Is it time to start over with a new blog? Lessons I've learned...

[chardee42]

My blog is approximately 4 months old.

Two weeks ago I stopped paying for traffic on Project Wonderful.

Yesterday, my blog hit an all-time low and got 1 hit... and it was from me!

I'm thinking maybe its time to take the things I've learned since starting the first blog and start over.

Instead of a general dog blog, I would like to find a great niche with minimal competition from the start and use a keyword rich domain name.

What do you think?

[Cephus]

If you already stopped paying for hosting, then in effect you've already killed the blog you have. No one will be able to find you when you move to another domain so if you feel that you want to start over, this is a good time to do it.

[chardee42]

Thanks for the reply.

The site is still up and running. I haven't done anything different yet. I'm simply trying to figure out how to proceed.

If I start over, I will probably use the same hosting and install a new instance of Wordpress.

[Nathan]

I think that your domain name is catchy. The problem is that your blog category is very competitive and you have to have something to make your blog stand out if you want to succeed.

[stephen todd]

Originally Posted by chardee42

I'm thinking maybe its time to take the things I've learned since starting the first blog and start over.

Instead of a general dog blog, I would like to find a great niche with minimal competition from the start and use a keyword rich domain name.

What do you think?

I think that at last, somebody is listening to me

I've been saying create a low competition keyword list for a niche, and use one of the phrases for your domain name, for months now

I'd go further, and make sure the niche has the ability to make you some money as well - from both adsense and amazon products - in order to keep you motivated and pay your expenses

[chardee42]

@Nathan
Thanks. I like "ifdogscouldread" as well and spent many hours brainstorming to come up with it.
Its very hard to find good topics that don't already have 1K well written articles about a topic. Not to mention, a lot of them are written by DVMs which are far more more qualified for me.

@stephan
It sounds like your vote is to start over.

[maccam87]

instead of giving up why dont u just do a new blog and new domain name and all that that redirect from your old domain so if you have any regular readers you wont lose them and build it up that way dont know if you already know but use the free google keyword tool best thing to find niche keyword

[chardee42]

I like the idea of redirecting my blog. The only problem is that I don't know if I want to stay in the extremely competitive niche of dog blogs. I think I need to find one that isn't quite as competitive.

[Nathan]

Originally Posted by chardee42

I like the idea of redirecting my blog. The only problem is that I don't know if I want to stay in the extremely competitive niche of dog blogs. I think I need to find one that isn't quite as competitive.

Right, I definitely agree that you should try a new niche. But be sure to pick a niche that will interest you enough that you can write regular articles on it.

[chardee42]

@Nathan
I was talking with my wife over lunch and told her I found a good niche that had low competition. After telling her what is was, she looked at me funny and said, "yeah, but do you want to write about ******* every week??"