Understanding the Turbulence of Rebranding
It’s an undeniable fact: companies evolve. In the world of marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), you will likely encounter rebranding in response to growth, unresolved public relations issues, acquisitions, executive-led decisions, or investor demands. As is often the case, you might observe a slump in website traffic, creating havoc across your marketing metrics.
But hold on – don’t let the panic set in!
The good news is that whether the traffic is branded or non-branded, you can recover it. The recovery depends on the root cause of the plummet and your subsequent actions. Let’s navigate this landscape together, uncovering common situations in which we have assisted clients in reclaiming their traffic after rebranding. We will explore each scenario and the types of traffic losses they incur.
In addition, we will delve into non-SEO strategies that can help cushion financial impacts, as revenue can become prohibitive during these transitions.
Treading Carefully: The New Site Design Trap
If your rebranding venture includes launching an entirely new website design, brace yourself for a potentially longer recovery period. The shift to a new brand name is more manageable as you can utilize press releases, engage influencers, and employ email or SMS marketing to acquaint customers with your new identity.
Whenever customers engage with your new domain, provided URL migration has been efficiently carried out, you can expect to witness the shift in about two days to two weeks, contingent on your website’s size and your external brand strength.
If your rebranding involves not only a new name but also a new URL and code base, search engines must evaluate your new brand, determining its user experience in relation to other pages indexed. Understandably, this incurs some loss, chiefly due to overhauling too many elements at once.
The critical point to note here is that launching a new website design and rebranding should not be simultaneous processes. Allow a few months to pass between the two steps.
Diagnosing a Traffic Drop: Where is It Stemming from?
A crucial aspect of addressing a traffic decrease is recognizing its source. The key here is to utilize analytics effectively.
Check the following parameters to understand the actual traffic drops, by comparing the data from when the drop occurred to the same period prior to it:
- Dig deeper into social media traffic. If the dip is significant in this channel, investigate if platforms like Meta, Pinterest, and TikTok are affected.
- If the decline spanned both affiliates and SEO, it’s probable that your affiliates have been impinging on your own traffic. This might be irretrievable because your website needs customer traffic for it to potentially be intercepted.
- Examine the situation by category. Is there a particular category that has been penalized or not fully established under the new brand, while the rest have held strong?
- Analyze the performance of branded versus non-branded campaigns in PPC. Are customers using the new branding or does the branding team need to ramp up its announcement strategy and adoption efforts?
Keeping track of these metrics will help your team strategically prepare for building the new brand while also providing quick wins to aid the recovery process.
URL Migrations and Domain Changes
Migrating a URL can be tricky. And even when done correctly, there can still be a drop in traffic until Google properly indexes the new pages.
It’s important to remember that the timeline of Google crawling, indexing, and displaying your new URLs is beyond your control, but you can definitely be proactive in ensuring the process happens as smoothly as possible.
- Ensure that Search Console is updated with the new URL and sitemap.
- Request crawls on particular pages that are most important.
- Share new content and important pages on platforms that Google frequently crawls.
- Ensure a smooth crawl path.
- Check if the previous site is still redirecting to the new pages.
If you take these steps, there’s no doubt you’ll be able to bounce back from any traffic drop due to a rebrand. Remember, websites are a mere compilation of codes; they can always be adjusted, updated, or repaired – and your lost traffic can always be regained.
