Rebranding for Local SEO

[BT211]

I'm preparing to begin a rebranding project for a client who is changing their brand name, logo and primary domain name. They have dozens of locations (some that accept walk-in customers, and some that don't).

What's the best place to get started? Once their rebranded website is published, should third-party sources like Acxiom & Localeze be addressed first, then move to Google+ Local, Bing Places, Yahoo Local, etc.? Is using schema for local business and the new company logo on their website a must-do action item?

Just trying to be proactive & figure out the best process in order to maximize cost and time efficiency.

Thank you.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bob,

Yes, I think your suggested order of operations would be fine. You'll have to keep double-checking the Google listing to be sure it isn't reverting to old data or getting duplicated while you work on cleaning up the other citations. Good that you are setting the client's expectations correctly from the get-go. So important. Good luck!

[BT211]

Hi Miriam,

The articles you shared are very helpful. Do you think it's best to start with Google & Bing Places first, then move on to the big 4 data aggregators from David Mihm's post?

There's no doubt that this rebranding project will be a big production requiring a lot of time & effort. We have already begun managing the client's expectations on what it will take to make the switch.

Thank you,

Bob

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Bob,

Andrew Shotland wrote a good piece on this topic a couple of years ago:

http://searchengineland.com/the-smb-guide-to-changing-business-names-seo-128939

Basically, any local business that rebrands itself is in for a mountain of work (hence, Andrew's warning to just not do it!) and as your client has dozens of locations, the amount of work involved is going to be enormous. You are going to need to perform citation cleanup for each of the locations. I would start with the biggies in the local search ecosystem:

http://moz.com/blog/2013-local-search-ecosystems

Once you've tackled the big 4 outlined there, move on to cleanup all other citations. At the very least, you have some months of work ahead of you, and hopefully your client understands this. Rebranding is definitely a huge task, and it will only be when you've corrected every single listing for all of the dozens of locations that you can begin to feel like you're back on the safe side - letting the new data pulse through the ecosystem rather than being hampered by the bad data that will necessarily be everywhere the moment the business rebrands. Good luck!

[BT211]

Thank you for the feedback, SoleGraphics.

My concern with updating their Google Places listings first is that Google often changes company names after verification, when they see other data sources using their other names. Since this is a new brand name being adopted, and with it taking several months for the data to propagate out, do you still believe Google Places is the best place to start?

[SoleGraphics]

Moz has tons of info on local SEO, https://getlisted.org/ is a good place to start. Also this whole rebrand may take 6 months before all the listings are up to date and all the data with the aggregators is cleaned up.

I'd say Google Places would be your best bet to start with, because of the immediate results and then start cleaning up everything else.

As for schema we use it in or website and it hasn't correlated closely to rankings. Google webmaster tools shows the schema snippets but doesn't say that they use it.

Domain name changes will rock your clients results like crazy, make sure to read up what the best way to handle a new domain as to avoid losing any juice.