Senjo Marketing Site Background
I started blogging in December of 2007. I had absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing but I was determined to get it done. In the coming months, I’ll be blogging about the lessons I’ve learned since then but for now I want to focus on the steps I’ll be taking to rebuild this blog. If at any point you see something I’m proposing or that I’ve done that you really think is wrong, let’s talk about it.
Let me continue.
As I said, I started this blog in 2007. I started with a basic theme but if you have any experience with WordPress going back that far you know that NOTHING was simple about it. There was always some piece of the puzzle that didn’t work right. That’s where I reached out repeatedly for assistance from the WordPress.org site and an early mentor of mine, Mark Hansen. The biggest problem I had was I knew almost no CSS or PHP which it pretty much is built on. My knowledge of HTML was barely rudimentary at best. So, you can see I was in for a hell of a ride.
Eventually, I got some sense of post layout and templating. I also started to understand the value of quality backlinks. I read and studied like crazy and tried to pass along every bit of knowledge I could to my readers. The problem with that model was that’s not how to stand out. Yes, I gave posts my own take but I was pretty much reviewing and talking about the same things everybody else was. I didn’t have any clear cut goals except to make money while helping others avoid my mistakes. Not a bad mission statement but not outstanding either. Plus, I lacked the details as to how I was going to do that.
I kept at this blog chronicling my journey from ebay power seller to online marketer. Again, I never sat myself down and drew a map to show how I could best help people while growing a business. My assumption was that if I just kept at it, the details would take care of themselves.
As any veteran business owner knows, if you don’t have a roadmap, you’ll never reach your destination. I think it’s very easy for us online types to buy into the hype and forget the hard work that are the details that matter most.
As I mentioned in my last post, losing my dad really got me to stop and ask myself if I were: A) Living the life I dreamed of years ago or B) Even on the right path. As I couldn’t answer yes honestly to either of these, I really started looking inward for who I was and what I wanted. In the coming months, I’ll be sharing with you the decisions I’ve made and how they affect my business. But for right now, I have a website in dire need of tearing down, replanning and rebuilding. In the next post, I’ll lay out the outline for the work I’m going to do. First, let me tell you briefly what I see are the challenges.
My Main Challenges
- Outdated content
- Irrelevant/expired links
- Several theme changes with remnant code that I may need radar to find
- Changing focus of site
- Visitor unfriendly layout
- Mobile unfriendly theme
- Ugly design/crappy header
- Old site slogan
- Poor monetization strategy
I could go on but I think you get the point. In short, the entire site needs to be revamped. I’ve posted a question on the 48days.net forum asking how they thought I should proceed and the answers were just about split between being careful not to overdo it and tear it down and rebuild it. I’ve chosen the latter. I know Google won’t be happy at first with my choice. However, when it sees what an awesome, trusted resource it becomes, they will come around. I’m sure of it. Stick with me for this incredible journey!
Have you ever torn down and rebuilt an old site? How did you do it and how did it work? Leave me a comment below so we can talk about it. I’d like as much help as possible so feel free to share this post with your facebook, twitter or Google + friends.
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