Why I Changed My Entire Brand (and what you can learn from it…)

For the first four years of my Solopreneur journey, I was a one-man show in every aspect of my business, including my branding.

My website was simple - a combination of colors, fonts, and images that I cobbled together with a limited understanding of web design. And although I didn’t love it, it worked pretty well.

But after a lot of social media growth and countless podcast appearances, I was getting 130,000+ website visits a month.  I finally felt obliged to invest in my brand.

So I took a big step and outsourced the redesign of my brand and my website. The process took seven long months, and I published the new site a little over three months ago.

I’ve gotten lots of praise, comments, insults, and questions about my new branding. So today I'll tell you the three reasons I did it, and what you can learn from my rebranding experience.

Let’s dive in.

Why make the effort? And what can you learn?

Reason 1: 4 Years of Traction Required a More Professional Look

I don’t have an eye for design - I never have.

So my original website went through a hundred iterations as I tinkered with colors, fonts, copywriting, formatting, and imagery. I landed on a dark website with loud green accent colors, overly-bold fonts, and a lot of sales copy. Truth be told, I didn’t love it. But still, the website did a good job for a long time.

But from a user perspective, there was a lot to be desired. The site had no search functionality, so people often asked if I’d written about various topics because they couldn’t find the information easily.

I needed it to be more user friendly. And I wanted to sharpen my look.

And as I studied hundreds of websites, I gravitated toward functional, clean, and simple. The best sites make it easy to digest information, make a purchase, and so on.

What you can learn: Logos, colors, fonts, email signatures, etc. — the list of ‘stuff’ is endless that can keep you busy without making any real progress. And those are distractions from your real work - creating content, products and services that help your audience/customers.

Remember, traction should be your top priority when you’re getting started. Not a flashy new website. Consider DIY’ing it until you have a meaningful business.

Reason 2: Aligning with Long-Term Goals

As I looked to the future, I wanted to ensure my brand would attract the right people and make it easy for them to understand how I can help. And at the same time, I wanted to use my brand to repel people who are not my ideal customers.

I also wanted my brand to be flexible enough for future projects I’m thinking about that may not happen for years. And some that I haven’t thought of yet!

I knew I couldn’t take on this project myself. So after a lot of diligence, I chose to work with Andy Kennedy, who runs a branding design agency called Ceremony.

Andy has followed me for years, so he was already familiar with my brand. And he quickly understood where I wanted to take it.

He was process and detail-oriented. And he interviewed the hell out of me, many times. Andy and his team listened, learned, challenged me, and ultimately developed flexible brand guidelines that will grow with me for the foreseeable future. That’s what a good brand and website design team should do.

What you can learn: You can get carried in the wrong direction fast if you hire someone without knowing what you want the result to look and feel like. And it’s awfully expensive to spend time and money “figuring things out along the way”.  Make sure you have a well-defined vision before you make any big investment in your brand.

Reason 3: Improving SEO

Another reason for my brand revamp was to structure my website for better SEO performance.

Social media can change or disappear at any moment. So having strong SEO that drives organic traffic to your website helps protect against uncertainties.

I didn’t think about SEO much when I designed my original website. And I’ve learned over the years how helpful SEO can be when done right.

I studied how James Clear and Mark Manson structured their websites. And they both built SEO-focused platforms, going deep on a handful of core topics. As a bonus, their websites are well-organized so it’s easy to find and digest information.

I wanted to do the same for my user experience. But SEO optimization is also how I think about playing defense for my brand and business. If social fails, SEO is there.

Much like James Clear and Mark Manson, I now have an articles section on my site that revolves around six core topics. Each topic has a pillar page that acts as a hub, connecting to all the articles on that subject.

This architecture makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for, and it also boosts SEO by creating internal linking structures around high-authority pillar pages like this one.

What you can learn: The way a website looks and feels is just one slice of the pie. Making sure it has SEO-friendly architecture is another layer. As you grow your brand and business, consider using a web development team that understands site architecture (I used the team over at 5Four Digital and they did a wonderful job).

Conclusion

My new branding and website is clean, straightforward, and focused on user experience.

The clutter has been cleared, making room for what matters most to people who visit my site: valuable content and calls-to-action that guide you toward the next steps in your journey.

My LinkedIn OS and Content OS landing pages look sharper than ever, and are aligned (visually and message-wise) with the rest of my site.

The decision to outsource my brand and website redesign wasn't made lightly. But it was time.

I needed a new identity that represented my business today, and to create a runway for the next chapter.

By professionalizing my brand and optimizing my site architecture for SEO, I hope to provide you with a better experience and more valuable content for many years to come.

I invite you to explore the new site, dive into the articles, and join me as I venture into the next chapter.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week.