Be careful! Rebranding can have a negative effect on SEO.
Logojoy was forced to lay off 80% of their staff as a result of a failed rebranding.
Following is a story of how rebranding can impact SEO and revenue with negative consequences.
Logojoy, a leading logo design site with over 5 million customers and $7 million in funding, rebranded to Looka in May of 2019. At the same time, it expanded by adding new services including business cards and websites. As reported by Betakit, the rebranding was disastrous, with significant impact to SEO and revenue. In 5 months, organic SEO lead traffic fell by 80%, and the resulting reduction in revenue forced the company to reduce its staff from 40 to just 8 people. The company has also pulled back from its new products strategy, and is now retrenching and focusing only on the original logo business.It looks like this brand transition was done too quickly, amidst pressure to build new revenue streams.
What should this team have done?
The go-to-market plan should have included technical requirements and a PR campaign to drive new links to the site. There should have been a plan to manage original backlinks, including outreach to the review sites that were acting as referrals.
The marketing team could have asked everyone to slow down, and consider how rebranding might impact SEO before moving forward. One critical strategy could have been to keep in place the language, keywords, and pages that were a huge source of the original organic (Logojoy) traffic, while simultaneously adding pages and building SEO authority for the new Looka services.
How can you prevent this from happening at your company?
Before making changes to the website or web channels, it is important to know the contribution of each channel, and its direct impact on sales. Develop measurement strategy and a go-to-market (GTM) plan. Clearly flag the risks in this plan, and come up with ideas to mitigate those risks. Don’t be afraid to ask agencies to bring in new expertise, or to run a plan by colleagues who are involved in other areas of sales or operations.
What’s next for Looka?
This is now a relaunch, and will require relaunch investment — not a rebranding. One thing they can take advantage of is that major publisher pages with high SEO authority might be interested in this story. Links to and from these publishers can help rebuild the SEO ranking.
I hope that Looka (formerly Logojoy) is successful at rebuilding their business. Their site is intuitive and easy to use (no technical or art skills required!), and is an incredibly efficient solution to generating a professional logo. In just a few clicks, Looka creates a variety of free, professional-looking logos customized to your taste. Looka also allows the option to make custom adjustments of images, color, text, and font-size. I don’t work for the company, but I do think it’s a great resource for entrepreneurs and SMBs.
When I am not blogging, I am a consultant providing services in Marketing, Corporate Growth Strategy, and New Products. We work with you to provide the right services and value for your budget. Learn more about our services.