Reorganising my web presence

Two domains, and a structure thta no longer suits me

[graeme_p]

My personal web presence is split across two domains.

example.co.uk is a blog, originally intended to be purely personal, covering my thoughts on whatever - politics, religion, business, and some particular passions, lets call one "gadget info and advocacy" (not a huge amount of content) and the other "whatsitology" (lots of content) in deference to WW rules.

I also have example.net which is a (business) profile site - i.e. a page or two about how brilliant I am and a few sharing my great thoughts with the world.

example.co.uk has a lot more content, traffic and links. It has always been a blog and the structure up to the top level is pretty much typical of a blog.

I also have two other domains, one all about widgets and one which is a site for my business (example.net links to this). I see no reason to change this.

I am currently thinking of doing the following:

1. launching a separate site for "gadget info and advocacy". This may turn out to be profit making if it succeeds, but I do not really care - I am doing it primarily because it is a cause. It has some political links ("our right to gadgets") but is primarily information and education and the political angle is not a topic society at large cares about .
2. launching another site to share my great thoughts on whatsitology - this is an intrinsically controversial/politicised subject. This is also a platform to reach a greater audience, and possibly yet another new career.

So both these blur the boundaries between business and personal. particularly as what I think on these things may have repercussions (possibly negative, but I think overall reputation building will be positive) for my existing business too.

Now the question is, what content I should put where.

I think "gadget info and advocacy" has a lot of content (guides, howtos, opinion pieces, links to gadget related services) that requires a separate site. I would ideally like to have a lot of UGC there (one reason I am doing it is that the best current sources of info, such as a gadget wiki, are not fit for purpose - good content let down by being on the wrong system). So it needs to be on a separate domain.

The whatsitology content is not so obviously one to put on another domain. Its very much my opinions, but in a much more extended form than the blog - an online book or books is more the aim. Very likely available as an ebook too. So its very much authored by me and associated with me.

What I cannot decide:

1. Whether to merge my blog and profile page into one, and which domain to use if I do.
2. Whether to blog about all the subjects (business, whatsitology, gadgets etc.) on the same domain. The ccTLD matters a bit because gadget related content is often/largely country specific.
3. if I do merge the sites whether to change the paths of existing content (neater to say move everything to /blog) or try to work the new content around the existing (the paths are /yyyy/mm/nnnn and /categories/nnn and so on so easy to separate, but also easy to redirect).

The reason for 2. is that I have tried blogging on two of my other sites, and the posts are not read very much. It also means I have do decide whether, for example, a business related posted should go on example.net, or the company site, or example.co.uk. This will only get worse as the boundaries become blurred.

[tangor]

This seems like an "organization" project. Organize for who?

You or the user?

Make that decision first and answers will start to appear.

As far as g is concerned, they do the organization on their end, by their rules. :)

That said, I tend to organize things they way they suit me... after all, I am the curator of that content and it MUST make sense to me, first!

YMMV

As for established sites, established users, etc. any CHANGE is bound to result in either confusion or cheers. One can only make the change and see what happens.

[graeme_p]

Organise for the user, definitely.

None of these sites is well established enough in terms of search traffic for me to worry about Google, and they all get (or should get for the new ones) traffic from multiple sources so Google is not everything.

[blend27]

"whatsitology" -- seems like a rare click-bate, here here term.

But lets use it for GTP-Sake(don-wana-spell it left--or right...)

-- What I cannot decide: >>> are you are going to a new Soups(1+many), and is yyyy not like YYY and what if we Merge?

Saturday.

[tangor]

Organise for the user, definitely.

That's 80% of the question already answered. Now all one needs do it figure out how the users would like to see the data and you are gold!

[graeme_p]

"whatsitology" -- seems like a rare click-bate, here here term.

Not sure what you mean by that, It is a stand in for the real terms because I though you are not allowed to use real terms on WW. It is definitely not clickbait - it is an area of academic study at one level, although I am more interested in looking at it from a particular angle I have experience of rather than doing what people with PhDs in it do.

That's 80% of the question already answered

The EASY 80%!

I have no idea how users will react. If I merge all the blogs will people who do not like my politics or religion be put off my other posts? Will people interested in one topic be interested in view that come from similar attitudes and though processes in others? One common factor across my views in all things (even business) is that many of my views disagree with consensus/common views and attitudes. I have found, for example, that some of the FB friends I have made through "gadget advocacy" have also liked views on apparently disparate things.

[tangor]

If I merge all the blogs will people who do not like my politics or religion be put off my other posts?

This is not a reorganization question! Content is content, regardless how it is organized.

Some things should be kept separate if there are divergent goals to accomplish. On the other hand, if consolidation and mix have OTHER benefits, for you or the user, that should also be considered.

[graeme_p]

I have been thinking further bout this.

There is a commonality of attitude in my content on all the above. A lack of trust in organisations and authorities, caution about outsourcing, promotion of self reliance, promotion of keeping control, protection of privacy, scepticism about received wisdom, fact checking etc.

You can see it in my past comments here - e.g. my distrust of "cloud" solutions.

So i am trying to balance the unknown benefit of cross-promotion with the unknown risk of annoying people.

[tangor]

Fifteen years back I'd say "Stand by your convictions."

These days ... not sure what to say. (sigh)

[graeme_p]

Fifteen years back I'd say "Stand by your convictions."

Ironically, that is part of one of the opinions I think will be unpopular with some!

I think I will split off the "gadget info and advocacy" site. I am most likely to need content from other people there, and it is a community that has a lot of people who are vehemently on the other side of politics from the politicians who are in their favour. "Gadget" was probably the wrong word - more of a how you live you life thing.

I might still keep all my blog posts together, and put content where I want to emphasise I am the author (e.g. the "whatsitology") on the current blog domain.

I think I will not change the paths, and move only the homepage and archive/category pages of the blog to other locations and keep the posts the same. Always avoid changing urls if you can, right?

[tangor]

Always avoid changing urls if you can, right?

You betcha! That IS the real "link juice" and any changes will set the value back to ZERO.