How to Survive a Rebranding

“Rebranding” can feel like a scary word in the world of SEO or marketing, all the work put into creating trust around your current brand for it to suddenly change overnight.

The process of rebranding also requires a lot of work as there are many moving parts, and it is vital that everyone who has a hand in the campaign is kept in the loop throughout to ensure no information is lost and that the transition happens smoothly. 

A rebranding doesn’t have to be scary, you just need to be well-prepared and have the data to support you in any eventuality. So, if you’ve decided it’s time for a spring-clean then it might be good to figure out where to begin.

Types of Rebranding

A rebrand doesn’t always have to mean a change of brand name, although this is one aspect of it, rebranding could also mean changing the name of a product, or changing the theming or structure of your website.

Ensuring that a site rebranding runs as smoothly as possible and that the site as a whole is successfully adapted and rebranded without losing its SEO value is of utmost importance.

The site has built up organic visibility and equity over time which has resulted in obtaining rankings and visibility increases. It is important to protect this foundation throughout the rebranding process.

The main idea is to keep the old brand relevant as well as products/services whilst also bringing relevance to the new changes.

Lots of client reassurance, guidance and support is needed during this time, and it is good to share some best practice to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Goals of a Rebrand

The goal of any rebranding is to do so while also mitigating traffic and ranking losses and drops as much as possible; conducting a thorough SEO rebranding strategy ensures any major losses are prevented where possible. 

When you change your URLs, content, and the website overall, you change what search engines know about your website and the metrics they’ve applied to it to give you your rankings.

It is important to make changes slowly to allow the search landscape to adapt to your new changes.

Building a Good SEO Strategy Before Rebranding

When overseeing a website rebranding or change of any kind, it is important to develop a strategy that focuses on elements of SEO that we can begin monitoring to aid with the process.

Having a strategy in place will allow us to provide a framework for supporting the rebranding process.  

Not only this but it will help us to retain current keyword rankings as best as possible, prevent the occurrence of broken links across the site and ensure that content changes incorporate tracked keywords.

There are lots of types of rebranding changes that could be made, so the strategy should ultimately reflect your client’s needs.

Setting Appropriate Redirects

The most important step in a site rebranding process is to set up appropriate redirects across the site where changes have been made.

A 301 redirect will pass all current SEO equity from the original version of the site to the new version if implemented and managed correctly and lead to relevant target pages.

The complexity of the redirect set-up depends on how many changes are made to the overall structure of the site. 

As the rebranding is an opportunity to improve the overall site structure and user experience, the set-up of redirects can be a little more complex as redirects will likely have to be added on a per-page basis. Although time-consuming, this will prevent redirect errors from being made and also stop redirect chains and loops from being created.

A nice thing to do would be to set up a staging site for any content changes or new pages. This will enable you to make changes and implement redirects without officially publishing the content, allowing room for error and room for fixes or improvements too.

If you (or your client) are managing the rebrand internally, it is important to be aware of these points:

If there are pages that you do not intend to keep on the new site and there is no other page with similar or relevant content to redirect to, then it is best not to redirect at all, just no index them/410 them to tell Google the page has permanently gone.

There is often a temptation to redirect these types of pages to the site’s homepage, however, search engines often see this as spam, and it generally results in both pages being dropped from indexing.

Ensure that you have plans to optimise your new 404 page to reflect your rebranding and provide users with other pages to access.

What to do in Case of a Site Name Rebrand

If you’re dealing with the most typical rebranding scenario, then you may wish to change your brand name or URL.

If you move from ‘brand X’ to ‘brand Y’ people will still search for the old brand name.

You will likely require a migration to a new domain, which is accompanied by a new site design that reflects the rebranding.

In this scenario, it is important that you have exported all current site data for benchmarking at a later date once the new site is up and running. 

The first step would be to 301 redirect every page of the old domain to the new destination, if possible keep URL structures the same or similar as this will make redirecting simpler.

Creating a new page in the new domain that is about the old brand can serve as a bridge page to help target and rank for the old branded queries. This will also help to explain the reasons for the rebranding to your customers and help with the transition to the new brand name.

You could also add explanatory text to each page of the site for a short while if you feel it is necessary, through the form of a pop-up or banner.

Next, you should audit the URLs of the old site via Google Search Console or SEMrush/Ahrefs to see which of the old site pages are currently performing for branded terms. It is likely that these pages will need to be dealt with in a similar way to the homepage and can link to and from the bridge page on the new site too.

You should also ensure Google My Business information, and all other NAP (name, address, phone number) details across the web, including social media, are updated as this may impact local search.

Lastly, complete a thorough backlink audit so you can ensure all outreach links have been updated and correctly point to the new site.

What To Do in Case of a Product Rebranding

Despite not requiring a full domain migration and that it will only affect a number of pages across the site, product name rebrands often involve the most important pages on a site in terms of conversions, and therefore need full attention and support.

There are 3 ways this could go:

• The names overlap (i.e. Yellow ——>Yellow B)
• The name somewhat overlap (i.e. Yellow ——-> RED Yellow)
• The names are completely different (i.e. Yellow ——-> Blue)

When Product Names Overlap

If the product names overlap, then it may be possible to keep the old product URL and simply update the content to target the new product name.

If you have to have a new page entirely, you should move the old product URL to the new product URL via 301 redirect. 

It is also good to make sure you have updated any structured data/schema if it’s implemented, and most importantly, the page content. You could also use explanatory text via a banner or a pop-up on the new product page if you feel it is necessary.

When Product Names Somewhat Overlap

If the product names somewhat overlap, you can leverage the old product page to help to directly establish the new one more quickly.

Firstly, you should 301 redirect the old product page to the new one to maintain brand relevance. You may also choose to create a bridge page to target old brand queries if this is necessary, there is also the option to include explanatory text on the new product page in the form of a banner or a pop-up.

You can then link to the bridge page from the new product page and to the new product page from the bridge page. It is also vital to update any existing internal links and place in any new internal links that may be deemed necessary now the product name has changed.

When Product Names Are Completely Different

If the product names are completely different, you can still leverage the old product page to serve as a bridge page that will explain the rebrand, keep the brand relevance (and rankings) for old brand queries whilst also linking to the new product page. 

A new product page for the new brand should then be created to target new brand queries. This new page should be linked internally, and all links should be updated. It is also important to update your outreach links if necessary.

What To Do in The Case of a Site Restructure

Site restructures are tricky as although they aren’t technically a rebrand in essence, users will be landing on a different version of your site which can impact user experience and conversion funnels. It may impact click-through rate or site engagement if users don’t feel familiar with a site set-up.

There are lots of moving parts to a site restructure, and it takes a lot of time, care and attention to successfully implement and follow through with a full restructure to ensure the process runs smoothly.

URL Auditing

To enable you to identify what SEO value a site structure currently has and what is worth maintaining during the restructure, an audit of all current URLs will need to be conducted to look for high-value content, key backlinks, and to assess the site’s current ranking positions within SERPs. 

All current URLs need to be taken through this process, as it will also allow you to set up efficient redirects later on in the process. 

You can also use this opportunity to see which URLs have lower SEO value (i.e. pages that are no longer relevant to the site, and pages that have little high-value content on them) they can then be optimised to a greater extent during the rebranding process or redirected appropriately. 

Conducting a URL audit will also allow you to identify duplicated content across the site. It is important to highlight where these areas exist and decide how to best proceed in the context of the rebrand.

Identify High-Performing Pages and Keywords

Another important step is to identify which of the tracked keywords are bringing in the most traffic to the site, as well as the top performing pages for those keywords.

You should look at pages that are sitting within positions 1-20 (or 1-30 if the site is rebranding in its infancy) and use this as an opportunity to identify keywords that the client may want to target more heavily in the rebrand than on the current site.

Identifying the top-performing pages with the highest SEO value will ensure that we are preserving content that is useful to the site during the rebranding process. 

You should ensure that if structural updates are made to these pages, such as layout or sentence changes, the overall topics and high-volume keywords remain the same where possible.

Preserving content is also important to consider during the redirect process, especially when making alterations to the structure or layout of pages across the site. If you are combining pages, it is important to incorporate relevant keywords to each page.

While many SEO elements will transfer via redirects, keywords can only be maintained if they are appropriately incorporated throughout the rebranded content and metadata.

What Should I Do About Backlinks During a Rebrand?

Backlinks are just as important as internal links and content when it comes to rebranding, especially if the brand name has changed or a product name has changed. 

With the help of a backlink audit, you can track any changes that may occur during the rebranding process and make key changes and fixes if necessary. 

Once the rebranded site is published, you will then need to look over the backlink audit once more and complete some link update outreach. This involves contacting the companies, journalists and bloggers who have included a backlink to your site and asking them to change the old link to reflect any URL changes or updates that have occurred during the rebranding process.

Post Publication

Once the rebranding is completed and launched, it is vitally important to submit a new version of your sitemap.xml file to ensure that search engines are aware of the changes made to the site structure. 

After the launch date, closely monitor site analytics to ensure that everything is still running smoothly and as you want it to. Also, look out for any technical issues and implement immediate fixes if necessary to keep URLs updated.

It is expected to see some ranking and traffic drops during the period directly after the rebranding to allow Google to update its database. However, these changes will start to steadily improve again shortly after updates are made.

So there you have it, you’ve just survived a rebranding, and it doesn’t need to be as scary as it’s first made out to be! With a few simple steps to ensure a smooth and reliable process, you can achieve rebranding success.

Want to be sure you don’t miss anything during your migration? We have a FREE downloadable checklist, which you can find here. This checklist includes everything you need to do from an SEO perspective before, during and after a web migration. We’ve also included information on what each step involves and why.

Interested in outsourcing your migration? We offer assistance with the whole process as part of our SEO campaign package. Contact us today to speak to one of our experts about our award-winning SEO services.