Changing Your Company's Name

[KempRugeLawGroup]

Our firm is considering adding another person and adding that person's name to the firm. In terms of our online presence, what all would have to be done for that to work? For example:

1. We aren't changing the domain, but should we get a domain with the new name and redirect it to our current site?

2. Do I need ask the people who have linked to our site with our name in the anchor text to change it to the new name?

3. Do I need to get back to all our old posts/blogs/etc and edit them with the new name?

4. Can we use our current social media names or do we need to setup new accounts?

5. If we decide to just keep the onsite marketing the same, but change the name in regards to offsite markeitng (banners, billboards, etc) will that conflict have a very negative effect?

6. Anything else, anyone wants to point out would be great.

Thanks,

Ruben

[Travis_Bailey]

I'll go through these in order.

#1-#4 Not unless you're advertising a different domain name via collateral or other channels.

In regard to #3 specifically, that should be an easy SQL find and replace (e.g. Find smithjonespllc.com and replace with smithjonesdoepllc.com) if you have to change the name. Then get ready for a ton of NAP cleanup.

#5 This may be an interesting opportunity to measure your offline efforts. Perhaps a clone of the site could be blocked via robots.txt and meta robots. Though you're better off spending most of your efforts online anyway. It's just a thought.

#6 I've worked with a number of firms and partners come and go. So it's a question of permanence/vanity in many instances. Though it's entirely possible to make a page for the partner and run a local campaign for each partner. You'll more than likely get more mileage that way, and have less NAP cleanup issues.

My aunt is the President of her firm, though all of the properties only have the founding partner's names. The firm is over 100 years old and they're doing fine.