Rebranding and relaunching a leading supplier of Farm machinery equipment in the UK.

Ellis machinery, a leading name in the UK supply of farm machinery wanted to rebrand their business.

Business Case

Going through the process of planning a website and domain changeover, POLARIS partnered with the client and web agency to ensure that clear remit was identified throughout the project plan. This was across Website updates, SEO notifications and changes, and also PR & Communications regarding the actual rebrand.

Going through the process of planning a website and domain changeover, POLARIS partnered with the client and web agency to ensure that clear remit was identified throughout the project plan.

The biggest challenge with this project was ensuring that the move from the historical domain to the new domain went smoothly and efficiently.

This was so that search engines were informed of the change and could understand that a change has occurred. Most importantly, notifying search engines that Ellis Machinery still exists, under a new name.

SEO Led Rebranding

The POLARIS team consulted with the client 6 months before the project to research and identify suitable brand names and domains with their future SEO intentions in mind.

Search landscape research was conducted into possible brand names. This was to ensure there was a clear opportunity to operate with the chosen name without any confusion or illicit-unwanted content connected to the name coming up in search engine results pages.

Next, we worked with the client to ensure a domain name was available that allowed for the brand to be protected, and for the future business and marketing goals to be achieved.

From over 8 possible options, AMTEC Group was selected and the domain www.amtec-group.com was finalized.

Migrating Existing SEO Factors

Once the domain had been confirmed and the new website was underway, the SEO team at POLARIS then set about auditing the existing brands content to update and reflect it for the new brand.

As this was an ecommerce website going through a rebrand, all products, and product categories were reviewed and re optimized with the new AMTEC brand and messaging principles in mind.

This SEO site migration work was carried out as a part of the SEO agencies initial pre migration works phase. By going through this process, the agency team ensured a best practice approach to the complex migration which would ensure a higher rate of success.

“I think we did a really great job of the rebrand. So many things could have gone wrong but they didnt. Im really pleased. “

Jason White 
AMTEC Group

Best Practice Domain Migration

As the site was moving to a brand new domain, there were extra steps involved during the changeover process that were critical to ensuring business continuity for the client.

In line with Googles requirements, domain name change procedures were followed, putting the original domain into a period of changeover for 90 days from the day of go live.

Along with this, a series of 301 and 302 redirects were implemented at an extensive level across product, category, and location pages within the site. This ensured that every location from the historical domain was redirected to its newest and most relevant equivalent in the new domain in the most efficient way.

Tests were conducted during changeover, and monitoring reports were delivered to keep the client and web agency informed of our progress.

Migration Outcome

In July 2021, Ellis machinery successfully rebranded as AMTEC Group.

Thanks to the experience of the SEO team at POLARIS, the business’ search engine profile went into a period of changeover for 90 days.

After 90 days traffic levels were confirmed as being consistent. The rebrand and site migration project was a success.