One of the great things about working on books and teaching blogging and WordPress is that it forces you to take stock and sometimes take your own advice. With Create Your Own Blog finished (I’m reviewing galley proofs now), my second book well underway, and teaching I was starting to spawn off new sites and blogs like crazy. This isn’t always a good thing.
I realized this week that I wasn’t posting to my blogs often enough and when I did I had to think about where I should post. This means that I have a potential message dilution issue going on here. Which site should you (the reader) pay attention to? When the book comes out, which blog is going to be the headliner to get the traffic (and also the new content)? When the second book comes out what happens to the first book’s blog and my main blog (which has been home base for my work since 2004)? Honestly, these are questions I shouldn’t have to ask myself. I should be just “doing the right thing” from the get go. Clearly I didn’t.
I decided a month ago that I needed to change hosts and move to a provider that offered me more breathing room and more advanced features to play with, I figured I’d just move a couple blogs at a time over. Pretty typical procedure for this kind of thing. Then it hit me. With my second book, what am I going to promote as “the site”? I’ll want to build buzz about the new book when the first book will be just hitting the shelves. Whoops. I can’t very well be leaving the new book’s site in the lurch while I pimp a book that isn’t finished and won’t be published for a few months. Not to mention the place where I send everyone (this site) sits getting dusting and forlorn.
Crap.
The solution that hit me was equally easy and simple: just pull them all together.
Right now this blog is running on DreamHost and as you can also see (if you’re visiting via a link) I’ve changed the theme (again) to run Thesis 1.6. The blog that once was SixBloggingProjects.com is now a subsection of this blog. (the Books menu item “Create Your Own Blog”). The next book will follow suit soon and become a part of the main blog. New URLs that I buy to promote things (like my Vancouver Observer column), will also become subsections here as well.
Is it the perfect solution? I’m not sure. Is it going to be easier for me to manage? Hell yes. Instead of having 3+ blogs to keep updated (of my own that is), I’ll just have one. Since DreamHost supports SSH terminal access and SVN out of the box, I’m going to be able to keep this blog (and the blogs of friends that I host too) updated with a couple commands.
I’m putting my money where my mouth is now. I’ll be running a much more SEO friendly theme (Thesis), on a faster host (DreamHost), and using the advanced tools that I want to teach to students (Subversion). Seems like a smart move to me. How I just have to finish moving sites.
And subdomains
And redirects
Ugh.
Tris Hussey is a writer, teacher, blogger, and speaker on all facets of Internet life, WordPress, and social media. He is the author of Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Blogging Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro and Using WordPress.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 0 comments… add one now }