The SMB Guide To Changing Business Names & SEO

Dr. Geoff Bell*, a dentist in Carlsbad, CA (you’re welcome Doc), has a problem child – his son. Things had been going well. People hadn’t been flossing (I’m looking at you, dear reader), he was ranking #1 for “Carlsbad root planing” and business was booming. Then Junior had to go get a dentistry degree and decide […]

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Dr. Geoff Bell*, a dentist in Carlsbad, CA (you’re welcome Doc), has a problem child – his son. Things had been going well.

People hadn’t been flossing (I’m looking at you, dear reader), he was ranking #1 for “Carlsbad root planing” and business was booming.

Then Junior had to go get a dentistry degree and decide to join the family business. And because Junior has a bit of an ego, the decision was made to change the name from “Geoff Bell, DDS” to “Bell Family Dental”. No big deal right? Wrong.

There are plenty of complications in changing a business’ name. Many involve filling out a lot of forms to tell the government what’s going on.

Unfortunately, the United SERPs of Google does not provide much in the way of forms. And rebranding (as we call it in the biz) can be the quickest way to destroy your search engine rankings.

Perhaps a few tips in a handy list from myself and some other notable local SEO geeks are in order to avoid the SEO equivalent of root canal:

1.  Don’t Do It!

As you’ll see below, there are a lot of potential SEO pitfalls to changing your name. If you can avoid doing it, you’ll sleep a lot better. But if it has to be done, keep reading.

2.  Seriously. Don’t Do It!

What he said.

3.  Avoid Changing Your Domain Name

Switching domains is a great way to lose a lot of search engine traffic. If you can avoid changing domains, you’ll sleep a lot better. If it has to be done, make sure you have a good URL redirection plan in place.

Do make sure you have a PR plan in place to help you get new links and social sharing signals. These can help support your search engine rankings if there is a dip after you make the switch.

Also,  have a paid search or other marketing campaign in place to help make up for any lost traffic while you are working on improving the new domain’s SEO.

4.  Update Your Business Contact Data – Everywhere

Google uses your business name, address and phone number (aka your “NAP”) as a key signal in its local rankings. It looks at various relevant “citation” sources of local business NAP data (e.g. yellow pages sites, local chamber of commerce sites, etc.) to algorithmically determine where a business is located, what the business does and how it should rank for various local queries.

If your NAP data is inconsistent across these different citation sources, it can cause your local rankings to drop. And don’t forget about updating your NAP data on your Google+ Local page, Bing Local and Yahoo Local profiles.

A good way to find relevant citations for your business is to do a “business name” + “phone number” and a “business name” + “address” search in Google to get an idea of the citations that Google has indexed. Checking for pre-existing listings before adding a listing with your new business name is an absolute must to prevent duplication and NAP data corruption.

When it comes to citations, it’s just as important to get rid of the old information as it is to push out the new stuff. There are some non-traditional citation sources and lower level directories that are quite difficult to get your business information changed on (i.e. brownbook and city-data won’t let you change your business name once you have listed them). These can cause duplication issues down the line.

While many SEOs recommend that you do not change your phone number, no matter what, Will Scott, CEO of SearchInfluence, recommends in cases where you can’t get a lot of citation sources changed, you may want to consider changing your phone number to better differentiate your new NAP information from the old.

5.  Update Your Business Name On Your Website

Would you be surprised to hear that it’s not uncommon for a business to change its name but forget to change it on its website? Get this one at the top of your checklist.

Mary Bowling recommends that you do this before you update it on Bing Local and Yahoo Local to avoid any issues with those services.

6.  Add A Keyword and/or Location Term To Your New Business Name

If you are going to go through the trouble of changing your name, you might as well change it so something that has more value for SEO. In the case of our dentist, while changing to “Bell Family Dental” solves the’ whose business is it’ problem, it doesn’t do much for SEO, except perhaps in the case of those looking for “family dentists”.

A name like “Carlsbad Family Dentists” or even “Bell Family Dental of Carlsbad” might perform better. Of course, you’ll also need to take non-SEO factors into account when choosing a name, such as social media benefits, will it fit on a business card, family member egos, etc.

7.  Make Sure You Can Own Your New Brand Online

According to David Mihm, many SMBs neglect to secure important user names and domains when they rebrand.

Make sure you can get the .com, .org, .net and your relevant country TLD before you make the switch. And make sure the Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus user names are available. Knowem is a helpful tool for this.

8.  Don’t Forget About Your Customers!

A lot of SMBs neglect to include their customers in the rebranding process. When you change your name, it might put off customers who weren’t in the loop and don’t understand what’s going on.

Dev Basu, CEO of Powered by Search, recommends that you give your customers a heads up that you are rebranding soon and show ‘sneak peak’ elements via a Facebook Fanpage or Google+. Then you can gauge customer feedback from these posts.

If all of this sounds complicated and intimidating. Good. SEO for rebranding is not for the faint of heart.

My recommendation for Dr. Bell – Make sure you have plenty of laughing gas on hand before you rebrand. You’ll need it.

*The author has no professional affiliation with Dr. Bell or his business. That said, the author does have teeth.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Andrew Shotland
Contributor
Andrew Shotland is the proprietor of Local SEO Guide, a leading local search engine optimization blog and consultancy.

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