For this post, I’m going to focus specifically on migrating your WordPress blog over from one host to another host. I’ll cover the more general technique of transferring your blog over to another blog. Then, I’ll cover a really straightforward option possible in the case the control panel your web hosting company offers you is cPanel.

Moving Your WordPress Installation

To move your blog over to another host, the two things that you want to backup are your wp-content and your MySQL database. To backup your wp-content folder, it is pretty straightforward. Just download the folder through your FTP client and you’re done.

Backing up your MySQL is a little more complicated. Login to your phpMyAdmin and select the database that has your WordPress installation. With the database selected:

1. At the top, click Export
2. When the page loads, at the left side in the Export box, there will be all the tables in your current database. Click Select All to select all the tables.
3. Underneath, among the radio buttons, there should be one labeled SQL. Select that.
4. Under the SQL section in the right, tick the settings: Structure, Add DROP TABLE, Add AUTO_INCREMENT, and Enclose table and field names with backquotes.
5. Then right below, tick Save as file. Once you save it to your computer, you’re pretty much done backing up.

Now, putting it back online.

1. Download a copy of WordPress from WordPress.org. Extract it and except for the wp-content folder, upload everything.
2. Then, update the wp-config-sample.php file to a database you have created in your new hosting account.
3. Upload the wp-content folder you backed up to your blog’s root directory.
4. To restore your MySQL database, login to phpMyAdmin and choose a database you wish to restore your tables into.
5. Then, click Import, Browse, select your SQL file, and click Go.
6. You should be all set then.

Super Easy Way If You Use cPanel

If you have cPanel and your new host uses cPanel, simply click Backup and backup the Home directory and the MySQL database. Then, in your new hosting account, simply use the Restore wizard, click Browse, and select your backups. Done!

Conclusion

When I changed hosts, I utilized both methods. I can confidently say that both methods work very fine. If you do try one of the two methods and get stuck somewhere, feel free to contact me and I’ll try to help you out.

How do you successfully move your blogs over, as not all hosts are always perfect? Any migration episodes to share?

Without a reliable web host, there really is no way you can run any website. It is the “house” of your site and it can make or break your site. So, let’s cut all this introduction and get straight to the points.

What are your requirements?

It is important to know what you need. Yes, web hosting companies these days do give plans like unmetered space and unmetered bandwidth with unlimited everything. Although it never hurts to have so much, the question is, do you really need all that? When you search for web hosts, you should always search for quality web hosts and thus, you want to find a host that is willing to give you what you need for an appropriate price, not a host that is willing to oversell. So, make a short note. How much resources (space, bandwidth, databases, etc.) do you need?

What is your budget?

Note that websites (or blogs) are not made in a month. You need to have the money to fund your hosting for at least a quarter. Sure it isn’t so hard to get a website making enough money to fund its hosting, but as you never know what can happen, I always believe that you should have at least three months’ (a quarter) amount of money to fund into your hosting account. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should order a quarterly package (as I explain about later below). However, what is important here is preparation. How much are you willing to spend per month? Multiply that by three and are you willing to invest that amount into your hosting?

What do others’ say?

Customer review is extremely important. Especially with recently established hosts, it is even more important. Make sure that you do your research on various sites. Google “your-web host review” and you should get ample amount of results, assuming that the hosting company has been around for at least a couple months. Make sure you read them all and make sure that it is a reliable company. Also, don’t fall into the traps of fake testimonials!

First Impressions

You know how people say that first impressions are extremely important? Well, you should apply the same thing when viewing web hosts. When you visit their site, how do you feel? Is it some cheap free homepage? Is it unique and professional? Often, serious web hosts will have seriously professional homepages.

Testing Support and Sales

Although you may not need support, you still want to make sure that they are there in case anything goes wrong. Especially with the economy not doing so well, many web hosts are changing ownership (like mine recently), and many are cutting the number of support and sales reps to save money. However, you need these people ready for you regardless of how much you may or may not need them at the moment. Some of the things you can do to make sure that your hosting company has the people are:

1. What type of support options do they have? (eg. live chat, help desk, forums)
2. Is it 24/7?
3. How many representatives are available? (You don’t want one guy on one shift as then, you may need to wait in a loooong line)
4. Try shooting them an email at random times, multiple times and see how they respond.

Always Monthly First!

Something you don’t want to fall into is the annual special trap. Unless this is a company like HostGator, which has been around for like ages, you really want to test the hosting company out first. The best way to doing so is going monthly first. I believe you can really get a taste of how the company is if you stick around for around two months. So, the first two months, pay monthly and see how they are. If they suck, you can always get out without losing more. If they are excellent, drop them, and then sign back up with them with their annual plan to receive any annual specials they have running for that month.

Not All Eggs in One Basket

Something you must always be cautious of is that not all web hosting companies are immortal. Yes, even my favorite, HostGator. My sites with the Gator have some downtime. I have some sites with ScarabWeb and they have downtimes too. All hosts will have some downtime that is unavoidable. Therefore, you don’t want to get a big hosting package and then host all your sites there. Get a couple to start with to make sure that you you at least have some sites online all the time.

Conclusion

Starting to get a decent idea on choosing a web host? I know this is like Building a Website 101, but hey, an extra article online never hurt for newcomers. Anyways, choosing web hosts can be an arduous task as there really isn’t that perfect web host. Below are some of my recommended hosts that I have been with, enjoyed, and can recommend.

Recommended

• HostGator
• SharkSpace
• ScarabWeb

Adding Your Site to Profile

This is a no-brainer that you should do. Although Twitter is rapidly growing to be a service that pretty much everyone uses (like Facebook), it still is dominated by people with some degree of website building background knowledge. If you have a half-decent Twitter page with timely updates, getting a click from your fellow Twitter users through the Web field is not hard at all.

If you don’t have it in right now, set it up straight away! You are definitely missing out. If you don’t know, in your Twitter account, click “Settings” and then fill out the “More info URL” field.

Distributing Free Twitter Backgrounds

Let me be honest with you. I have not tried this technique myself, but I strongly believe that it is a fail-proof strategy. Recall all those free wordpress themes? Well, if you examine closely, all of the free themes will have some sort of a link back to the original theme creator. That’s right, they are giving themselves back both a do-follow link and exposure on your blog (if you use a free theme). Well, why can’t it not be done with Twitter backgrounds?

Twitter backgrounds (at least the ones I’ve used) tend to be 1600×1200 pixel. If you are a whiz with Photoshop or even Paint, you can create some dazzling backgrounds for fellow Twitter users. Then, as you are interested in promoting your brand, you can put a small logo on the top-right corner of the background. However, a thing to note here is that you should definitely lower your logo’s opacity, so that you don’t kill the design.

Contests with Hashtags

Remember the Moonfruit contest I talked about yesterday? Well, you can do that too! A quick overview on how the contest would/should run for your maximum exposure and benefit would be:

• Create a contest
• Make participating in the contest easy; let them retweet your ad tweet
• Make sure that you utilize your site’s domain’s hashtag and not something random (eg. #ahnternet, not #myfirstcontest)
• Don’t forget to link to your blog’s original post
• Make it so that every tweet counts as an entry; this makes people use your hashtag like oxygen

This seems to be the strategy Moonfruit took and it seems like it is flawless, at least until Twitter puts a restriction on this. However, I doubt such restrictions would come into play anytime soon, so I guess you’ve got some time to try this out if you are thinking of running a contest in the near future.

Twitter.com/YOUR_DOMAIN

This is also a no-brainer. You SHOULD get the same name on Twitter as you have with your domain name. In my case, I have Twitter.com/ahnternet for this blog. Had @ahnternet been taken, I probably would have registered @ahnternetcom or something along those lines.

I tweet about my random day to day things @Static, and although a good portion of my followers are highly concentrated on that Twitter account, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t use @ahnternet. Whatever gets posted on @ahnternet, I can always just re-tweet on @Static to give whatever I’m tweeting, maximum exposure.

Your Own URL Shortener

So we all know how Bit.ly, Tr.im, Cli.gs and the likes are pretty nice tools that let you track while also redirecting your visitors. However, I believe that you can really make yourself stand out by just giving a direct link to the post. What am I talking about? Let me give you an example, in the case you are using WordPress.

So the URL of Twitter Is REALLY Viral is:

http://www.ahnternet.com/2009/07/16/twitter-is-really-viral/

Obviously, that is way too long for Twitter’s 140 character maximum. However, what if you setup a redirection through your hosting control panel so that a URL along the lines of:

http://ahnternet.com/t/1

redirected to the post above? I believe that is an exposure right there. Fortunately, if you are using cPanel (which most hosts use), Awstats will track that link too similar to what URL redirection services provide. Okay, so this way can be a little bit annoying, but if you have a redirecting routine setup, it shouldn’t take you more than a couple minutes. Are you not willing to invest a couple more minutes to receive much more exposure to your site’s address and brand?

Conclusion

I have only recently started to aggressively use Twitter. Hence, I’m probably not the guru that you need in the middle of the night if you are trying to do something on Twitter. However, I feel that my experience on it so far helps me confidently state that these tips are fail-proof and Twitter 101. Exposing your site’s address and brand simply cannot get easier.

I’m the type that won’t just end it with this post, so I’m going to go ahead and try these out tips myself too (especially the contest one). Of course I’ll write a follow up post. However, I have a darn good feeling that all five of these will benefit you brilliantly.

What’s your view on this topic? Think I was completely off? Was I spot on? I’d like to hear what you have to say, so comments are more than welcome!

Anyways, although ahnternet is technically a “personal” blog, I still want to give something worthwhile to you guys, so here it goes.

Today while I was waiting in line for my Transformers 2 ticket, I was somewhat befuddled at a screen that was showing the movies that the theater was playing. Drag Me to Hell, Terminator, Night in the Museum 2, Transformers 2, Transformers 1, … what?! Transformers 1? That must be an error, right? I quickly realized it wasn’t–they were playing it again to help people who might have forgotten the previous story. Anyways, what does this have to do with you?

“Publish” Doesn’t Mean “End”

Let’s first look at the “posts” component of this article–recycling in the aspect of the blogging. Often times, we will publish an article and think, “Well, that article’s done with now.” It is as if you won’t ever come back to that article. I feel that such a thought is actually a big mistake that bloggers make. It is like although “Publish” is a bit significant in that it feels like the article is finally ready to be released to the world, bloggers should see it as “just another draft.”

In the world where we’re constantly going after good keywords and SEO, we often forget who we actually write for. It definitely isn’t entirely for Google or any other search engine spiders and it also isn’t all for yourself. The majority of our content should be written for the blog readers and subscribers. Hence, you want to deliver quality.

Recently, I had a legitimate comment made on a post I made back in August 2008. That’s right, nearly a year ago. First, I was surprised that someone commented on a post that old. Second, I found a few sentences that I could rework (and I did) to make the ideas easier to grasp.

Regardless, I’m currently in the stages of composing a new post that enhances upon this post I made. Obviously it won’t be a lame re-phrase or a regurgitation of what I wrote 11 months ago, but its focus would certainly revolve around the same idea. Why am I doing this? There is a clear indication that there are new people coming into this industry and often times, these old posts can get buried away and catch a few webs. Therefore, it seems appropriate to re-open and explain once again. Who knows, you may have missed a couple points here and there too!

Recycling Ideas & Not Copying

Let’s admit this. We see same ideas coming up again and again. Remember The Million Dollar Homepage? That site and the script was cloned so much it wasn’t even funny. I think it came out to be that the only one that suceeded was the original. Hah! Well then, why am I saying, recycle ideas if you know that copies are bound to fail?

No, it is not copies that I’m talking about. I would say a model to build on with a hint of creativity. What am I talking about here? Let me show you.

The Thesis Theme is a popular theme in the blogosphere, not because it is fancy, but because it is an excellent theme to build on. However, let’s be frank. Many blogs that run Thesis, you sort of get the feeling that it is running Thesis. However, you still wouldn’t be able to conclude for sure. Why? Because the more successful ones have adopted Thesis, but have developed its own unique parts. This is what I’m talking about. Starting from something and building on it.

One of more direct examples I could give you is my mini-sites. I run a lot of mini-sites that sell various things ranging from simple eBooks to tools like directory submitters. Often, I’ll just copy over the same page, change the words from one product to another, and then play around with the site. Sometimes I’ll re-order the paragraphs and other times I’ll change the color of the page. At times, if I’m just flowing with adrenaline, I’ll add more scripts and functions to the site to make the visit a little bit more enjoyable. However, in the end, the core beginning is the same. By doing this, I am able to save money and time mostly while providing the same great quality and easy navigation to my visitors.

Conclusion

I will say this again. I am not promoting plagirism and I am not telling you to regurgitate your old posts. The point I’m trying to get across is that by enhancing your previous works, you both benefit yourself and your reader in the ways I mentioned above.

If you are an old blogger, look through your achives and see what posts could still be pertinent to readers today. See one?  Read through it and see how you can enhance it for today’s visitors new and old.

Are you a new blogger? Read through others’ blogs. See what they are talking about. See what you can give about that topic? Remember, don’t copy. However, I’m sure other bloggers wouldn’t mind you giving your view on the subject. Isn’t that what communication and interaction is after all?

What do you feel about recycling ideas or posts? Let me here your view through the comments, as I do fully realize that this can be quite a controversial assertion.

I probably will stick with Static, as that has been the username I have been using since 2003. However, I’m always on the lookout for something creative, catchy, and connectable to my life. So, for anyone out there searching like me, I decided to look a bit into this username branding–after all, usernames are quite important!

Types of Usernames

There seems to be three clear categories that usernames fall into. It is either one’s real name, something that is “connectable” or memorable, or just plain random.

Real Name

You’ll see a lot of people just using their real name. Actually, most people in the MMO niche use their real names. It has overwhelmingly more pros than cons in that:

• You simultaneously build credit and integrity
• You look very real and serious
• You seem professional
• You never consider having to change your username… or name
• You are attached to it immediately

Although people might worry about your personal information being released to the entire web so much and things along that line, if you are worried that much, you shouldn’t be on the web in the first place. Especially owning domains and working in this Internet marketing field, you can’t always be behind the mask.

Something Connectable

Some people, like myself, use something connectable or memorable as their username. Obviously it doesn’t look as professional and as real. I still recall a member on WebHostingTalk that once PMed me saying that I was a teen in a man’s industry acting as if I was Flash, but instead, Static. No, it didn’t hurt, but it did teach me about the importance of usernames.

Complete Randomness

Some just use really random stuff. My first ever username was actually “dumb_eldore554″ over at the Legends Alliance forums. Later I had it switched to Static–something more memorable and connectable–but dumb_eldore554 was just a really random name. Alright, dumb_eldore slightly resembles the character from Harry Potter, but where the heck did 554 come from!?

3 Ways to Brand Usernames

I’ve quickly realized that usernames can be branded in multiple ways so that you really make that username yours and make any other people using that username a copycat.

Get a Domain

Obviously I can’t own Static.com. It was registered back in 1994. Yeah, I don’t think I even knew about the Internet or even computers then! Heck, probably not even computers DOS games! Yeah, that doesn’t work. However, what if your username was your name? Let’s say… Johnny Sampson II? JohnnySampsonII.com is available right now. Register it, use it, and you are immediately branding it.

Quickly Signup on Many Popular Sites

Recall that reply and the story about @Static on Twitter that I hold right now. I hold the username, Static, on most huge webmaster, Internet marketing, web hosting, and social networking sites. I was quick enough to get hold of them. However, I still don’t have the username on all sites. Why? Someone beat me to it. Obviously, this hurts me when it comes to me wanting to brand my username. As “Static” is a word itself, my branding task is impossible, but if it wasn’t a word, if you hold the username across every site, it makes your branding job a lot easier.

Make It Graphical!

No, not obscene or gore, but I’m talking about a logo. One of my favorite logos is Shoemoney‘s. The “S” is very similar to Superman’s “S”, making it extremely memorable and at the same time, interesting. This pretty much solidifies your branding. People remember images better than words after all!

Conclusion

Do you face similar situations? How do you brand your username or yourself?

By the way, I just received another reply on Twitter from a random person saying, “@Static wuzz good bra? whut about that trip friday?!?! Holla @ ya boi.” What?! Oh the fun and joy of having a word as your username.

As all people in this industry will tell you, they’re not going to tell you what they do. So, all I told him was that you just build a website and then start reaping in as much money as possible from whatever traffic you are getting. So, he went on to ask what website he would create.

I, for one, have been a long supporter of “follow your passion and the money will follow.” However, I do know that some people are making lots without working with what they like. As some of you may know, the only two I’ve been happy to share information about recently is SoccerProz and another education-related website that I will release more info about in the coming weeks. I’ve decided to devote the majority of my online time this summer on these two websites (although I’ll be active here and with my internet marketing sphere). I’m following my interests. I love soccer and I had bittersweet feelings about my college applications days–hence, I’m working on these.

Nonetheless, as I know some people can be successful without following their passion, I told my buddy the two options he has. He can create websites with the focus on chasing money, or he can dig into his interests and hope that money will chase him. I didn’t want my assertion to sound so weak, so I told him that I will follow-up on him with pros and cons for both.

Chasing Money

Pros

• You usually know where you are going.
• Especially when you are starting out, you know that the topic you chose will most likely be fail proof.
• You probably will see some money quickly.

Cons

• You can quickly lose interest.
• You rarely will keep it developing for a long time due to the reason above.
• You probably have a lot of competition, which can be discouraging. (Although this is also true for the passionate topics, it is rarely discouraging when you love the topic.)

Digging Interests (Passion)

Pros

• Obviously, it is fun.
• You often learn a lot more, which makes you dig in more and more.
• You most likely won’t lose interest in it regardless of monetary results.

Cons

• There is a lower percentage of seeing money quickly.
• You might not know which of your many passions you should start with.
• There’s a good chance that your passion is immensely focused that you will start going off track without realizing it.

I guess it really is a toss-up between the two as they both have their valid pros and cons. However, my personal preference is following your passion, especially if you are just starting out, primarily because of the following two reasons:

1. You don’t know if you are going to be staying in this “webmaster-ing industry” for a long term.
2. You really don’t want to bore yourself out.

Webmaster-ing/blogging/marketing/anything is all about patience and working yourself up in the industry. Even if you create a website on some new invention/gadget/software, you are still not going to see green on a single night.

To exemplify this a little bit better, I’ll be documenting SoccerProz growth in a little depth over the course of its development for your benefits.

If you have any other pros and cons on the two sides, feel free to make a comment. Any questions or feedback? ahnternet CommentLuvs.

Ben was, and still is, one of my favorite bloggers as his blog always stands out as one that is personal, yet informative. As a subscriber since the mid-2008, I think I can testify that. However, sometime back in October 2008, my email stopped receiving his blog’s updates and he simply couldn’t be found. Thankfully though, he is back and I thought, “Why not interview this guy?” So here it is.

Static: Hey Ben thanks for giving me an opportunity to interview you. First, can you tell ahnternet readers a little bit about yourself?
Ben: Well I am going to be 27 this 13th, I am in the process of a mutually uncontested divorce. I am a type 1 diabetic. Those are the basic facts. I enjoy working for my business economy level chain hotel as a operations manager. I hope to someday in the near future have my own hotel as a general manager but I am in no real rush as I am still learning. As far as non Internet marketing and non hotel Ben goes I like quick cars of the Supra descent. I own an mk2 MR2 at the moment, will soon be getting a passat turbo wagon though I originally started into the whole Internet Marketing scene via list marketing within the blog niche itself. I saw a serious need for a website that was not problogger.com but was not to simple in its own right. I wanted to attack the niche from my perspective and actually share all my results even if it ment giving away a million dollar secret. I am really motivated to help others through my own experience.

Static: So I was an email subscriber to your blog, and I received an email just a couple weeks ago regarding a comeback. Where have you been the last few months?
Ben: The last few months are a little bit complicated, but I will go ahead and give you the lowdown scoop on what happened. I have not even published this on my own blog yet. Since last March when I was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic which for those that are not aware means I can not live without injecting insulin after most every meal. Which is a serious adjustment. I have been a little more serious about life, getting stuff sorted out and taken care of and not being overwhelmed. Well the change was so great that I am not the same person and as such put undue stress on my soon to be former marriage. This on top of the worst economy for the hospitality industry since probably the great depression of the 30′s means I have had quite a bit on my mind like keeping my staff at the hotel working enough hours to support themselves and families and to keep my hotel open and in business. Now we get to the blog and Ben’s Internet marketing which took the greatest toll of it all first. I was out of commission, but wanting to write daily as I always had. Eventually it became apparent that something was going to have to give so in the hopes of not letting the hard work I had poured into this brand I had created I sold it to a fellow blogger who I will not reveal. They purchased the blog for nearly $1k. It was an undervalued sale and was on short notice but I had to get rid of it to surplus my savings and not let the project die. This along with the previous remarks finally coming to a head and being dealt with we arrive cozily to the end of January when the person in question I had sold the blog to had not paid the hosting and not done anything with the site. I pulled a back up and put it up on my new hosting account and got it back on par. I notified the now former owner that their was a 60 day clause and that he had failed to fulfill it. He did not mind and let me take back over the site without incident. Now I am back and writing and quite happier and better for it

Static: What motivated you to get back into blogging? What’s in it for you?
Ben: I honestly have to say that helping people achieve their goals makes me feel good no matter how insignificant the help is it really gets me revved up. I guess this is why I am in sales/marketing at my own job as well working with people. For me their is a small payoff I think the highest earned income I had from the blog before it went for sale was the $400 I made in the last month. I used it for projects and learning new stuff such as my site flip project that I had never done before or read any material on how to do it. I also once again have to say my supreme motivation and fulfillment comes from helping others though.

Static: Considering that you now have to rebuild the blog’s popularity, what are some methods you are planning on doing to get those readers and traffic back?
Ben: I am going to use the exact same methods I used to build the blog up to its former glory except now I am going to be much harder at it to get it done. Basically comment campaigns, emailing other bloggers, making it worth everyone’s while to read at least one post of mine to consider subscribing and becoming an active participant here at my site. Really nothing legal is off limits and as most know I have a pretty decent network to be able to start to reach people who may not have ever heard of me. My biggest goal to work on is more serps traffic though which has been a challenge in a niche dominated by well established blogs. Thats ok before to long I promise I will dethrone problogger.com.

Static: Good luck there Ben. It looks like you’re in it even more seriously this time around. By the way, are these methods that would work for new bloggers too?
Ben: The methods I use are the methods I write about every day and anyone from a day one wordpress newbie to a grizzled veteran of 10k+ subs can leverage and take advantage of.

Static: Speaking of tips, just out of curiosity, do you have any specific methods that you would recommend, but you aren’t implementing on your blog as after all, Big Ben Patton’s Place isn’t exactly a completely new blog?
Ben: I leave no specific method unused anything that can draw one subscriber I will do. This is a game of inches ladies and gentlemen and success is based off whether your giving inches or taking them. I choose to take them.

Static: So far the interview has been great. I won’t bug you so much more, so just before we close out, where do you see Big Ben Patton’s place going now that you are back? What are some new things you are looking to offer on the blog?
Ben: I see the blog becoming more refined really I want to tenderize my content a bit more so that when I get into mini series worth of pretty hardcore content it is easy to digest for those that may not have ever considered doing anything like what I am actively trying to teach by example. Blogging and Internet Marketing is a very broad genre but they all play off each other and all the subcatagories as well to make you better at everything to earn online, or write online and if you can do those two your doing very well and surely on your way to whatever goal your heart desires.

Static: Thanks for your time Ben. It interesting to get to know you a bit more and your secret tips to a successful blogging journey too. G’luck in the future please do keep in touch!

How did you guys like the interview? The interview was somewhat rushed, and thus, I wasn’t able to ever ask you guys for some questions you may have for Ben. However, he frequently has his own Q&A sessions too, so I’m sure if you have a question that you are dieing to have answered, you can get it.

Also, Ben mentioned that he sees “the blog becoming more refined” and actually, that is exactly what he is doing right now. BenjaminPatton.com will be officially making a move to RealBloggingTips.com, so if you used to be a subscriber of Ben, or are now thinking of becoming one, make sure you subscribe and participate over at RBT.

So, how did you guys like the interview? Informative? A waste of loading time on the blog? I’m thinking of periodically doing interviews, so if you guys like what you are seeing, I’m up for it. Tell me through the comments.

Why am I talking about this all of a sudden? Well first off, let me apologize for using the term “newbie” in the title as personally, I don’t think that is a great word. However, as I consider my days then as a “newbie newbie”, I just thought that I might as well put it there in the title. Second, well, it’s that time of the year. It’s the domain renewing season for most LLLL.net holders.

About a year or so ago, after a match of soccer, I was heading home when one of my closest friends sent me a text message saying that the quad-premium LLLL.net’s are nearly all registered. When I got home, as I had a pretty good .net TLD registration price with Moniker, I spent about $130 dollars investing in 20 quad-premium LLLL.net’s. Since then, I’ve sold three for a price of $5 per domain and I have 17 domains that I’m thinking whether I should or shouldn’t renew. It is not the money part that is bugging me. It’s the entire future of LLLL.net that I believe I don’t fully understand or see. At the moment, I’m feeling myself more and more leaning towards dropping this buying domains for investment purposes thing. Let me tell you why.

You Can’t Win, Win, Win

At least to me, this is what the domain industry has been. I guess you could say that the stock market is similar, but I would have to disagree. I personally believe that the domain industry is, in most parts, for those who were there from the early days. Unless you are planning on coming into the market with some money that you can afford to potentially lose, it is just not worth the risk. You need to learn the tricks, have the tools ready, and simply be ready to make this your living, which most people can’t. If you have a short domain or some premium domain, the chances of someone just knocking at your door asking for a quote with a blank check for you to write is just not possible. This takes me to my next point about time and how domaining as a newbie is definitely just not worth the time.

Too Much Time Consuming

For the amount of time you would need to expect, you probably won’t get a lot back. Chances are that you may just have to renew and renew and renew. I’m not just saying the domain names, but I’m saying the tools, the subscriptions, and a whole lot of other stuff to keep yourself updated. Forums just aren’t going to cut it. You need to spend that extra time to reach out even further to even make a slight impact on the sale of your domains.

I guess that could be the same with all things, but something I learned was that even if you do put in a lot of time into it, you won’t learn much. If you put your time into a field of science, a business, or even a blog, you actually find numerous opportunities to learn. As a domaining newbie (not anymore, but still) you won’t learn too much. The person that buys a domain from you at a reseller price isn’t too interested in you. They are interested in the price. Sad, but true.

No Real Exponential Growth

If you’re doing business, you want your revenue to rise per year. From what I see in domaining though, not many people see this increase per year. I think the problem lies in the fact that not much affects the price of domains except for time, which in this field is availability. Even if you decided to invest some time to seek out end buyers, there is just so much that you can do in regards to the revenue. I just don’t see an exponential growth, which is probably why most people I’ve talked to do this for a hobby (which then, you can pretty much forget exponential growth as you’re just hoping for some few pocket money) and not as a full-time thing. Anyways, the point is that exponential growth does not seem possible with domaining, especially for newbies and not so newbies.

I guess this could be considered one of my sore loser posts after not finding any good sales for my LLLL.net’s… or a post where I am sharing my not so pleasant all the time experience in domaining. You can choose, but personally, I think it’s the latter. Domaining is definitely cool and for those out there that are successful with it, props to you. However, I just feel that for someone without (or sometimes even with) a huge capitol and just a newbie in domaining, I just don’t see the market as being a profitable market.

Think differently? Hit me up with a comment as I’d love to try my skills in this industry again. However, at the moment, I think I’ll either give these domains away on this blog, just drop them, or renew only a few that I feel I could maybe turn into a website (as I have a few pretty nice ones).

I first started outsourcing about a year ago and found that I had a lot of time in my hands. But exactly what do I outsource? The primary product I outsource is content. As a strong believer of “Content is King”, and that quantity is in fact just as important as quality, I am always on the lookout for quality writers who are looking to get consistent jobs at a decent rate. (Hint: If you are a writer, contact me and I may have a job for you.) Also, aside from the quality and king part, content is one of the most time consuming parts, which is also a reason why I outsource it.

Anyways, through outsourcing, it pretty much buys me time to focus on other aspects of development. So far, it may not seem convincing to throw (or in from my view, “invest”) money out there in hopes of making more while doing less work yourself. However, before you keep that thought, note to the wise: You can’t make free money. Even if you are outsourcing, you will need to do some degree of work to get things done. However, the benefits of that “free time” (and by free time, I don’t mean time to get on World of Warcraft, but I mean time to work on other parts of your business) are quite immense.

This post seems a bit unorganized, so let me quickly organize it a bit before I move on further.

1. If you have a lot of stuff to do, you outsource some that would be time consuming and not worth the time for you.
2. You pay the employee a bit.
3. You make sure you make money off of that outsourced product.
4. Simultaneously, you use that “free time” to work on other things.

Still not convinced to outsource? Let me then try to throw some numbers around. These are highly theoretical numbers, but hey, usually you can get something similar to work if you keep on tweaking it and optimizing it.

Let’s say that you allocated $50 into getting some content up to kick-start your blog. We’ll ignore the niche here as that is not so important right now. Anyways, with $50, you can get some pretty sweet content and aplenty of them too, especially at various webmaster forums. Usually the rate is about $0.01 per word, but as more and more writers are emerging, the rates are just dropping. In addition, if you buy in bulk, writers will usually give great discounts.

So with that in mind, let’s say that with $50, you can get yourself 12 articles each 500 words. That’s 6000 words right there and although the rate of $0.01 per word shows that it is worth $60, as I said, discounts and lower rates for quality articles can be found. Anyways, with this 12 articles, you are pretty much ready to go and kick-start the blog. Now, just for easier explanation purposes, let’s make the niche a bodybuilding website. Despite the niche being a bit saturated, it is still quite profitable if you know what you are doing.

With the 12 articles, you can pretty much copy them over to WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, or whatever you are using. That should take you 15 minutes maximum. Now, with the content in its place on the web, you can focus on other parts of developing this blog. Publicity is definitely one you should and would be interested in. Marketing related products like muscle milk is also something you can look into.

I won’t go further down this road on explaining it as that is another completely different story. But, can’t you see how beneficial that $50 was in respect to time and stress that would have been on you? Hey, let’s admit this, but most of us aren’t professional writers and aren’t exactly research kings. You would have probably had to go through several HOURS of research, and then crafting your article with keywords and all those goodies to make it an “attractive” and fun article to read. IF you get finished with that maybe you would have some time to get your blog’s popularity up. After that would you really start to make some money. Why not cut the majority of the work and outsource?

At the moment, I have about $100 or so amount of work being outsourced only in the content area. I won’t disclose anymore regarding SEO, designing, etc., but I can tell you that I outsource a lot of work (and I do mean A LOT) which gives me a lot of time to connect online with others in my niche while also primarily focusing on the monetary side of the website. That isn’t to say that this blog is not written by me of course.

Anyways, hopefully some information in here was helpful and somewhat motivated you to try this path. If dishing out $50 is not something you are comfortable with, try it out first with a $5 article or a $20 design (to sell sponsorship links). In the case it doesn’t work, it’s not like you are losing an arm, so there isn’t much pressure on you. G’luck!

However, still feeling a bit insecure after this unexpected (as if hardwares will give you a notice before failing) disaster, I decided to submit a ticket to just see if Leslie was there. Nope. There was a database error with the support desk and there was just no way of submitting a ticket. So, I decided to check what was up on their forums. Again a database error was the only thing that showed up. Hmm… No support?

Pretty much, instantly, I checked over the offers at WHT and picked myself a new host with a real 24/7 support and a company history of over 5 years. It wasn’t an easy move because being at one place for 28 months, even if you don’t know anyone there other than this one owner, you sort of grow into that place. But sometimes you just need to get practical. Of course, I wasn’t emotional over a tiny hosting account there, but it is just that it felt weird.

Anyways, what am I trying to say? It honestly never hurts to be too careful. Now, although this blog is not a big blog, I have quite a few sites, which I won’t disclose, that do pretty well. A data loss would have a critical hit on the websites. Personally, I don’t have a good backing up habit (the last backup is from November 2008) so for sure a data loss would have affected by revenue, traffic, and potentially even the reputation of the sites.

I wasn’t going to risk any of that after having to go through all that work trying to get these sites where they are now. Anyways, that was my primary reason for a switch. Some of you may have noticed a downtime, although I don’t think there should have been any as I moved the site’s files over before changing the domain’s nameservers.

I’m really glad that I was able to dodge a potential disaster.

Do any of you have any bad stories with hosts? Any stories of backing up? Any stories of you barely dodging what could have been a major tragedy? Well, comment away! Oh yeah, and before you go commenting, please make a backup of your site.