Launching a successful rebranding campaign will appear to be a terrifying, formidable task, particularly if you look over the possible risk for your SEO rankings. The final thing you wish to try and do after building up your SEO is to lose all that progress because you made the decision to brand your company’s name.
Thankfully enough, reduced SEO rankings doesn’t need to be a bi-product of rebranding, as long as you are doing your analysis. Invariably take the required steps to make it a sleek transition and don’t be scared of a little effort and diligence. Your business will thank you in the finish when your SEO doesn’t drop hugely instantly upon introducing your new brand.
Read below to search out which steps you must take first when considering a rebrand.
1. Try and Keep Your Original Domain name
This is the simplest way to start rebranding; it keeps the method simple and has the smallest probability of damaging your SEO ranks. That being said, we do understand that keeping a similar name isn’t invariably possible, or practical. This is often very true during a rebrand. Too often a company name is precisely what has to be modified to provide your business a makeover and a fresh start. Simply confirm you understand that if you do plan to modify your domain name, you run the risk of losing plenty of search engine traffic.
If you are feeling like you need to make the modification, browse following step regarding preserving your original content closely, and don’t skip the part about redirects.
2. Preserve & Nurture Your Existing Content Whenever possible
Even if you've got to fully revamp your business name and web site, try and maintain your original content as best you can. If you are feeling like you need to create new content, try and closely replicate your old stuff. This will help you to avoid losing your authorship and authority, and so can stop your rankings from dropping. Don’t overlook easy things like your fonts and headers; maintaining these very little details could create an enormous difference when it comes to SEO.
3. If Not Forever, Maintain Your old website for a short Time
How long to preserve your previous web site appears to be some extent of rivalry within the SEO rebranding world. Some specialists recommend going it up for some days, whereas others say it doesn’t hurt to keep up it for good. It feels like you've got to create a call supported what you've got time for and what is going to work best for your company.
Leaving it up forever (but inactive) would require more time on your part, because it’s good to revisit the site periodically to make sure it’s not causing any problems. Some business owners recommend doing this so you don’t lose the URL, and just in case you get unhappy down the road and wish to reprocess or revisit the site.
One factor they will agree on, however, is not to take down your old website as soon as the new one has launched. It will probably take servers many days to acknowledge the new IP address. This means if you delete your old website after 24 hours you may ruin all of your hard work. It’s not hurting anyone to leave it up for about 3-7 days, thus play safe and do not hit the “delete” button too quickly.
4. Use Redirects properly
You should redirect each page from your old website to the corresponding page of your new site to optimize the user’s expertise. this might be terribly simple or quite sophisticated, counting on your URL structure. It’s best if you maintain an equivalent web site pages and URL structure. If this is often what you’ve done, skip the rest of this paragraph and move to the next step. If you haven’t used the similar URL structure, read on here.
If your sites have different pages and different URL structures it’s not the top of the planet, however it will build things a bit a lot of sophisticated. as a result of you can’t direct previous pages to the precise same page on the new website, you’ll need to direct them to the most relevant page on your new website (hence why it’s helpful to closely replicate old content whenever possible). Hubspot suggests using this code:
Redirect 301 /sample-old-page-1.html http://www.newdomain.com/new-sample-page.html
Redirect 301 /old-sample-page-2.html http://www.newdomain.com/sample-new-page-2.html
They propose making a spreadsheet with the URLs for the previous {site|website|web website} in one column and the URLs for the new site in another column. This clearly could be pretty time-consuming, so be sure to prioritize and begin with the pages that generate the most traffic. We have tried this & found that it works perfectly once you get the control of it.
5. Try and Retain the same URL Structure
If you are doing this, your redirects ought to be fairly easy. All you need to is direct your website}} pages from the old site to the same pages on the new site. Again as per HubSpot, all you’ll have to try this are a few lines of code. They suggest using the following, then swapping out your domains accordingly:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond % ^olddomain.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond % ^www.olddomain.com$
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]
6. Shout Your loud about the New brand from the Rooftops
Definitely update all of your social media sites. looking on the social media platform, this could be easy or difficult. There are some things to keep in mind when rebranding on social media:
Facebook only permits you to change your page name and URL just once. Just once. So keep that in the back of your head if you choose to make a modification.
There are plenty of IDs that aren’t in use on Twitter, therefore if somebody has the one you wish but isn’t active, reach out to see if you can take it over (this is what Twitter suggests because they’re terribly slow at deactivating these accounts themselves).
LinkedIn is an easy website to handle when rebranding, unless somebody already has your company name. If that’s the case, you will need to alter your company name simply a little - ( think about keeping the same name , but with addition on a tagline after it). To change the URL, you have to contact LinkedIn directly.
In addition to updating your social platforms, spread the word regarding your new brand via press releases, email announcements, guest posts, and different kinds of online advertising. Promoting your new brand will solely help you, so don’t skimp in this area or all of your hard work could be for nothing.
Finally, to seek out if your marketing is functioning, ensure to watch the traffic and rankings for your new website. It’s common to make a mistake when rebranding considering all facots which goes into it; simply ensure to be diligent so you'll be able to catch and fix mistakes quickly.
7. Don’t ignore Your Mobile Site!
Marketing via mobile devices is simply as common, if not more so, than actual computers. Don’t neglect your mobile website when rebranding. Ensure your new pages are mobile friendly, which means simple to access, easy to browse, etc.
Consider how much traffic your website gets from mobile devices. If this can be what the bulk of your audience uses, you would possibly wish to have faith in launching your mobile website first. If it isn’t, however, then it’s probably safe to target your main website first and then after that’s up and running work on making the same version for mobile.
Hopefully, now the thought of rebranding your company is slightly less daunting. Don’t be afraid to try to it, simply ensure you set the time and effort necessary to make your attempt successful.
To know more on SEO Strategies and Rebranding your company identity visit, Axat Technologies Pvt. Ltd.