The Unsexy Side of Rebranding: Updating Your Business Online
By Sara Dunn, SaraDoesSEO.com
As your business grows and changes, you may eventually consider rebranding. Maybe your business name no longer suits you, or you’re bringing on a partner. Maybe you want to refocus on your own name and brand. In either case, there’s some unsexy work that needs to be done to make sure you don’t disappear online if you change your business name or brand.
I spoke a few weeks ago with a prospective client who had joined her husband’s wedding photography business. With her involvement, they decided to change the business name and website URL to include their last name, so it wasn’t just branded as his business.
They hired a designer and created a new logo and website. A few weeks after the exciting launch, their phone mysteriously stopped ringing.
When they tried to figure out why, they realized that the business’s old website had ranked really well on Google, but the new website was a disaster. The redirects to the new website weren’t done properly, and the business had lost its important first-page rankings on Google. The impact on their business and inquiries was huge.
I don’t want you to make the same mistake. Let’s talk about three (unsexy) things you need to do online when you rebrand.
Make Sure You Update Your Own Website
Changing your business name? Don’t neglect to update your own website. Beyond the obvious of changing your logo on the site, make sure your business name is updated in your page content, your website settings, and plugin settings too.
Here are a few places to look to make sure to update your business name:
● Your pages and blog posts. Scour the text of important pages and posts on your site to see if you mentioned your business name anywhere. Make sure to update these references to your business name.
● In WordPress, the “Site Title” listed under Settings > General
● In the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress, go back through the configuration wizard and check all references to your business name so the right name is shown to Google
● In Squarespace, the “Business Name” listed under Settings > Business Information
But Don’t Make These Mistakes
● Don’t neglect your own website in a rebrand or name change. This should be done first to make sure you don’t look like you’re having an identity crisis.
Make Sure You Redirect Your Old URL
If your rebrand involves changing your website address (from oldname.com to newname.com, for example), you need to make sure you set up redirects. This means if someone goes to your old website URL, they are sent (redirected) to your new website. You also want this to happen when Google crawls your site.
At a technical level, you want to use a type of redirect called a 301 redirect. This indicates to Google that you are permanently redirecting the old URL to the new one. With this type of redirect, Google will pass the SEO value from your old site to your new one, so if you were ranking well with your old site, you should also rank well with the new site.
● Don’t just delete your old site without redirecting the URL. This will cause lots of “Page Not Found” errors for visitors who try to go to old links. It will also cause Google to view your new site as a brand new business, and you will have to build your SEO back up from scratch.
Make sure you update all of your online profiles. I worked with a client a few months ago who had changed the name of her business. While she had remembered to put her new business name on her website and social media profiles, her old business name was all over the internet in other places.
If you rebrand and change your business name or URL, it is critical to update all online profiles that you can to reflect this change. This includes The Knot, Wedding Wire, vendor listings on blogs, any sites where you’re listed as a preferred vendor, and anything else where you can request an update.
Not sure where your name might be wrong? Google your old business name and see what appears. It would be a good idea to work hard to change any profiles that rank on the first two pages of Google.
● When you change your business name, don’t ignore all the places online that your business is listed. Get them updated if you can.
Rebranding involves more than deciding on a new name and creating a new logo. If you want your new brand to be successful online, don’t forget the technical aspects of a big brand change, like redirecting your URL and updating online profiles.
Why is this important?
Consistent name, address, and phone number on any listing for your business helps Google to understand that that listing is associated with your business. Consistency helps your local rankings.
You don’t want to cause confusion for couples looking for you. They may lose some trust if your business name is different on The Knot than on your website.
Sara Dunn is a wedding SEO consultant at SaraDoesSEO.com, providing SEO services to wedding planners, photographers, venues, florists, and more.