubt a profound role in failure.

What can be learnt from this? Well, first point: branding is very important. It can make or break a business venture.

Second point: branding is psychological. It exists in minds of customers and prospects. When I say, "Image is nothing. Thirst is everything", I can bet that name of a popular fizzy lemonade will pop up in your mind. That's power of branding for you.

And third point: repeated exposure to brand is vital to producing a successful brand. When Infoseek brand was gone, search engine somehow lost its "meaning".

And just to make it absolutely clear what Web branding really is, here's a short definition:

The purpose of branding is to get people to recall your company/product/service from memory. The ultimate aim is to get people to trust you more than competition, and to think of your Web site before they think of competition's Web site.

Branding isn't just for big companies. It's just as important to small business entrepreneur, especially online business owners. With cutthroat competition on Web, those who don't brand will probably go out of business.

Here are several hands-on branding strategies for you to apply to your own Web site, using your business name and your own name:

1. Repetition - This is very important: keep all of your design elements same from page to page. Most importantly, display your logo at top of each page, consistently throughout your Web site. Your Web site must have its own distinct "feel".

But I couldn't figure it out why. Every time you look around there's another new site! So what's wrong with my deal? It's not as if I don't get customers, I do. But not on scale I believe that package merits.

So what do I do? Test (and if you didn't know answer to that, shame on you!).

======================================== Sidebar: Are you testing your ads, copy, mailshots? How do you know which work and which don't? How do you know which offer best rate of return? Code all your adverts and then you'll be able to see if you're wasting or investing your money. ========================================

I looked at what I've been offering, and put myself in mind of prospect. Great they might say, but it doesn't have this, or that, or how will I be able to do...?

Doing that I came up with a few possible answers. Web design was a big one, copywriting another, fear of not making it work another.

I ended up with a list of 12 'problems' which could hold a prospect off from signing up.

The next step was working out which ones I could do something about. That left me with three problems that I could solve for my prospects - and main thing - make it easier for them to do business with me.

======================================== Sidebar: Make a complete list of all your skills. Don't undervalue any. It 's easy to 'ignore' something that you do everyday that someone else might find difficult or threatening. Examine that skill list and see which could be of benefit to who. Either you'll come up with an idea for a brand new product/service, or you'll discover 'an added value extra' that you could add to an existing product/service. You could also look at potential of re-packaging several products together and make something ''new". ========================================

So which one of these three potential prospect-problem solvers to choose? In this case answer was quite simple. The quickest and cheapest to test. Why make life harder for yourself.