This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up friends, listeners, community. My name is Chris Guillebeau. Welcome to Side Hustle School. So glad you're here. We are in the middle of November coming up on the U.S. Thanksgiving.
That will be next week, at least for those listening in real time. Canada had their Thanksgiving last week. I know lots of other countries don't celebrate, at least officially, the holiday known as Thanksgiving. But it's one of the few holidays I actually like. So I talk about it from time to time.
Just a good way to express gratitude, realize that no matter what else is happening in the world, there's still lots of stuff to be grateful for. And of course there's pie as well. So I'll talk more about that next week, gratitude and pie. Now today, what happens when the focus of your work, your side hustle, let's say, changes over time and you already have some online assets set up. Now by assets, I mean a website, a podcast, an online course, social media handles, or perhaps all of the above.
Well, that's what our caller today is facing. He's calling in from his home base in rural Australia and he runs through a few different scenarios and pros and cons. Very helpful detailed question. He's wondering what I think, should he change his business name or not? Well, I do have some thoughts.
So here's a quick message from our sponsor. Then we're gonna hear from John. Should I change my business name? [Music]
Good night, Chris. This is John from High Clear in rural Northwest Tasmania, Australia.
I've been listening to the show for a couple of years now, always useful, thank you very much. My side hustle is an online no dig gardening course. I have a minimal viable product version on Udemy to test the concept and it's selling, but not as well as I'd like, obviously, but we're getting feedback. I've run a blog and podcast since 2014 and 2016 respectively, World Organic News is the name. Over that time, the focus has shifted from the world of organic production to regenerative farming and gardening.
So do I rename and rebrand and redirect the blog to a new domain or just change the title? I can see possible SEO problems with the name of the domain not matching up. For the podcast, I'm thinking I'll just rename it, change the artwork in the same feed to maintain continuity and better discovery on Apple Podcasts. Does this make sense? Thanks and keep up the good work.
[Music]
Hey, John, thank you so much for listening in Tasmania. Fun fact, I've never actually been to Tasmania. I've been to Australia many times, but have yet to visit Tasmania proper. So hopefully I'll get the chance at some point whenever your country opens its borders again. I totally understand why the borders of the country are closed for the moment, but looking ahead, also this sounds like a great side hustle, a no dig gardening course.
Sign me up for that. Listeners, you can check it out. I'll give you the website in one moment. But overall, yes, I do think a name change might be in order here. And let's go over the details, many of which John has helpfully provided in his message.
So he has these assets already. He's got his Udemy course, his website, his podcast, probably some other stuff as well. Let's start with the podcast. Now he mentions there, he's thinking of renaming it, changing the artwork, but maintaining the same feed. That way he can keep continuity and have better discovery with Apple Podcasts and other providers.
Absolutely the right decision there. Like if people are already subscribed to that podcast feed, you don't wanna lose them. If I were to change the name of this podcast, for example, to, I don't know, side hustle school online, no dig gardening, which I probably am not gonna do, but let's just say for the sake of argument, I wouldn't wanna lose you, my listener. So I would just maintain that same podcast feed. It would just be a very simple change in the backend.
Now as for the website and domain, yes, there is that SEO issue of like the domain not matching up with the previous keywords, but I think the reason you're changing the name is because your focus has changed. I think it was from organic production to regenerative farming and gardening. So going forward, you're gonna be focused on those keywords more anyway. And plus I always think it's good when people are worried about losing SEO results or something like that, you should always investigate what that actually is. Like, are you getting a ton of traffic to this old website under this old name?
Or is it somewhat minimal? If it's somewhat minimal, then the cost of changing is low. So overall in this case, I think the name change is a good idea. And John is not gonna lose the majority of what he has built so far. He's just changing the name.
He's still gonna have all his content. People who've been going to the website will now just be redirected to a new one, which by the way, listeners, if you wanna check out his project, worldorganicnews.com, but that may or may not have a different name at some point, but presumably John will redirect the old domain if so. So that way anybody who has that domain already in their mind or was looking at it before, if they go to it, they will automatically be transported to the new website. So that's what I think about that. Thank you so much again, John.
Thank you listeners. If you have a question, come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. I so enjoy this process. I look forward to hearing what you're up to and I wish you a wonderful day. My name is Chris Guillebeau.
This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the Onward Project.
