Reasons and methods to rebrand your blog

leggi in italiano 

Dear friends, let’s get back to blogging and, in particular, to the topic that had me tied up over the entire summer and that therefore I talk about (once again) with some pathos: rebranding a blog. 

Let me explain what it means and why it is useful, along with why it is different than rebranding any other product. I will give you some hints about when it is useful to do it starting from the reasons that underlie this complex process…almost like deciding what haircut to wear or the hair color that suits you best. ;-P

But first things first, to have everything clear and be on the same wavelength.




What does rebranding your blog mean?

bilancio travel blogger

kelia hotzel – unsplash

Whereas the rebranding process (or brand revitalization) of a common product is a path that leads that product back into the market as completely renewed and, often, with a new name, it doesn’t exactly work the same way when it comes to a blog.

Rebranding a blog is a process that a blogger, more or less aware (though most of the times totally unaware) does more than once. The longer the blog history, the more often rebranding occurs.

It’s about the transformation processes that a blog is periodically subject to:

From changing/increasing one’s themes to modifying one’s niche, from changing our storytelling to the “simple” (so to speak) graphic rearrangement or new logo creation, rebranding a blog is not that simple especially because the majority of bloggers start without a knowledge base about marketing and hence rebranding.

As I said, it’s a process that inevitably takes place more than once in the life of a blog due to reasons that we’re going to examine together. Yet, the more you are aware of the rebranding that’s underway, the better it is for your blogging strategy and success.
#AwarenessIsPower

(if you’d like to expand on some notions of
Personal Branding, read this post)

Why rebranding a blog?

blog di una travel blogger - bilancio sabrina barbante

The reasons why a blogger decides to start the long rebranding process, that I will shortly illustrate the different phases of, are several, but I will list the three more common and important ones, because they are related to motivation (and we all know how important motivation is to manage one’s blog!).

  1. personal and emotional reasons

Our blog is often our business card, our home, our “Room of One’s Own”.
During our intense lives, we gain new interests and motivations, we let ourselves be attracted to new directions and, if writing is what we love, it will be hard to resist the temptation to write all about it on our blogs.

I did it for the first time when I gradually moved from solo-lady-travelling to just travelling. As a matter of fact, after travelling mainly by myself since the age of 18 until I turned 25, I started travelling alone less often as I felt that narrow niche was too restrictive for me.

Then, I started gaining so much experience and awareness in terms of blogging, personal branding and storytelling that I decided to create a specific section about this macro-area and worked a lot to first fight the worst enemy a blogger can have: self-censorship.

I’m now open to design as well, because after years of collaborations with industry magazines and blogs as well as writing a lot about it, I developed a real passion for interior design that goes hand in hand with the skills I have acquired.
Yet…how to match my passion for interior design with the nomadism that my storytelling has been based on for almost 10 years now?

The brand new “design”categoryhasuseful suggestions for the constantly evolving houses of freelance workers and travelers.




  1. for practical reasons

However, frankly speaking, if I hadn’t realized that every time I post a story on Instagram about my interior design experiments, my views and followers increase dramatically, I would have probably saved myself the trouble of rebranding, that basically saw me working also in August.

Many people decide to rebrand their blogs also because they realize the niche that they more or less accidentally cover provides many benefits; moreover, if we consider our blogs as our small companies, it is worth struggling a lit bit more to help our online authority.

  1. to keep pace with one’s biographical journeys. 

If you’ve been writing about solo travelling for 10 years, you might want to start writing about family travels after having your second child, don’t you think?
If you’ve become a vegan, it is probable that your cooking blog will follow you and so on.

Let’s get practical now:

How to rebrand a blog? 

If, from the outside, it looks like you just add a category to your blog or slightly change the graphical interface, there’s a much more complex work to do behind it.

It is necessary to create a new editorial projectin which the old and new themes take turns and seamlessly complement each other.

We need to exchange ideas with our friends and readers(in the flesh), who can sum up for us what are the strong and weak points of the blog, as seen from the outside.

Psychotherapy sessions are required or, at least, long moments of reflection by ourselvesabout the image we intend to go on providing about us. 




Here are then, briefly, 5 things to do for your blog rebranding:

  • write down the macro-areas your blog is going to be focused on (the old and the new ones)
  • create an editorial project able to alternate them and make them seamless
    (editorial project = list of titles to write about and publish in the subsequent months)
  • Look for a group of keywords that encompass YOU and your blog
    (my personal cabala is focused on number 8, so the keywords for me were travels, design, feminist, vegetarian, wine, beer, curls, blogging: here’s me and my job in 8 words)
  • Write again your (VERY SHORT) self-introduction based on the keywords you’ve used (have a look at mine)
  • Suggestions for the PRO users: Based on the keywords, create a new logo
    (we can’t do everything alone, so turn to an expert graphics designer).

Rebranding a blog is complicated because it mainly means squeezing and summing up  as much as possible what you are, do and know (or what you feel like telling) in very few words and ideas and then, starting from this reduction, lighting the fuse to trigger an explosion.

If you have further questions, please write in comments

20 Comments

  • Katrina Ellen

    Rebranding the blog for personal reasons can be such an emotional process. This is some really great advice on how to do that.

  • Puneet Kaur

    Even I am planning to rebrand my website. Yup, because I am now alluring to new directions!

  • Becca Wilson

    Rebranding can definitely be a tedious process. This is some really great advice on how to do it and why to even do it in the first place.

  • Abira Nasir

    You describe in a very clear manner that why and how to rebrand your blog. Thanks for the tips. I think I need these tips in the future so I am going to bookmark it.

  • Jennifer L

    Rebranding can be overwhelming at first, especially if your blog is several years old. But it’s also an opportunity to sharpen the niche, motivate you to get out of the comfort zone and just spark creativity.

  • Christina | From Under a Palm Tree

    This is definitely something to think about. And this is such a great resource for blog rebranding. I’ve never really thought about the best way to go about doing it, but this is super helpful!

  • Ben c

    Yeah I like the correlation with emotional change. Some times we just don’t want to see it anymore and need to rebrand. It will happens to me I am sure…

  • Mike Shugrhed

    I think rebranding a blog is fine. however, I think it is very important to keep all your links alive (or at least redirect them to new ones) Also, to keep your old brand pages open explaining what you have done and why. It should be a good reason and your fan base deserves to know why.

  • Elizabeth O

    This is such an interesting article indeed! You provided some really great advice on why and hows to rebranding blogs. I am sure so many people will find this helpful.

  • Mommy Sigrid

    I have rebranded my two blogs recently and the work still continues. The theme was changed and I am updating posts. It’s sooooo tedious! I used to just write and write and did not care about SEO and stuff.

  • Blair Villanueva

    I rebrand my blog 3x and never regret it.
    If you feel that it needed change then do it 😀

  • Nathan

    Rebranding a blog is a good option but the amount of effort and time to get it back to where it was will be strenuous. I prefer maybe writing a blog post about how i am feeling and what i am going through in that period rather.

  • Monidipa Dutta

    Rebranding the blog can be really helpful and important at times. Thanks for these great tips.

  • Melissa

    This is very good information to keep in mind in case I ever find myself needing to rebrand in the future.

  • Nina Nichols

    Being a member of different groups for bloggers made me realized the need for a blog brand. I think you’re more prone to success if you know what is your specific niche. Instead of rebranding though, I just created a new website. 🙂

Lascia un commento

Il tuo indirizzo email non sarà pubblicato. I campi obbligatori sono contrassegnati *