Yes, we are doing that dreaded thing that all established companies hate the most – rebranding. It’s a scary thing to do, but for us – it is a necessary step for our long-term goals. Our company (Likeable Company Media, Inc) was established in 2015 as a small scale boutique service that promotes YouTube videos and channels. The company was located in PA and had a similar named agency located in New York City. This never really bothered us as we tried our best to differentiate ourselves. There was no confusion whatsoever between the two different companies. With time, our clientele became more diverse which now included not just YouTubers, but local businesses and various independent and major music artists. Expansion is necessary, and the concerns from partners and investors now included the similarly named company. Thus, a decision is made to rebrand from scratch. This means that we needed a brand new website, a brand new logo, and a brand new strategy to make a swift transition. This blog post will discuss and go over the step we take to successfully rebrand our company. You can follow our journey here as we continually post updates below.
Aesthetics
Before attempting to rebrand, we had to visualize the end result. We wanted to keep our new website’s design aesthetically similar – clean, magazine styled, hand-drawn art, and of minimalist nature. The design request comes from the company founder who has a distaste of typical corporate-type websites. We’re a creative agency, let’s be creative. There are no rights and wrongs in how you want to design your own website, but we must stress that which ever path you choose, you need to license your images to avoid any costly legal issues. You can either go to https://istockphoto.com, Fiverr, or hire your own digital photographer or artist.
Plan ahead
Make a rough plan plotting your main pages’ content and images. Draw out all of the little details such as the site structure, menu items, footers, plugins, and social media profiles. Are we staying with WordPress, or should we try a new CMS? Maybe Python? Now is probably not a good time to experiment that, especially if the rebrand is urgent. For us, our website is hosted on our server utilizing the latest WordPress. Python would be an overkill for our needs and probably is for all small businesses. Unless your old website was in an antiquated CMS such as SharePoint, stick with a robust one – WordPress.
Once your new website is live and fully functional. Congratulations, the easy part is over with. There are a ton of things that need to be done now:Â
Yoast SEO
If you’re using WordPress, this is one of the most important plugins you must install. The setup is easy and straight forward. There are plenty of articles online on how to set it up.
UPDATE: As of October 2021, we are utilizing Rank Math SEO for all of our projects.
Google Webmasters (Search Console)
The set up is not easy, as you must edit the DNS settings of your website in order to prove to Google that you own it. This can be done in CPANEL in “Advanced DNS Zone Editor.” Select your domain and in “Add record” enter:
- Name: Yourwebsite.com
- TTL: 14400
- Type: TXT
- TXT Data: The code that Google Search Console provided you.
301 Redirects
Let’s forward our traffic from the old website to the new one. You can set up the redirects on individual pages or 301 redirect the whole domain through CPANEL. We decided to leave the root domain (https://likeable.company/) alone, but individual pages now redirect to the new site (example: https://likeable.company/youtube-channel-promotion/). Make sure you notify Google Search Console of the 301 redirection.
Google Business
Create your business profile in Google Business. Enter as much information as possible. You will receive a physical postcard from Google with a verification code in a couple of days. Use the code to and complete the profile. It will take a couple of more days for Google to verify everything.
Yelp
Create your business listing in Yelp. You should also add as much information as possible here.Â
Social Media Profiles
Now let’s create some social media profiles. In a general sense the more the better! Fill out every detail possible describing the business. Create the first post in each one linking to the new site.
- Facebook Business
- Tumblr
Additional Listings
We have to get the business listed in as many directories as possible. It helps search engines understand the nature of your business. Depending on the services you provide, consider to list in the following:
- BBB – Better Business Bureau
- Angie’s List
- Merchant Circle
- YP (Yellow Pages)
- SiteJabber
Analytics
Let’s start collecting the data. Set up a tracker with Google Analytics – copy paste the tracking code right after tag. We also use Matomo (previously “Piwik”) which a simpler version of Analytics.Â
THIS ARTICLE WILL BE UPDATED AS WE CONTINUE TO REBRAND
