Modern SharePoint Online experience and site branding are easy and there are a lot of brand variations and customizations features that are very easy to do. When we talk about the processes of SharePoint site branding within the classic experience, default SharePoint themes can be altered to a considerable extent to fulfill your branding requirement. However, they are not too responsive and call for alternate CSS configurations or customization of master pages. Apparently, the SharePoint Branding process and standards customizations look easier, but in actuality they demand professional insights and skills to make the alternations work well. \
At Code Creators Inc. we have extensive experience in SharePoint Consulting and in developing and delivering diversified SharePoint Branding Solutions. From our experience in the market, we have settled on the following 10 factors that you must consider before you start SharePoint Branding. Nevertheless, we would always recommend seeking the professional expert advice of leading SharePoint Branding Companies like CCI to avoid any set back, because when we talk about SharePoint Branding and Customizations, there is a decent amount of money involved. So, let’s look into the factors that you must never overlook for SharePoint Branding.
One of the most important things to consider before starting the SharePoint branding process for your SharePoint sites is to find out the suitable level of brand consistency. You can do this in two ways. Either you can opt for choosing a consistent branding themes color palette and features across the entire site. Else, you can choose different branding aspects for different divisions, departments, teams, or groups within your organization.
The second most important thing that you need to keep in consideration is to collect all the relevant information and characteristics of the current SharePoint site, in detail, to avoid any discrepancy. Next, check out the template that you want to use and see if you want to make any changes to the master pages and CSS. This will help you decide what customizations you want to make and retain.
SharePoint branding can be carried out in various ways, so you need to make thoughtful decisions about the areas that you want to put emphasis on; so that they rightly reflect the branding aspects of your company. Color theme, logos, header, footer, and navigations are some of the important areas that people commonly choose to attain a consistent brand experience across the site.
An important task is to find the right people to perform the job rightly. For SharePoint branding, you can select people on the basis of their skills, experience, and overall understanding of SharePoint branding aspects. You must also provide the SharePoint site designers with sufficient authority and permissions to make necessary changes.
SharePoint branding is all about enabling your company to stand out from the competition. Also, the SharePoint customizations foster consistency throughout the company’s image by eliminating any unnecessary references to the platform or on an intranet portal. This has made SharePoint a most sought-after collaboration solution because most of the users require a unique brand image.
If your SharePoint site is branded well, it can not only promote corporate goals and values across the organization but also improves your employees’ morale. If the intranet of your company is aligned with your company’s brand image, it will contribute to establishing and encouraging a sense of community. This really helps in the case of international companies, where people are working at remote locations and may feel disconnected or isolated after some time.
SharePoint branding can also result in functional improvement in user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) while making the portal or intranet more intuitive and interactive; for instance, by making the navigation tabs simpler.
Branding is all about attracting an audience. SharePoint branding solutions are also meant to attract and encourage users toward optimal use. And this, in return boosts employee performance and improves overall business productivity. Subsequently, the ROI of the solutions increases in total.
SharePoint custom branding such as creative layouts, custom code, slider, navigations, etc. can be really expensive to be made and require a professional team of experts. And, since most of the organizations do not have professional SharePoint designers onboard, they opt for outsourcing the SharePoint branding process to leading SharePoint development companies. Besides, SharePoint branding requires constant support. Hence, the SharePoint branding areas and customizations options must be chosen smartly to avoid extra costs.
SharePoint users require proper training before they start branding their SharePoint external portal or intranet. Training materials such as user guides etc. are available on Microsoft’s website, but they are not usually helpful in case of customizations. Hence, whenever you get your SharePoint branding solution customized, we would recommend you to request a user guide from your IT partner and make the training obligatory to optimally use the platform.
If you are looking for branding your SharePoint site anytime soon, we would recommend you to select Code Creators Inc. as your SharePoint branding partner for affordable yet distinctive solutions. Click here to connect.