If you’ve known me for any number of years, especially in the WordPress space, then you might know that before starting FooPlugins with Brad, my two main WordPress-focused sites were WP Modder and WP Pro Business. Unfortunately, both of these sites haven’t been updated in almost a year.
What!?
Now I’m left with the decision on what to do with these sites. I’d love to hear your opinions in the comments.
A Little History and Current Stats
I started using WordPress in late 2004 after trying several open source solutions to updating my hand-written HTML sites. As the next few years went by and I learned more about WordPress and the community, I decided to start giving back in the best way I knew how.
WP Modder
WP Modder made it’s debut on January 1st, 2008 with the post WordPress Blog Search Engine Friendliness, which was a video embed from Gray Wolf’s SEO Blog.
This site became my outlet for posting about the things I was learning in WordPress and has remained it’s focus up until last year. I even built a few themes and a mobile app, but I urge you not to use any of them in the name of not wasting your time;)
Stats
Pages: 7
Posts: 133
Comments: 2,401
Monthly Unique Visits: 458
Most Popular Post (now): WordPress Page Attributes and How to Use Them
WP Pro Business
WP Pro Business hit the Internet scene on January 18th, 2011 with the post, 3 Essential Elements of an Effective Business Blog, which was actually a guest post intended to kick off the site and to lead into my WordPress for Business video course.
The site was intended to be focused on creating WordPress sites in order to promote one’s offline or online businesses. It also contains tutorials and product reviews for themes, plugins and other Internet business related services.
Stats
Pages: 45
Posts: 136
Comments: 262
Monthly Unique Visits: 2,506
Most Popular Post (now): Options for Creating Directory Sites in WordPress
Should I Revive Them?
One option for me is to revive these sites by starting to post again. WP Pro Business is really the only one with some potential in terms of reviving the glory days of it’s traffic, referrals, and user engagement.
But here’s the problem. I have conflicting goals with this site in terms of what I want to post and to tell you the truth, I’m just not inspired any longer. I’m leaning toward continuing to build this brand rather than try and revive one that I’m not as passionate about as I was once.
So, I guess I’ve answered my own question haven’t I?
Should I Merge the Posts Into This Site?
Now the question of past content comes into play and what to do with it. When WP Daily decided to shut it’s doors, their content was scooped up by Torque.io and put into an archives section.
And yes, I know. I’m no WP Daily:)
Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy, I knew Jack Kennedy, Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.
Are There Any Benefits…Really?
The thinking behind merging these old posts into Adam W. Warner is two-fold.
- That old content might still have some relevance to others getting started with WordPress, or the business of it.
- I’d like to preserve these parts of my digital history, and moving it all under one roof seems like the easiest way to do that.
Redirects or Landing Page?
If I do export all those old posts (and pages and custom post types?), then what do I do with the existing sites? Do I just leave them as-is for posterity?
I don’t think so.
If I’m going to merge in the name of organizing my blogging and tutorial life, then I should try to at least do something useful in terms of user experience and SEO.
Together, the sites are still getting about 3,000 unique visitors a month organically. I can see that there are few specific posts that are continuing to drive that traffic. That’s a good thing I suppose and I could probably gain some more traction on this site by moving that content here and putting in some redirects.
But to be honest, the thought of setting up more than a few redirects is enough to make me want to stop writing this post altogether and abandon my urge to organize. But I won’t, I’ll persevere with my head down and power through.
But I need your help by way of opinion. Again, please leave you comments below.
Or Just Walk Away?
It seems I’m good at answering my own questions. I will do something with that old content…and probably merge it here, but I really need to make sure I consider a few more things before I do.
Things like:
- How do I categorize this content here?
- Making sure to turn off my Aweber RSS broadcasts so subscribers don’t get hit with 300 emails when the posts are published here.
- Affiliate links. Should I preserve those too?
- …and probably some other things I haven’t realized I need to pay attention to:)
