By skyforbes 
One of the questions that I see popping up among fellow bloggers on Facebook groups is: “How do you change your blog niche? Or how do I change my blog categories? How do you go about rebranding your blog easily and quickly, without losing blog traffic and followers?”
It may be a while since you started your blog.
Whether you have outgrown your blog, have a new audience, want to create a money-making blog or have made a mistake in choosing a defined, narrow niche, the good news is that you can rebrand your blog at any time.
It just takes a bit of thoughtful planning and time for implementation to be successful.
The question is, where do you start? What are the steps? How long will it take?
As somebody who is a marketing professional with real-world experience, as well as blogging for over 15 years, I have answers to these questions.
I transformed my Suburban Tourist blog from a travel and outdoor lifestyle blog to a midlife lifestyle blog. I’m sharing my tips and learnings so that it can be easier for you to change your blog niche and rebrand!
We’ll go over all the key tips for rebranding your blog in 2025.
DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links, meaning if you click on a product or service, and decide to purchase it, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. All recommended products and services are based on my positive experience with them. For more information, please read my Disclaimer.
Bookmark this pin on Pinterest for future reference!
Why Do You Want To Rebrand Your Blog?
The question to ask yourself is, Why do I want to rebrand?
What is my end goal?
It may be because you’ve outgrown your blog niche. Or you want to take your blog to a new level and monetize it.
Perhaps it’s because you have new ideas to share with others.
Maybe you’re dealing with blogger burnout and need a break and a fresh start with a new direction.
Whatever the reason, think about the end goal.
Ultimately, you want people reading your blog, sharing posts and coming back for more.
For this, it needs to look professional and up-to-date. This is especially true if you want to attract brands and PR professionals for sponsored campaigns.
Why I Rebranded Suburban Tourist
In 2016, I became a mom to a little boy. My Suburban Tourist blog needed to evolve from a travel and outdoor lifestyle blog into something different.
I started Suburban Tourist in 2010, and it was definitely no longer fitting my focus or my new audience.
Travel and outdoor adventures were taking a back seat to new topics on motherhood, babies and diaper disasters!
Beauty and home decor topics also interested me and my readers. Parenthood can take a toll on skin and your home decorating budget (diapers are expensive!).
So, I needed to change my blog niche into something broader, encompassing a number of lifestyle topics.
I didn’t get rid of my outdoor and travel posts, because they still could live under the lifestyle umbrella. In addition, I included posts on blogging as my readers were other lifestyle/parenting bloggers seeking tips.
Rebranding Your Blog Is A Process
With all of these new topics, Suburban Tourist needed a big makeover and a change in direction. And I did it! What you see now is a far cry from where things were in pre-2016.
This was my blog on February 20, 2016 :
It would take a good year and a half before I would make the big change. I made many mistakes along the way, so I’m sharing some invaluable tips that I wish I had known about!
In early 2018, I changed up the theme, created a new logo and changed up the About Me write-up. It was looking more like a lifestyle blog.
But it was still not 100% there yet.
When I finally found the right look, the right branding, and the right focus for my blog, it all clicked.
What you see now, is what I’m happy with for my Suburban Tourist lifestyle blog. Take a moment to pop into the blog to check it out.
More importantly, it’s now a more successful blog with more traffic and income!
Key Steps To Rebranding Your Blog
When you want to change your blog niche, there are several steps you need to take before you do the big “relaunch”.
I skipped many of these steps and it certainly made things a bit more difficult. So don’t do what I did.
Instead, consider following these steps.
- Decide on your new blog niche and if you want to change your URL
- Assess what needs to be changed and make an action plan
- Revise your blog mission and About Me page
- Take the steps to migrate your blog to a new domain name (I suggest you hire a professional to help you out with these steps)
- Update your theme
- Update the logo and brand colours
- Review and update social media accounts, Google, Affiliate sites and Brand Partnership sites
- Brainstorm new post ideas and update content calendars
- Update all pins and replace your new logo
- Announce your rebrand to your followers
Let’s get started!
You may want to download this handy “Blog Brand Standards Master” printable as it helps you note down details for your new blog brand.
1. Choosing Your New Blog Niche & If You Need A Name Change
When you’re thinking of rebranding your blog, don’t rush the process!
The first thing to consider is whether you’re changing your blog niche and what that entails. If it’s a completely different blog niche (for example from a food blog to a fashion blog), it’s probably best to just start a new blog.
If it’s moving niches within a category (for example, a recipe site for busy college students to one for busy young professionals) you can get away with a small rebrand that works for both topics
Don’t Rush Things – Think Things Through!
It takes time to figure out if you want to do a complete rebrand or if you are OK with what you’ve got with a few tweaks. If your blog is a big one, with many posts, updating it can seem like a daunting task.
Rushing into choosing a new blog name is also something you don’t want to do. There’s some thinking that needs to be done first!
Consider all the ramifications of a blog name change. Can you live with the current name, or do you really need to change the name?
I’m pointing this out because it will affect so many things in the rebranding process. It will definitely make it a more complicated and a longer process for a number of reasons:
- The time needed to come up with a new name and research domain URLs, social media name availability
- The time to set up a new domain
- The potential need to hire somebody to help with the technicalities around migration from one domain to a new one.
- Redirects so you don’t lose your SEO link juice
- A new batch of pins with your new logo
- Updates to all of our social media accounts, Pinterest and affiliate partnerships
There are many articles out there on migrating from one domain to another. We won’t get into this here, because frankly, it’s too technical for me. I’d just hire an expert to help out!
I decided to keep Suburban Tourist because it was a well-established blog. As well, I could easily modify it into a lifestyle blog.
Think about your new direction: what topics do you want to write about?
How can you organize them into new blog categories? Are there general “topic buckets” such as Lifestyle, Parenting, Adventure, etc., that you can organize your subtopics around?
As with any good planning, write down all your ideas as they come. I found this very helpful in gathering my thoughts before going into the next stage. Planning!
2. Make A Plan To Rebrand Your Blog The Right Way
You can jump right into making a change to your blog niche, as I did. However, I recommend having a plan in place first.
As you can see from my blog journey, the process took some time, and I made changes without really thinking about my audience, my blog mission and my goals. I had to go back and redo them over again.
I don’t want you to make my mistakes!
Always have a plan to act as a guideline when you’re rebranding your blog.
To create your plan:
- Think it through from start to finish.
- Figure out what steps you’ll need to take and when to take them for the best impact.
- Decide what tools you need to make your rebranded blog an attractive destination for your community.
- Write it out as if you were doing a plan for a client or boss – you’ll make sure you’ve got everything covered.
- Create a timeline or a work-back schedule. Write out the steps you need to take, line by line, and give yourself a deadline as to when you get each done. It will keep you on track.
You may want to think about it as setting blog goals, and doing activities in chunks. Use the SMART method for your overall goal of rebranding your blog. It will keep you on track and organized to reach your goal.
3. Revise Your Blog Mission Statement And About Me Page
The hardest thing you can do when rebranding your blog is to figure out your new blog mission, your target audience and what you’ll be sharing.
However, I would argue that it’s also an important exercise to do as soon as possible.
It fine-tunes your new blog as a brand and helps you with content generation moving forward.
When you write your mission statement, you’re reminded as to why you are blogging in the first place! You figure out your blog purpose. Are you informing, persuading or entertaining your readers? And who are your readers anyway?
Know Your Blog Audience
You also figure out your audience. Who are they? What are their interests? What are the problems they look to solve on a daily basis?
Look at your current reader demographics. Consider how your blog readership will change if you start writing on mom and parenting-related topics.
You may have more Millennial moms reading your lifestyle/parenting blog than your previous audience of Gen-X and Baby Boomer weekend warriors seeking travel stories.
With a new mission statement, you also consider what kinds of questions you’ll answer for your readers.
This is also the time when you need to decide on your brand voice and personality.
Are you going to be funny and personal? Or perhaps you’ll be more on the professional side? Is your blog fun and full of light commentary with an infusion of your personality?
When you have your new mission statement ready, update your About Me page to include this messaging. It’s the first place people look to learn more about your blog.
4. If You’re Updating Your Blog Name & Domain URL
So you’ve decided to change your blog niche, and your old blog name doesn’t work with your new direction. You’ll need a new blog name and blog domain URL.
Making A Blog Name Change
First, don’t rush to choose a new blog name. After all, you should keep it for the long term.
A few things to consider when choosing a new blog name:
- You want to make sure the blog name will work five to 10 years from now.
- Make it simple and broad in scope, and something that doesn’t identify your role (e.g. Mom, parenting, job-related, etc.).
- Avoid using a name that’s similar to a trademarked name.
- Check to see if your chosen blog name has an available blog URL – .com is best.
- Check to see if your chosen domain hasn’t been flagged for spam.
I’ve shared more tips on how to find the right blog name in my post on starting a blog that you may find useful.
Redirects To Your New Blog URL
If you’re rebranding your blog but you want to keep old blog post content, you don’t want to lose links when you change your domain name!
Here are key steps to implement:
- Export a list of all your URLs, especially your high-traffic blog posts and pages. Use Screaming Frog to do this. An alternative is Google Search Console: Go to the “Pages” section under “Indexing”. Export all indexed URLs as a CSV or Google Sheet.
- Use Google Analytics + Google Search Console to find top-performing content, backlinks, and top search queries.
- Take note of internal links, media files, and redirects already in place.
- Purchase your new domain.
- Set up 301 redirects from your old URLs to your new URLs. A 301 redirect tells search engines that the content has moved permanently. Redirect every single old URL to its new equivalent URL (not just the homepage). If your blog structure stays the same, redirects will be simpler.
- Update all of your internal links and media to the new domain: check sidebars and any other links
- Let Google know of the change: in Google Search Console, verify your new domain. Use the “Change of Address” tool in the old domain’s property to let Google know you’ve moved. Submit your new sitemap for the new domain.
- Monitor 404 errors and fix broken backlinks as best you can
It’s a bit of a complicated process for rebranding your blog, isn’t it?
Several years ago, when I went from using Blogger and a blogspot.com URL to my own Suburbantourist.ca URL, I made the mistake of not having the redirect in place. My traffic dropped to 0. You don’t want this to happen!
A 301 redirect has any existing links get redirected automatically to your new URL.
If you have a technical background, you can walk through the 301 redirect changes with handy tutorials. Most web hosting providers have their own tips on how to make this change via their C-Panel and available services.
5. Update Your Blog Theme
One of the most fun parts of rebranding your blog is getting a completely new look with a fresh theme.
However, choosing the right theme can be tricky and costly. So, picking wisely is key.
If it’s been a while since your last theme change, you may be tempted to look for a nice-looking, popular theme. You look at the live previews and think – wow – this one is really nice!
However, I recommend you carefully read the details for each theme you like. You may end up with a blog theme that’s too complicated to set up. Or you may choose a completely new one that has many bugs in it. New isn’t always better.
Here are things to consider when looking for a new theme:
- When you’re rebranding your blog, the theme needs to work with your overall brand. If you’re appealing to a women-heavy audience, look at feminine blog themes. There are many out there, including Bluchic, and Kadence (and Restored316 (this theme is from them) for feminine Kadence child theme templates)
- Look for themes that are functional but not overstuffed with extra features. All of these end up slowing down your site, which is bad for SEO.
- Choose a blog theme that’s fairly new but has had enough time on the market for users to test it out for bugs.
- Look for a theme that is easily customizable. It can really make the difference when you can tweak the placement of call-to-action boxes, or change a colour with a click of a button. A blog where you can change the font helps, as some of them have super-tiny fonts that are difficult to read.
I like blog themes that have several different blog look options.
NOTE: If you haven’t updated your blog theme in quite some time, you’ll notice many for Kadence or Elementor. Both are a bit trickier to set up if you’re a complete beginner. However, if you’re up to the challenge, go for it!
If you’re not comfortable with WordPress yet, stick to easily customizable standalone themes if you don’t want to be frustrated.
| RELATED: The Best Feminine WordPress Blog Themes For Bloggers And Solopreneurs
6. Update Your Logo And Brand Colours
The temptation is there to keep what you’ve got. It’s worked in the past, and it’s what you’re used to.
However, styles in blog logos change. Think about blogs from five to eight years ago. Many had logos with illustrations, heavily embellished with imagery. Many look outdated now.
So instead of keeping the same look for your visual brand assets, why not do a complete makeover?
When you change your blog niche, plan to change the look of your logo and brand colours as well.
Rebranding your blog with new visuals can be stressful. After all, you want to keep your logo and colour scheme around for several years.
Look for a classic approach to crafting your new logo. What doesn’t go out of style is a simple word logo with a font that works for the type of blog you have.
Here’s a dated, busy logo that has maybe just a bit too much going on.
Replace it with something simple and classic that will last you a LONG time. Like this one with a unique, clean script font:
Once again, look to sites such as Creative Market. It has many pre-made logo templates and gorgeous fonts that you can purchase for a unique logo.
The same applies to the colour scheme. Think about what different colours represent when it comes to branding and to whom they appeal.
| RELATED: A Blog Branding Guide – Make Your Blog Look Professional
7. Update Your Social Media Accounts, Google and Affiliate Sites
Let your followers and potential followers know about your blog’s new focus. This is where you take your mission statement and pare it down to the nitty-gritty.
Aside from changing your username to your new blog name, there’s the profile to update.
Take your time crafting the perfect profile blurb. Chances are, you’ll write out the profile and not be consistent in your messaging. Not to mention, it will take you a whole lot of time writing each out separately.
Write a short, concise blurb (150 words or so) that can be used across multiple social media channels – including X, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook. You may have to tweak it a bit if some profile sections require fewer characters.
Here’s what I did for my Instagram account:
PRO TIP: Explain who you are and how you help your audience. If they align, they will follow you. Sprinkle in key topics, and throw in a free offer that WOWs. Don’t forget that you can add your position in the name, if it’s short enough (no long title like Online Marketing Strategist for me!
Google Analytics & Google Search Console
With both Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you will need to update the domain change by adding a new property with the updated URL.
It’s pretty much like setting them up from scratch. You will get a new tracking code for Google Analytics.
You will also need to request the address change through the old version of Google Search Console. This is the last step!
| RELATED: Fathom Analytics Review – The Alternative To Google Analytics 4
Affiliate Sites And Brand Partnership Site Updates
This is pretty straightforward!
Any of your partnered affiliate networks and brand partnership sites will need to be updated with your new URL. You may have to connect with your affiliate contacts and reps to let them know of the change and ask for instructions on how to update the URL.
| Related: How To Grow Blog Traffic Using Social Media Sites
8. Create Fresh Content And An Editorial Calendar
Switching gears when you rebrand your blog is not easy.
You’re accustomed to writing on certain topics, and all of a sudden, you’ve opened yourself up to new posts to share. It’s just like starting a new blog – so exciting!
In my case, I made a mistake when I made a change to my blog niche. I started by churning out a whole bunch of posts on new topics.
Scribbling down blog post ideas on a piece of paper or on my note app on my phone, I was disorganized. I ended up posting several posts in my new categories, and then had writer’s block!
What I should have done is have a brainstorming session where I would take a broad topic, then break it down into smaller blog post ideas.
Create Topic Clusters For Content Strategy
Secondly, looking at Facebook Groups and other forums to see what questions people ask would be key in coming up with fresh content.
The easiest way to come up with fresh ideas is to see what other people are asking. If you can come up with a solution, VOILA… you’ve got a blog post that will be of interest to your readers.
Finally, I should have taken all of these ideas and organized a blog editorial calendar. Whether it’s on a calendar or an Excel sheet, a blog post and promotion schedule keep you on track.
So when you change your blog niche, take your time to gather your ideas and organize them. Research to come up with valuable blog posts that people will want to read!
9. Update Your Pinterest Pins
We’ve talked about a blog palette and logo change when you’re rebranding your blog.
However, one thing to consider is all of those pins you’ve created for your posts!
Whether you’ve made a blog name change or not, you will probably want to tweak your pins to some extent with at least the new colour palette.
If you used Canva and kept all of your pins on it, the process is going to be easier. If you didn’t use Canva, you may have to scrap the old pins and completely re-do them from scratch.
Plan on this process taking some time beyond your relaunch… which we get to next!
TIP: When I migrated blog posts from my Suburban Tourist blog to this one, I “re-worked” my old pins, making small tweaks and adding my new branding. It saved me hours of creating new pins from scratch.
If you’re starting a completely new Pinterest account for your newly rebranded blog, get my Pin It: A Blogger’s Guide To Mastering Pinterest course on how to start a Pinterest business account from scratch.
| Related: How To Create Clickworthy Pinterest Pins That Drive Traffic
10. Announce Your Relaunch
You decided to change your blog niche, and you’ve come up with a great new direction.
You’ve started the process of rebranding your blog, and it’s halfway ready to be relaunched.
Your readers may already be seeing some changes, such as a new theme showing up and changes to your social media accounts.
It’s time to tease your audience with big news coming!
Share it on your social media accounts that you’re working on some exciting changes for the blog.
Set the day you want to launch your newly updated blog, and let your readers know to come back to your site on that day.
Celebrate Your Relaunch On The Official Launch Date
On THE day, have social media posts ready with visuals and messaging. This can all be prepared in advance so that you can schedule the posts to go out at the same time.
Ask for input! Just a simple statement like, “Let me know what you think of the changes,” will give you invaluable feedback.
One other place to announce your blog relaunch is on your Facebook groups.
Your community members are always willing to provide feedback if you need anything tweaked. They’ll also give you a little boost in traffic by checking out the new site.
Don’t Forget To Update Your Email
Don’t forget to set up and update your email! Remember to update your Contact Me page, contact forms and your email settings.
You probably will also want to update your email on any partnered sites, such as email marketing providers, plugins and other web tools.
Using AI to Help You Rebrand Your Blog
New AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Grok are excellent for helping you fine-tune several key things with your blog rebrand, including:
- Providing you with an updated target audience/customer persona
- Help you with your brand messaging – mission and vision statements, taglines
- Recommending a new brand colour palette and visual standards
- Potential new logo designs for inspiration (create it yourself, though)
- Review your keywords and provide potential new ones
- Provide you with recommendations on your current categories and structure to create a better site visitor experience and for SEO purposes
You can also ask AI tools to capture all of your changes and new brand standards in one document. I recommend making it a PowerPoint or Google Slides deck, so you can make edits as needed.
I’ve used these tools and strategies with my blog rebrand to make sure I’m staying fresh and relevant to my core mission.
When You Change Your Blog Niche And Rebrand
It will take time when you change your blog niche or rebrand. As well, it will take some investment for a new URL, theme, and setup. However, it will be worth it in the end.
Make a plan, think things through and then start going step-by-step in making your changes.
In the end, you’ll be happier with the result than if you do it haphazardly and on the fly.
If it seems like a rebrand isn’t worth it, it may be time to start a completely new blog from scratch. This is fine too! In the end, if it works for your blog niche, it’s a good move!
QUESTION: Have you thought of rebranding your blog? What was the biggest issue that made you want to change your blog niche?
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