Last week we had Jodi from Practising Simplicity talk us through the decision behind rebranding her six-year-old established blog.
Many of you had questions about the technical details of moving a blog, so I’ve rounded up some resources to help. You will find everything from changing social media handles to 301 redirects. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments and we will try to assist!
Before you even start, get clear on WHY you want to rebrand: Nuts and Bolts Media // Things to Consider Before Rebranding Your Blog.
The Lotus Creative // How to Rebrand Your Blog Has a step-by-step guide right from the very beginning – choosing a name and getting a .com. Kate also discusses traffic loss due to the switch, and what you can do about it.
This post also goes into moving a blog from an SEO perspective to keep your traffic high : Search Engine Land // How to Rebrand Without Losing Your Hard-Earned Rankings.
Freeing Imperfections // How I Rebranded My Blog goes into more design issues – how to find a customisable theme and how to make your blog visually reflect you the blogger.
Tico and Tina has an entire series on Rebranding Your Blog which should have you brainstorming taglines and making decisions about navigation in no time.
There are step-by-step images and screenshots on exactly how to switch to a new domain here at Elizabeth Loves // Rebranding Your Blog 101: The Technical Stuff.
And for seriously in-depth discussion (with a little bit of humour!) about the nitty-gritty of seamlessly rebranding your social media accounts, Moz has got you covered with How to Rebrand Your Social Media Accounts. They include just about every social account you can think of. More than I could think of, actually!
What kind of hiccups have you encountered when rebranding your blog? Is it even making the decision to do it?
Stacey Roberts is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net, and the gal behind Veggie Mama. A writer, blogger, and full-time word nerd, she can be found making play-dough, reading The Cat in the Hat for the eleventh time, and avoiding the laundry. See evidence on Instagram here, on Facebook here, and twitter @veggie_mama.
Hi Stacey,
I totally trashed my old blog to start Blogging from Paradise, so I know really well about rebranding. Yep, the decision was the toughest part. I was scared to let go the old, to make room for the new and exciting. I’d be moving in an entirely new direction. The design is the same, pretty much, but the topic I cover and my target audience is completely different. It took an act of faith to let go 3400 blog posts to start my new blog but deep down, I knew it was the right decision for me.
Scary? Hell yeah. I was terrified at the thought of flushing 4 year’s worth of work down the toilet but then I thought: I’m starting intelligently this time. My learning curve will be much shorter. Understatement time. As when I started Blogging from Paradise, I was featured on over 40 plus blogs in 14 weeks, I was asked to speak at NYU and I was twice endorsed by a New York Times best selling author. This, from barely being on the radar. What a cosmic shift, but really, I had to rebrand to make this thing work. You can’t hold on to old and worn out, and expect to succeed online.
I chose to share my life story. I’ve retired to a life of island hopping through smart blogging, so naturally, I’ll be best off sharing tips about how to retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging. Just be authentic, and build your brand around your story, if it really sings with you, and you’ll have few problems rebranding. Know why you want to rebrand and you’ll take the necessary, freeing and sometimes highly uncomfortable steps to build a new brand around your blog.
Thanks Stacey, wonderful resources. Tweeting soon, and signing off from Fiji.
Ryan
Personally, I think this post is a gem as well: http://www.middleagedmama.com.au/changing-your-blog-name/ – not that I’m biased or anything!
Im thinking about Rebranding myself. As a designer and developer I am never satisfyed and continually wanting to chage! Actually I want to create a bespoke theme fro Ryan’s blog and been trying to convince him to let me, he-ho!
Actually Stacey, there is no link for SSL and how to set up the .htaccess file for it in your resources. That would be good, especially that it’s now a Google ranking algorithm. I will soon be adding it to my blog!
Some great links anyway so thanks for sharing with us!
– PD
I love all these sources and suddenly wish I’d read up a bit before rebranding my own blog. However, subconsciously I actually thought of most stuff. The tricky part for me was broken links due to changed domain name and moving some pages around, plus the fact that featured images were the wrong sizes with a new blog layout.
I’m very pleased with the result though :D As any proud blogger I’d love it if you check it out
I have helped a few customers over the year rebrand a website, and it can be one of the hardest things to do online. People are always thinking about content, colors, fonts and maybe even social media. But rarely about a brand. Especially smaller companies or individuals, and it is a big mistake. Branding is the key to your identity online and that is what I teach my customers from day one.
Thanks for the great posts
Martin
Thanks for mentioning my post on this! :) You’ve pulled together some fantastic resources!
I have been on the curve of rebuilding/rebranding my blog for last two weeks and was really struggling to get back my traffic. I hope I can use these resources to get things working better for me. Thanks a lot.
Thanks for the mention! Great list of resources for rebranding on many different levels.
You have collated some of the best resources here and whenever I rebrand my blog, I would refer to these resources for sure. Thanks again for this :)
Like Ryan from BloggingfromParadise said, rebranding is good for your blog. KR blog apart that had over 3000 posts and start again from scratch with a different blogging strategy with the intention to build a deeper relationship with readers says a lot about the blogger. It means there dedicated to serving “lots and lots of quality content” to their readers and values their time reading blog posts. Rebranding is also good because it helps the blogging mindset to stay creative and innovative with the changing times.
Rebranding also helps you to increase affiliate commissions from affiliate advertisements on your blog or website. It shows people your style is not stale. Rebranding helps the blogger or website owners in too many ways to mention.
It was really challenging for me to decide to rebrand my site earlier this year. It was also a time consuming process to change all of my various user names and photos on different places. I’m glad I decided to do it sooner rather than later and I am glad I did it. However, I hope to not have to go through that process again!
I spoke a bit about why I rebranded here: http://www.meredithj.com/why-i-decided-to-rebrand-my-business/
This came just in time for my rebrand of WebDesignBlog! I am so glad you posted these useful resources. Thank you, as always!
I am changing just the name of my blog, everything else will stay the same because the new name will fit what I blog about so much better. I know I need to point my new domain to my hosting, update social networks but what about the companies I am affiliates for? Changing internal links? Also, I wanting to have this done by the first of December, should I go ahead and announce it to my readers via newsletter, social networks and such?
This is the very first time I have done this and want to make sure I do it right :)