A Logo is Important

I’ve seen quite a few logo-less mini sites (including one of my own), and as a person with a marketing background, I believe a logo is essential for a website. While search engines should bring a well designed website a large percentage of its traffic, it’s important to remember that a logo will help visitors remember your website’s name, making it easier for them to find it again in the future. Just about all of my websites have nice logos (at least in my opinion), and there are a variety of options out there for finding a good logo.
If you look around at brands from around the world – both large and small – almost every one of them has a logo to stand out from their competition. Some might be plain logos, while others are more elaborate, but the purpose is for customer recollection, brand positioning, and general marketing of the company. The same should go for your websites, as a logo makes the site – even a mini-site, look like its an official company rather than just a traffic-driving website built to generate revenues from PPC advertising. I received several compliments from people in the birding industry when I introduced TropicalBirds.com, and this allowed me to establish link trades of relevant websites. Without a logo, I doubt this site would have been taken seriously.
I have a web designer that created my geodomain logos, incorporating a variety of elements from each city. My other logos were designed by a company called LogoJeez, which has pretty quick turn-arounds. I always get the least expensive package knowing that they will re-do a logo if I am not satisfied with the initial 4 concepts. I’ve also used 99designs.com for a logo design contest, which I used for my blog’s header and my company’s corporate look/feel. There are plenty of options out there for logos that range in price from $100+.
As my track coach used to tell me, if you are going to do something, don’t do it half-assed. If you are going to build a website on a nice domain name with good content and SEO, you might as well pay a bit more and make it look even more professional.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
  1. Speaking of which, you should really resize your logos (under “Brands”)with a image editor as they look not-so-nice when you have them resized via HTML code

    ***UPDATED BY ELLIOT***
    The only image editor I have is named Elliot, and he doesn’t know how to do that! 🙂

  2. I couldn’t agree more. Logos always make a site look more professional… or… logoless sites always look unprofessional.
    Blarg is right, you need to resize the logo with an image editing software like photoshop or gimp and not let the browsers do the work.

  3. Yup logos are a very important part of any website. How professional a logo is & the look of a website depict the serious intent of the owner in branding the website as a product. They are the packaging for the product that is the content.
    To resize your logos you could use MS Paint. Just open the logo and click on Image->Stretch/Skew, and mention by what percent the logo should be resized. Would also help the webpage to open faster as the logos are HUGE lol !

  4. I agree with scott and blarg. You should resize your logos for two reasons;
    1-Compare the logos of lowell.com and burbank.com under “brands”. The first one is a resized image and the other one is resized via HTML code. So while lowell logo looks lovely burbanks logo look bad. That means resizing via an image editor makes your “well-worked on” logos look well.
    2-The weddingentertainment.com logo under “coming soon” its a huge image file (about 2 mb) So do you really think that your visitors have to make a transfer of 2 mb just to see that logo? If you had resized it properly it could be as small as 10 kb. So it is bad for your visitor, because he has to wait until the page loads and also bad for you because it increases your hosting plans bandwidth usage.
    I hope this can convince you to resize your logos. And if you think you cant figure out how to do it; just drop me a line; ill be happy to help.

  5. Important post Elliot, hopefully it won’t get overlooked.
    “As my track coach used to tell me, if you are going to do something, don’t do it half-assed.”
    Similarly, my Dad always told me if you CAN’T do something – LEARN how.
    Any domainers who need help understanding how to resize their logos, or help with converting their logos into an even more important yet often forgotten brand element: the favicon – Feel free to get in touch with me. I’d be more than willing to volunteer some time to help you out.
    FYI, a favicon is the little 19px x 19px graphic icon living in the address bar (and the bookmarks, and browser tab areas.) It is usually designed to correspond with a websites logo or overall site theme and can positively assist in shaping the trust factor when your visitor’s first impressions of your website are being formed.
    By the way Elliot, congratulations on your feature in Modern Domainer magazine. Not quite sure how I feel about blog posts being re-published in their entirety on paper yet, (especially considering that the visitors comments are often times the other half of the blog post) but I can see the value in republishing posts as articles (or blooks) in order to reach a broader audience and to allow for re-examination of an important post that may have simply been overlooked by readers upon first publishing.
    Being included in the first volume of Modern Domainer’s Blog Bible alongside the handful of other Top-Notched domainers that Modern Domainer Magazine chose to spotlight is, through my eyes, a great honor. I can imagine this achievement may be looked back upon by you over the course of your domaining career as a moment of validation for all of the energy that you have poured into writing about the domain industry.
    Although I noticed a few typos by Modern Domainer when referencing your blogpost dates, it was still a highly informative read just based on content alone. It actually made me really look forward to the day that you may decide to publish a book. You definitely have the industry experience (the stories to tell) and a readable style.

  6. Yes! The favicon! My Firefox is set up so that my main bookmarks are in a toolbar and are represented by their favicons. You wont believe the sites that dont have them!
    -SimplyGeo.com
    -GeoDomainer.com
    -Freshdrop.net
    -DNCleaner.com
    -NameBio.com
    C’mon guys, get a favicon 😛
    Jamie is right, the favicon is important; it’s a big part of a websites identity.

  7. A logo is a must for a site– but if you are really serious about building a business that can become attractive to advertisers, potential employees and project value for acquisition, you need more then a stock logo from a website or contest. You need an identity that is well thought out by a designer experienced online and off. That means a logo that scales to multi-media and will work in color, black and white or reversed from a background. You need letterhead and business cards to call on advertisers and investors. You need a PPT template and printed media kit to present at conferences and to agencies who book media and have the budgets to fill your pages, but they are used to professional presentations and slick images.
    It doesn’t cost a lot for a small player to look big. Thinking about an investment of $10-50K buying and building a GEO site, the $1000 investment in an identity package from a top notch designer is small when you understand the difference it can make. Marchex, Demand Media immediately elevate themselves to a different plain with image they project.
    Even domaining needs to be commended for style in graphics and thinking carefully about how to leverage ad space.
    How will the logo look on a hat, shirt, flag, pin, ad in a community program book, train schedule, bumper sticker, pen, flash drive, trade booth or any number of things you can brand to get your name out. How will the typeface and colors compliment the look and feel of your site? Can it be animated for flash and video opportunities? Will it stand out from a crowd when someone gives you the opportunity to place it on hidden but key spots for visibility like here:
    http://www.targetedtraffic.com/sponsors.html
    How will it look in the DN Journal photos when you are speaking at a conference and your logo slide is behind you? When you are interviewed and asked for a photo– that’s the one that will work hard to build your brand.
    Further, for GEO sites like this when you start producing video content you’ll want your logo on the bottom right like the networks do. Can you picture the current Lowell logo above in that application? Or on a plastic card that can be bundled into your rate card, and shown at advertisers for discounts?
    I remember the issue that came up at Traffic because the arrow built into their logo was pointing away from the meeting room. I’ve encountered all these things in my corporate career and it’s less expensive to get it right the first time.
    That’s the kind of stuff identity designers understand and even if you don’t print or produce all the stuff, you will have concepts and sketches that will greatly enhance your sales calls.
    For a GEO site a logo is a much bigger opportunity because you can produce and sell branded merchandise, post cards and all the things you yourself buy and take home as keepsakes and memories of your travels.
    And some free advice from someone who has spent a lifetime helping small companies get noticed and acquired- if you have a network of sites there should be a copyright notice with some standard signature at the bottom of the page. Not designed by wordpress but like even Domaing does a corporate identity and its own logo at the bottom. Immediately makes you look bigger, more trusted and if a prospective advertiser or journalist goes to check you out- by Googling that they will have a completely different perception and respect for you. May even help your search clout too.

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