Rebranding your business is a good way to refresh your image. You can align your product and service offerings with what your customers want. It’s also a great way to keep up to date with changes in your industry.

Rebranding can be a confusing and difficult time. It’s a disruptive and expensive process, one which will have a lasting impact on your business. You’re essentially losing one brand and re-launching a new one. Since you’ve already worked hard to build a brand that’s trusted, it’s important to ensure your rebrand is controlled, well planned and thought out. For it to prove successful you’ll need to simplify and define your business goals.

Here’s what you need to consider when rebranding…

Getting the name right.
If you’re changing your business name you’ll need to change your website too, along with social media profiles. Firstly your new name will need to reflect the products and services you provide, along with core business values. For example, I recently helped FruiteCigs.co.uk rebrand their business to LiquideCigUK.co.uk. They wanted to change their website and product offering to be in-line with changing customer demands, while addressing the evolving industry.

When rebranding you need to check the availability of the company name you choose. A quick search on Google can confirm whether your chosen name is available. You’ll then need to see whether there’s a relevant domain name available. A quick look on 123 Reg can provide you with the available options. You may also want to purchase variants, including .co.uk, .com, .company etc.

Once you’ve chosen a business name and have a relevant domain name, the next step is to contact social media sites to notify them of the changes. Provide them with the up to date details of your company and request for your social media profile names to be changed to reflect your new business. Once they’ve been changed you can update the logo and contact details. This will ensure any customers who interact with you via social will be updated and aware of the changes you’re making. You can find more help on how to rebrand your social media profiles on the Moz website here.

Updating your on-page content.
To minimise the amount of work required to rebrand, simply update rather than completely re-write the content on your website. Rebranding gives you the ideal opportunity to improve the content on your site to improve rankings and encourage audiences to engage with your site and business. Transfer across any existing content you want to keep, but ensure your business’ new name is reflected in the content. This will also help Google to index and rank your website much quicker.

When you’re building a new website, you’ll also need to add meta titles and meta descriptions to each page. Ensure they reflect the products and services on that page, as this will help Google understand it when crawling and positioning the site in its search rankings. All the content on your new site should be natural. Don’t keyword stuff! If you’re unsure what to write, have a quick look at what you’re competitors have written. Do not copy it as duplicate content can lead to penalties, simply use it as a guide.

Before publishing anything, check for spelling errors, punctuation mistakes and that it’s written in the right language. There’s nothing worse than an English website writing in American English, and vice versa.

Let Google know you’ve made some changes.
There’s no need to lose business when rebranding. Redirect your old site to your new one. Create a spreadsheet of all web pages from your old site and where you’d like to point them on the new site. Use a tool such as ScreamingFrog to help pull off a list of your website’s URLs. Once you have this, send it across to your web developers to implement the redirects.

To help Google find your website, index it and rank it quicker, you can submit your site map via webmaster tools. There’s information on how to do this here.

Provide business continuity.
When rebranding your business, you need to ensure your customers are aware of the upcoming and ongoing changes, otherwise it can alienate them, and you’ll lose business as a result. You’ve worked hard to build your brand and the trust that comes with it. To maintain this, email customers, mention the changes on social media and highlight it on your old and new website. Talk your customers through the process. Providing continuity will minimise disruption.

This article was written by Anna Morrish, freelance writer, marketing consultant and owner of Quibble Content.