Blog relaunch: Why starting over is a really bad idea

Posted on | July 4, 2010 | 1 Comment

I have many blogs. Some would say too many.

Over at The Blog Cop, I’ve been looking at the problems associated with continually relaunching your blog. How many more times do you need to wipe the blog and start over?

Ironically, I’m not following my own advice. This is my first post on the newly-relaunched benbarden.com. It’s perhaps the worst example of a relaunch, so feel free to call me out for all the blogging mistakes I’m making. I’ll get you started:

  • not importing the posts from the previous version of the blog – the best ones will reappear in a freshly rewritten format, but it’s going to take a while to get them all over – and I’m not planning to rush them all in at once;
  • not stating the focus of the blog from the start – you may whine, you may moan, but in fact I do have some kind of a rough guide for this blog – if I can remember it;
  • not having a custom theme in place – well, there’s a reason why I’m not promoting this blog heavily at the moment. But if I’ve somehow managed to write a decent first post that people share with their friends… I’ll be instantly regretting my decision to put up a half-baked blog that gets smartened up later.

Sometimes though, it’s good to start over. I forget why. Anyway, I thought it would be better to put some kind of post on the new blog so the most faithful of my readers don’t get confused when they see the lack of content on the site.

I’ll sort out the theme shortly. OK, I lie; I’ll bribe my wife with Jammie Dodgers and maybe she’ll do a bit of front-end wizardry for me. Until then, you’re stuck with the impersonal but functional “Twenty Ten” theme for WordPress 3.0, an apt name considering what year it is. In six months, it’s not going to seem so hip, believe me.

Maybe Twenty Eleven?

Category: Site Specific

Comments

One Response to “Blog relaunch: Why starting over is a really bad idea”

  1. SweetMummy
    July 6th, 2010 @ 10:35 pm

    even moving blog location is a pain, I can’t even imagining complete relaunch! WOW!

    I have been moving some of my stuff over too, since my previous blogging platform didn’t have any kind of ‘export’ feature, so I’m having to do it all by hand, one post at a time. It goes slowly, doesn’t it!

    … so I guess in a way it IS a relaunch, isn’t it? LOL!

    at least now I have my domains forwarding properly. :) If only I could figure out some better way to get everything moved over from the ‘original’ blog…

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