If you run more than a few blogs, like I do, then at some point you may want to downsize and merge one or more of them. Having to manage fewer blogs is more efficient, and if you go about things the right way, the result is mostly an upshot.
The reason I’m posting this today is because I just did this. I merged this blog with another blog I was starting. Given that I already have more blogs than I can effectively manage, another one seemed unnecessary, and since the new blog was pretty relevant to this one, I figured I’d take care of a few important things by making this move…
- Make my life easier by having one less blog to manage.
- Improve the value and authority of both sites by merging them and thus increasing the content.
- Resurrect the sorely neglected crajun.com site and breathe new life into it!
- Give my new site a head start by merging it with deeply indexed and related content.
This should be painfully obvious, but just to clear any confusion…you only want to merge blogs that are relevant. In other words, don’t merge your Ammo Reloading Supplies niche site with your Fairy Garden blog.
With domain names and shared hosting as cheap as they are these days, it’s tempting to want to build new sites all the time. Well… it is for me anyway.
So…when I decided to set out on my WA Challenge, I figured I’d better snatch up a new domain and get to work on a new site! I had thought about covering the project on this blog, as I’m doing now, but part of my decision to go with a new site was to try out Wealthy Affiliate’s hosting. Rather than move this site over to the untested Wealthy Affiliate platform, I figured it’d be safer and smarter to ‘try it out’ using a new site.
Goodbye, WA Hosting
I’m sorry to say, but after 3 weeks of using their hosting I decided it was time to bounce. Generally speaking, performance is quite good, as I’d outlined in a few other posts here – mainly this one. But…it is just too restrictive for my tastes. The fact that they don’t allow outbound connections or access to a control panel ultimately steered me away. I tried to work around those limitations, but when you know what’s possible with a ‘real’ hosting account -and- you’re actually getting even better performance with another of your hosts…then it’s tough to let Wealthy Affiliate host your precious sites.
Disclaimer: Although I’m finding Wealthy Affiliate’s hosting is not for me, I do however recommend it to those just starting out in niche site building. I still consider it to be a good hosting solution, which is more than ample when you’re just getting started and learning WordPress. I also know that many folks over at WA are happily continuing to host with them, so don’t let me dissuade you entirely.
Of course, I am still a member and will remain so for at least the next year. I still think that everything else they offer is great, and well worth the subscription price – even if you don’t utilize their hosting services.
Anyway…the decision to eject from WA hosting was what prompted me to consider the blog merger. Rather than migrate WAChallenge.com, I thought a better idea would be to just bring the freshness over here. After all, a large part of this site (crajun.com) was intended to focus on my internet marketing endeavors. Furthermore, WA Challenge was not going to be a site used solely for the purpose of promoting Wealthy Affiliate. It was mainly set up to be an online IM journal, which is basically what I had planned to do with this site anyway, so…
Merging them made perfect sense.
And by doing so, I will further prove my point about keyword-rich domain names being of little importance for rankings. It’s not like WAChallenge.com was some great keyword-rich domain, but CraJun.com is definitely not an SEO-friendly domain, based on what the hacks will tell you. But I know and you know (and if you don’t, you will, if you stick around long enough) that’s hogwash.
It’s the site that matters, not the domain.
Now I can talk about anything and everything!
Aaaahhh…freedom… Not that I was planning on focusing everything on Wealthy Affiliate, but now I don’t even need to worry about that. I can discuss whatever, without feeling like I should have each new article be related to WA in some way.
My purpose here is not to sell you the service, but rather to tell you about it. Through my own experiences, I want to give you an honest review of the WA membership and what it has to offer. By putting the focus back on me, and away from Wealthy Affiliate, I find that serves to make things even more genuine.
And best of all…I’ve resurrected this neglected site! About the best niche I can possibly think of for me is the one in which I help others to make money online and better manage their WordPress sites. By merging the two sites I’ll be able to create one unified IM resource powerhouse! 😀
Want to know how to merge your WordPress blogs?
It’s a pretty easy process, but one I’m not going to get into tonight; however, I’ll be sure to post a tutorial here shortly!