I have been pruning domains and hosting today. I had several old projects that never really got off the ground. With hindsight I spread myself far too thinly instead of focusing more. But I get bored easily and enjoyed creating new and pretty blogs đŸ™‚
Anyway, over the last few days I've been taking a cold hard look at what some of the sites are achieving and pruning domains and hosting that aren't profitable. It's quite tough to kiss some of them goodbye, as I've put hours of work into them.
On the bright side, I've learned a lot from doing them so it's time now to focus on what is working and what isn't. It will be a relief not to have to keep updating – and paying for – so many different sites.
The other thing that came out of my excess of sites was being able to find a clear winner when compared to several non-starters. I hadn't chosen well to start with, so being able to watch the performance of several different sites helped me learn what had gone wrong. There may have been easier ways, but everyone seems to have different opinions, so I decided to just see for myself.
 Pruning domains and hosting – options
Having decided which are to go, I have the choice of waiting until the domain names expire or just cutting them dead. I shall probably do the former and maybe try auctioning them somewhere. Some are “quite nice” names – in my opinion of course.
Hopefully YOU learned the “focus” lesson earlier than I did. If not, perhaps now is time to spend an hour or so just listing your projects and how much time you can devote to them all.
Not much else going on today as my son dropped in for a surprise visit and stayed overnight. Being able to drop everything and spend time with him is certainly one of the best bonuses of being self-employed.
Ah well, he's gone now, so back to pruning domains and hosting:-(
Updated April 2021
I stumbled upon this article just now, spotted a mistake and – being me – had to correct it.
It's frightening 8 years since I first wrote the article, one of the first ever on my blog, so I thought I'd add an update from my more experienced point of view.
It's all pretty good news really:
- 8 years on, I'm still here blogging, when so many of my contemporaries from back then gave up and left the blogging arena
- My focus is still a ‘work-in-progress' but I do like to think my blog has improved
- Experience has taught me that some contacts / suppliers are reliable and give good and fast support. Some do not.
One of the most important things I have learned about starting an online business over the years is – don't be a cheap-skate. You CAN'T make money online without some basic investment, especially on infrastructure for your business – the bare minimum being a domain name and good hosting.
I've written here about the disaster that befell me when I tried to ‘get away with' cheap hosting.
Luckily I hit on a good domain name registrar first time and I'm still with them, 8 years on. That's GoDaddy.com.
Yes, you can find domain names a little cheaper and I'm sure you'd be fine with them. But IF you're as non-web-savvy as I was, and still am to some extent, when you have a support question – and almost inevitably you will – you'll want someone to give you a quick answer. Ideally by phone, in your own country, and immediately.
That's one of the main reasons I am still with GoDaddy after eight years, and have no intention of moving from them to say a few dollars a year.
