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Today's listener has an older food blog she hasn't touched in years, and now wants to sell baked goods. Should she convert the blog, or start over?
Hi, Chris, this is Mary Jo from Shakopee, Minnesota. I've been subscribed to your blog for years — I followed Side Hustle School from the start and I've read all your books. I started a WordPress food blog four years ago to share my love of baking. I soon realized I didn't like blogging, so I made fewer than 50 posts and never made any money from it, and I haven't posted since mid-2020. I had two successful cottage food businesses pre-internet, and I loved doing that, so I decided to start a new one. I'm signed up as a vendor at two markets coming up fast, and I have Facebook, Instagram, and PayPal for payments, so I need an e-commerce website. Can you offer advice on the pros and cons of converting my food blog to e-commerce versus starting a new website from scratch?
The pros of keeping it: you already have some content and a brand. The cons: is it really relevant to what you're doing now? That's the real question — relevance, plus how you feel about the old brand. When you look at it, do you think "it'd be cool to do more here," or "this is really old, it doesn't feel like me"? If it doesn't give you a great vibe, start over.
One more consideration: SEO. If the old site gets meaningful organic traffic or has valuable inbound links, that's a point in favor of keeping and converting it. But if traffic is minimal, that's not a factor.
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