Does a name matter?
So I've pivoted my approach for my newsletter.
Originally it was me doing case studies on made up business ideas and opportunities.
I'm now focusing on business concepts and metrics. This has attracted a lot more followers who the content is immediately relevant to. I plan to stick with this approach.
The original name of the newsletter is Steal My Idea (https://www.stealmyidea.io/)
I'm torn if I should change the name of my newsletters to be more in line with the go-forward content. I have a few potential names in mind but not sure if this is wasting my time.
Pros:
- Better align subject matter to name for new subscribers
- Still small enough to change without TONS of damage
Cons:
- Potentially lose backlinks
- Distraction from writing and doing real work to build audience
Any guidance from the people here?
I would definitely recommend changing the name. I'm usually on the side of "name isn't that big of a deal" but I think that concept applies more when the name is generic. In your case, the name is very strong and is a great name for your original approach but if you are wanting to pivot, I think it probably is going to be confusing for people checking you out for the first time.
This actually happened to me when visiting your site. Before seeing this post, I saw @nikwen post ( https://www.indiehackers.com/post/learn-which-growth-metrics-to-track-for-your-startup-8ccc891d35 ). I saw the link to a site called "Steal My Idea" I briefly clicked through to your site and was partly confused. The name sounds like the site is for sharing potential business ideas but it didn't really match the content I was seeing so I wasn't really sure what it was all about and moved on.
I think if the top of the line name and branding pointed more towards your goal for the site, it would have made more sense to me.
As far as the con of losing backlinks, I don't think that is as big of a deal since you own the domain and aren't using substack URLs directly so you can set up redirects (I'm not an SEO expert so this may not be completely accurate). From a technical standpoint, you should be able to use a 301 redirect (a permanent redirect) from each of your old posts to the matching posts on your new site.
For example, lets take this URL: https://www.stealmyidea.io/p/secret-rules-of-thumb-for-sales-planning
Lets say your new site is named: https://www.mynewname.com
You would want to copy all that content to your new site so that you have a URL for the matching content on your new site. Meaning something like this should exist on your new site:
https://www.mynewname.com/p/secret-rules-of-thumb-for-sales-planning
OR
https://www.mynewname.com/my-new-blog-structure-does-not-match-substack/secret-rules
Before changing make sure you know each of the URLs for your original posts. You would want a list of every URL and where it should redirect to. Then all you need is real cheap hosting for stealmyidea.io.
You could get hosting set up for stealmyidea.io at DreamHost.com if you don't have a host you prefer (just purchase their cheapest hosting) (I'm not affiliated at all and don't currently use their hosting). Then you create an .htaccess file and set up redirects for every one of your posts:
I believe that is the structure you want (you may want to search for "htaccess redirect" to confirm). You want to make sure you use "301" redirect because that means a permanent redirect. The other type of redirect is a "302" which means a temporary redirect which you do not want to use for this type of situation.
So to sum it up, I'd recommend a name change to align more with your current direction and then use 301 redirects to preserve your old backlinks.
hey @agraddy quick update here. so I bought my new domain. and I have my newsletter now hosted there.
And I have a spreadsheet of all my old URLs and their endings.
how do I set up a .htaccess file? Right now I don't have any sort of server (I don't think) because the site is just hosted through GoDaddy
Is that what you were saying use a service like dreamhosting to do? or is that basically the same thing as godaddy?
sorry for stupid / non technical question
Hey, that's great - there are no stupid questions - a few questions from my end:
So to clarify, GoDaddy provides both "registrar" services and "hosting" services. Registrar services are where you purchase your domain and pay for it each year (or
pay for multiple years at once). Hosting is when you have a server you can upload files to that display on a website. Hosting services usually charge a monthly or yearly fee.
Sometimes these services are blended together where your fees are mixed (GoDaddy and many registrars these days offer hosting too and mix the fees together).
I generally recommend keeping your Registrar and Web Hosting as separate services (if you ever have an issue with one, you can move to another service - if they are on the same service and you have an issue, you could be completely locked out of your site until the issue is resolved).
GoDaddy is known for having terrible hosting services. I've seen multiple reports of websites randomly throwing errors and temporarily going offline. I'm a fulltime freelance developer and communicating with freelance developers who provide "increase website loading speed" services, if a client is using GoDaddy, one of the first todo items is to get them off of GoDaddy. Using GoDaddy as a registrar is fine, using them as a host is not a good idea.
Based on your other comments, I'm assuming you are just using GoDaddy as a registrar (technically, for your original website, Substack was your web host). In order to redirect your old posts on your old website to your new website, you will need hosting (which is why I recommended Dreamhost's cheap plan). Normally hosting would be to upload files but in your case, it will just be an .htaccess file that you upload that basically says "every request that comes into this server, redirect it to this other URL".
Once you get me the answers to those top three questions, I can let you know what should be entered into your .htaccess.
I realize this is a lot of info and may be a bit overwhelming, but once you get the hang of it all, it is all pretty simple.
Wow so glad you replied @agraddy lol. Went through the ringer the last two days.
You are correct in assuming I was just using Godaddy as my registrar. Substack is my web host. I assume now I need to find a web host for my old site stealmyidea.io because it's technically stranded now that substack isn't hosting it. Right?
So maybe I use dreamhost like you said in prior comment?
Yeah, sign up for the cheapest Dreamhost shared hosting plan (I almost always choose to pay by month so that I have flexibility if I ever want to move services):
https://www.dreamhost.com/hosting/shared/
When you sign up, it will ask you for your domain. Choose that you already have a domain and enter: stealmyidea.io
Once the server is set up with Dreamhost, you will need to point your domain at the Dreamhost server using DNS. Dreamhost should provide you with instructions. There are usually two options:
If you have other services already set up with stealmyidea.io that you want to continue using (like email), then you probably want to use option 2 and just point the A records at Dreamhost.
Or, if you aren't using the domain for anything else, option 1 is probably easier.
Here is a Dreamhost help article explaining how to do it:
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004289812-How-to-host-your-domain-at-DreamHost-if-it-is-registered-at-another-company
Once you have the DNS pointed at Dreamhost, stealmyidea.io should show a "Dreamhost coming soon" page (or something like that).
The next step is to upload an .htaccess file with all the redirects. Here are a couple Dreamhost articles explaining how to set up .htaccess redirects:
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/216456227--htaccess-overview
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/215747748-How-can-I-redirect-and-rewrite-my-URLs-with-an-htaccess-file-
If every single URL matches, just the base domain name has changed, you might be able to use something like this in your .htaccess file:
I haven't really tested that and pulled it from ServerFault:
https://serverfault.com/questions/279996/how-do-you-redirect-urls-with-a-query-string-to-another-host
Basically what that .htaccess code is saying is if a request comes in that does not match "mostlymetrics.com", redirect it to "mostlymetrics.com" with all the query strings included.
Couple final notes, working with .htaccess can be a bit of a pain at times (browsers will cache redirects so you think your .htaccess file isn't working but your browser has an old value cached). I usually use a brand new incognito/private browser window for testing .htaccess file changes since that will guarantee you don't have anything cached.
Files that start with a period, like ".htaccess" are "hidden files". Sometimes your file browser or FTP program will default to not showing hidden files and you need to turn it on to actually see the files.
If you don't know what FTP is that's not a problem. I know the first time I heard that term, I was completely lost. It stands for File Transfer Protocol. It is a way to transfer files between a computer and a server (you typically use an FTP program like FileZilla to do the transfer).
I realize this is a lot but hopefully it points you in the right direction. If you run into any problems or have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.
This is both incredibly thoughtful and helpful. So first and foremost, thank you.
I'm usually also of the camp "a name doesn't really matter" but hearing your experience of landing on the site and bouncing is a perfect real world example. Kind of a holy shit realization for me. I don't want to mislead or mis market what I'm producing. And I only have a short period of time to catch someone's attention and get them to commit to a subscription. If the name is pushing them away, not the content, that's a problem.
And since I own the domain, not substack, it seems like I have more freedom.
You've made me feel much better about the redirects. I'm not an SEO or website expert so I was pretty nervous about it. I had no idea what a .htacess file is but I'm about to go down a rabbit hole! thanks so much.
I guess now I need to think of a name...
Finding new names can be fun....or frustrating - hopefully it is fun! I'm assuming you know this but in case not, my go to site when trying to figure out a name is https://instantdomainsearch.com/ (it helps to quickly scratch out ideas when the domain isn't available). I haven't found a quicker domain search tool.
One other thought I figured I'd share. When moving to a new domain, you could also use it as a way to relaunch content you have already posted. Your new users wouldn't know it had been posted before (your older subscribers might be annoyed).
Meaning, instead of moving all the content at once you repost the content every week or every few days and repromote it/ remarket it. When you post the content on your new site and promote it, add the redirect for just that item. This would probably cause some more technical issues since you aren't redirecting everything at once so may not be worth it from that aspect but just figured I'd throw out there the idea of reusing the content as additional marketing. (another way to do it, would be to repost the old content on the new site every few days and then once all the old content is on the new site, then implement the redirects - you might have some duplicate content for a little bit, which can hurt ratings, but as long as you eventually do the redirects, you should be able to remove any duplicate content issues when you do the finalize redirects).
This is a recommendation people use on Twitter a lot (retweeting old posts). I'm not a fan of retweeting old posts because I'm then seeing old content that I've already seen but it seems to be an effective strategy that a lot of people use - I think you could probably do something similar with your content.
Nope!