Please forgive me if this post is a little self serving. I do have an agenda with it, but I’ll do my best to add a something informative as well. I’ll even let you know what my agenda is. I’d like to introduce Van SEO Design, which will, in a few months time, be the new name of my business and this site. I’ve told a few people already, but thought I’d let the cat out of the bag so to speak.
The reason for the change is I decided a couple of months ago that I’m really not a web host or at least not primarily a web host. What I am is a web designer and developer and a learning, but still effective SEO. It didn’t make sense to have a business name and domain name with the word hosting featured in it anymore. In all honesty it wasn’t the original name I wanted, but I reached a point where I was tired of looking and settled on something I wasn’t completely satisfied with. Live and learn I guess. I’ll still be offering hosting, but I won’t be featuring it as prominently as I do now.
The new domain is a littler shorter 12 characters compared to 17 and hopefully a little easier to remember and type. Mostly it’s more reflective of what I really do; seo and design. The van is from my forum username vangogh, which I’ve probably done a better job branding over the last year than my business name. I alluded to the change in this post about branding and domain names so I won’t go into all the details here, but I do like the way the new domain sounds in my head aside from all my other reasons for using it. I’ve also registered a variety of other names along the same lines. I do like the idea of getting in some keywords for when people link back to the site, since both web design and search engine optimization are such competitive fields. I might as well see any competitive edge I can.
I mentioned last week that I’d re-branded the blog as TheVanBlog and you can already access it at www.thevanblog.com. I’m already liking how much quicker it is to type than the longer URL you’ll currently see in the address bar. I think it gives the blog a more unique and memorable name and it seems much more brandable to me than Online Business Blog.
I’ll still be hanging on to the YellowHouseHosting domain. I’ll be using it for awhile and will probably find a use for it once the I officially make the switch. I’d be happy to hear what everyone thinks of the new domain by the way so feel free to drop a comment and let me know what you think.
As for the self serving part of this post I mostly just wanted to get a link online to the new url so the search engines can find it and add it to their index. There’s nothing to see there at the moment. Just a page with some links back here, but I want to let the domain age for Google and thought I might as well take advantage of the time between now and when the site is ready. When I originally set up the YellowHouseHosting domain I didn’t have a site on it for about 6 months. I grabbed the domain when I needed it for email and had very little under it for awhile. It remained a single page with some contact information and later an image or two. I did get a few links back to it from sites I’d designed and when I launched the site it already had a little search engine love which provided a more visibility at the outset than if I had launched the domain and site at the same time. Keep that in mind if you have a new idea for a site, but won’t be ready to launch right away It’s probably a good idea to get at least a page up with a few links pointing toward it to help with Google aging filters. Do try to make the page useful though. I’ll slowly try to make mine a more useful as well.
Every so often I’ll add a few things to the page. And when I settle on a design I’ll add the new look while I’m developing the site. If I can’t decide on one design maybe I’ll post a few and ask for opinions. I may even document some of my thoughts on the whole redesign as I go since I think it can be of value. If there’s anything specific you’d like to know please let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
For now I’m working behind the scenes making business decisions, doing some keyword research, redoing my business plan, working on the site architecture and anything else I can think to do before working out an actual design. I think the best designs are the ones that can effectively communicate and meet the goals of the business and so I’m likely to spend considerably more time researching and making decisions how best to proceed than I am to actually develop the site. I would imagine once the design itself is ready the development will be pretty quick.
Please let me know if you would find it interesting if I were to post my thoughts while I rework the business. There are some things I won’t post, but there’s much more I’d be happy to share if anyone would find it helpful. I’m planning on discussing much once the new site is live, but I can always post as I go.
Thanks for putting up with a little bit of self serve. I’ll have a another change to announce tomorrow (I think) or early next week. And again if your name is googlebot the new domain is Van SEO Design. It’s the same domain for anyone else who wants to see a page with very little on it at the moment.
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