If you are thinking of starting a new blog as a business, be careful not to use your personal name as the blog title unless you fully intend to never sell it. Using your personal name is a seemingly simple choice if you are trying to create a brand around your expertises, but it doesn’t give you the option of easily selling the business in the future. So, unless you are specifically marketing your services or promoting yourself, then choosing a personally disconnected domain name and blog title is a better long term solution.

After enrolling in Yaro Starak’s Blog Master Mind Course, I made the executive decision to change this blog’s title and domain name from Charles McKeever’s Internet Marketing Blog (CharlesMcKeever.com) to Open Source Marketer (OpenSourceMarketer.com). The decision to make the switch was based largely on the idea that the blog was being marketed as a resource for Internet Entrepreneurs on the topic of Internet Marketing. If my name continued to be pushed out front as the brand grew then it might be difficult to sell the blog to an interested buyer in the future.

Understand, the approach here is not to plan an exit strategy from the start, but rather to simply consider the possibilities from the start and head off any future issues. My name can still be associated with the blog as the primary author of Open Source Marketer without being the primary name on the “letterhead”.

Making the decision to change early in the business building process made it easier to change rss feeds, mailing lists, domain pointers, email accounts, and external listing that were pointing to the blog. For the most part the process was painless.

However, here are a few additional items that might hit a more developed blog harder.

1. Search Engine Ranking - changing domain names can mean that you will have to rebuild your current search ranking for your domain.
2. Page Rank - similar to search engine ranking, loss of Google Page Rank can also be something to consider.
3. Back links - the number of back links that you have worked hard to build will now need to be directed to your new domain name.
4. External listing - if you are listed in directories or link exchanges, then you will need to make sure those get updated or directed to your new domain.

So, how can you minimize the impact of a move to an existing blog?

1. If you can’t redirect your traffic to the new domain, then leave the blog running and link to your new blog.
2. Notify your readers that you are moving to a new domain and let them know why you are making the change.
3. Cross pollinate any rss and email lists that apply to both blogs and try to get the subscribers to migrate to the new blog.
4. Take everything one step at a time because you are guaranteed to miss something. Just correct anything you missed and keep moving. It will be less stressful that way.

So as you might guess there is more to establishing a blog as a business than just popping open a browser window. Offline businesses have had to deal with these types of issues already and the online offering is not all that different. If you’re trying to come up with a name, stick to keyword research for your topic and target audience and leave the vanity domain to something a little more directly related to you.

Good luck,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

P.S. Seriously, if you are looking for an exceptional course on building a blog into a business then check out Yaro Starak’s Blog Master Mind program. Having personally been enrolled in the course I can tell you that the information you will receive is top rate.

- CM

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