Online Rebrand StrategyPresented by Greg Favell

Agenda What Do We Want to Achieve? Assumptions Online & Social Media Audit Social Network Limitations Social Media Campaigns Content Strategy Communication Plan SEO Ranking Maintenance

301 Redirect Strategy Google Authorship

Launch Day & Post Rebrand Launch Step 1 & Step 2

What Do We Want to Achieve? Smooth and seamless transition Customers informed, engaged and happy No loss of customer Keep / Improve Google page rank/authority Clear, consistent message and TOV Get across change of ownership Get across the brand/company positioning

Where does the company want to be in the future? What does the company want to represent?

Effective internal collaboration and teamwork Working harmoniously with digital and branding agencies and partners.

Assumptions Project Management & Map

Project Team in place

Agency pitch Customer research

Categorise customer type; behaviours Likes and dislikes of current brand Expectations

Website redesign Wireframes

Domains secured for .com and .co.uk versions of the new brand name’s URL Social media page names/URLs secured Don’t forget mobile!

Analyse customer behaviour on Google Analytics; pages, drop-off points, devices, location etc. If majority of traffic is on mobile, prioritise mobile into rebrand plans

Backup the site Double up or even triple up

Online and Social Media Audit List all social media account and online profiles

Number of active fans and their preferred content Company and employee profiles 3rd Party accounts

List all Backlinks, referrals and old URLs Use Google Webmaster Tools to identify most linked pages on the current site Identify most important, high authority and highest traffic referring backlinks

Create a full site-map with domain authority for each page Found using Google Webmaster Tools Identify top content on the site

Create a base line for all social media and keyword data Followers / Fans / Likes / Shares / Subscriptions etc. Keyword Page Rank, search & traffic volume, competition data. List al online ads in use.

List all agencies or software tools used to track, monitor online data

Social Network Limitations Twitter

Easy and instant if name is available. When a rebrand is on the horizon, simply register a new account under the new brand name. Then when it’s time to switch,

change the new account to different, and change the original account to the desired username that was previously held. LinkedIn

Group identities changed max. 5 times: applies to both group name and group logo. Company pages can only be changed by contacting LinkedIn Help Center: reason for change

Google+ A Google+ page name can be changed at anytime without losing the following of those who have circled the page.

If you haven't yet been invited to set a vanity URL, your page URL will remain unchanged. If you do have a vanity URL set, it will revert back to the default-style URL (lots of nondescript numbers). If you have verified page status, you will lose it upon renaming the page. Luckily, you can simply re-apply right away.

YouTube YouTube doesn’t allow users to change their registered usernames, it is possible to create vanity URLs that effectively “mask”

an old channel’s content to display at a rebranded URL. Start a new Channel from scratch. Though your videos can be archived and re-uploaded, you will lose view count,

likes/dislikes, playlists, comments, friends and Channel subscribers. Facebook

Difficult to change name once over 200 Likes. Facebook’s customer support required. Pinterest

Quick and easy to change although there is a15 character limit on username

Content Strategy Capture all content

Content is King Digital Asset Management System Spot gaps in content; quantity / quality Repurpose old content and create fresh

Provide Unique Content on Each Channel; Website and Social Media Give people a reason to follow you on all platforms. Identical updates on all platforms at exactly the same time, gives no reason for customers to follow all platforms.

Check for unofficial pages, claim them and brand them. e.g. Yelp review site. Add administrators or report the unauthorised use.

Social Media campaigns Create a buzz of excitement around the new brand

Social Media Campaigns Pre-launch buzz

Send out teasers Provide useful information Engage customers Post a video/s Blog about other businesses Provide unique content on each channel Reach out to educate followers/fans on why these changes have occurred and what the new brand represents Sneak peak at new elements of brand/website, then monitor social conversations for natural feedback. Do they love it? Hate it?

Launch day & Post launch Weekly competitions Encourage customers to Like, Comment and Share promotional content. Q&A sessions on Twitter Discussion topic on LinkedIn Connect all social media pages to one another and/or to the new brand website Listen, monitor and respond.

Communication Plan External

Customer communication is top priority throughout the branding process Create a video explaining the reasoning behind the rebranding Make it clear what is, and what isn’t changing, how it benefits them and why it’s a positive change Use as many formats as possible

Blog / Social media profiles / Email newsletter / Others Reach out to the press to update their links and write a new blog

Internal Make sure every employee is on board and understands the new brand message so they too can support the change. Be ready for negative feedback

The change lifecycle Educate influencers and seek ambassadors of the new brand. Update regularly; broadcasts / meetings / calls / intranet updates / email etc. Communicate the new brand guidelines; colour scheme, brand rules, TOV etc.

SEO Ranking Maintenance Keep old site on old IP addresses

This catches all of the potential server delays.

Build new links to the new domain name Create a coming soon page with information about the company and the site. Search engines will start crawling the new site earlier, allowing any indexing errors to be tracked.

Monitor daily for changes in page rank and traffic volume. Compare to stats obtained in the Audit phase. If rankings drop, it may mean a 301 redirect were missed, Respond by taking appropriate action to fix the problem.

Add new website address to digital directories Well in advance of the launch (6-8 weeks). Allowing for new info to show in the larger directories and be funnelled down into the small niche ones.

Check and update title tags and meta data Update contact information throughout the site Revisit links from any inbound link; ask site owners to update their links

Other sites / Bloggers / News sites / Directories

Send out press releases announcing change, and blog about the new site

301 Redirect Strategy List all old URLs and map them to the same or similar content on the new site.

Column A: old URLs Column B: new URLs

Create a set of 301 redirects before moving to new domain Set up 301s from http:// and http://www versions since they’re technically 2 different sites. Add the redirects to /htaccess file. Test 301s after launch to ensure they are working properly

Contact 3rd party sites that link to the company and ask them to update their links. Preventing reliance on 301s

Have a menu of popular items from old site, and their locations on the new. Also have this on the ‘Page Not Found’ page. Over time this menu can be removed.

Use the correct types of redirects. Other types of redirects , like 302s, shouldn’t be used in most relaunch situations. Only use 301 redirects.

Create a great 404 Page Create an interactive menu to direct users to hot topic areas

Google Authorship A common source of trust and credibility for sites. Ensure authorship continues to show for the site. If author does not also update the ‘contributor to’ link on their G+ profile, the authorship will break.

Reach out to each author to encourage them to update the links on their G+ profiles.

Obtain higher rankings With authoritative authors, articles can always get higher rankings. Have authors with a rich professional knowledge, instead of fancy advertising copywriters. Google is also expected to optimize the algorithm to take authors’ authority into account, and give higher rankings to the

content written by a more respected and authoritative author.

Add details for the authors to help Google remember the site and the connection. Allow authoritative bloggers or writers to write articles on the new site

They may bring more traffic to the site. With their personal authority, more readers will link to the site too.

Launch Day & Post Rebrand Launch: Step 1 Make the switch

Social media pages updated Website live

Algorithm Update Check multiple search engines to see if an algorithm update caused organic traffic loss after relaunching.

Monitor 301 Redirects Most SEO rank loss comes from here. Look at the organic traffic of individual pages, before and after the rebrand. For pages with major drops, enter the URL itself. If a 404 error shows, then there’s a problem.

The Robot.txt A set of instructions for search engines that tells them which pages to index and which to avoid. Set up robot.txt file could be wrong, where some pages should have been indexed, but actually not. Open a browser and enter the domain followed by /robots.txt to find out whether it is set up wrongly. Look for “disallow” ,and

you will know which is forbidden on your website.

Noindex Signals Noindex in the robots meta tag. Similar to robot.txt but here, other pages could be blocked as a result of a wrong operation.

Monitor, monitor, monitor Track metrics and KPI’s; traffic and rankings closely to spot any irregularities quickly. Monitor daily for about 2 weeks: respond quickly

Clean-up exercise Employee profiles and 3rd Party representation

Sustain the new brand by measuring employees’ consistent and complete use of it. Reach out to each author / website

Encourage update of ‘contributor to ‘ links on their G+ profile pages. Ask for backlinks to be updated from other site managers

Keep old site/s up for a short time Use Google Webmaster Tools

Indicate to Google that site address has permanently changed, to help mitigate any risk with Google. Feedback

People ask a lot of questions when a company rebrands. Potential backlash; lack of content / broken links / confusing layout / slow upload/download speeds Answer patiently and consistently.

Celebrate Share positive feedback. Reinforces the story and encourages others to do the share. Consider investing in promoted posts and advertising; greater targeted audience Promote as often as possible; organic content and paid ads

Launch Day & Post Rebrand Launch: Step 2