I’ve been out of town for a few days but just returned home to the city, where it’s time for beers, wings, and the Patriots game. As always, thanks for checking out my blog today. Here are a few updates.
– It’s only been live for a few days, but I find Google Instant extremely annoying and distracting. The problem is that generally as I search, totally unrelated listings come up until I complete the first related word or phrase. It’s distracting to my eyes, and it seems to make Firefox run much slower for me. I really don’t like it and am only keeping it live for now to see if I can learn something from it. I will probably turn it off in Firefox but keep it on in Safari for the time being.
– The first acting coach signed up for a directory listing on ActingCoach.com. I know the $4 net revenue is only enough to buy me a couple cups of coffee every month, but the first paid sign up always feels good. It shows that there is at least some interest.
– One big test of ActingCoach.com is whether clients will stick and pay each month. The annual cost is a bit more than on DogWalker.com ($60/yr vs. $49/year). It’s a bit like comparing apples to oranges since the professions are paid much differently, but learning about sign up and cancellation habits will be important, and it will be interesting to see, especially when renewals come around on DogWalker.com in a few months.
– Congrats to my developer Mike McAlister (aka “Threat”) who was named a Featured Author on ThemeForest this week. Mike works as hard (or more) than I work to build his business. It’s great to see him recognized for his dedication to his clients and projects.
– I am going to be migrating my blog to a new hosting company some time this week. I don’t anticipate any down time at all and have a backup plan in the event something doesn’t go as planned, but I want to give a head’s up in case you see anything funky.
Welcome back to the rain.
Yikes, I am waiting for the US open to resume
Elliot,
It is a nice simple site.
Who developed this site? WhyPark?
If yes, what do they charge?
Thanks.
@ RKB
https://www.domaininvesting.com/actingcoach-com-now-developed-3994
Congrats on Acting Coach! You got your first signup – whoo hoo!!!
Yeah, Google Instant is EXTREMELY annoying. I like to type the full expression and click, “Enter.”
Do you suppose Google gets extra revenue from the “impressions” it sends before the search term is completely spelled out? That wouldn’t seem ethical.
Ive been down on the google instant change pretty much since I tried it out, I agree its bad on the eyes and I dont see how this ads value or speeds up the search process…The problem is that google seems more concerned with living in the blogsphere instant gratification craze of the twitter world and less about their true end users these days,. I firmly believe the average google user is going to get ticked off, wont be able to figure out how to turn it off and head over to yahoo/bing for a change of scenery…I think this could be collasal blunder for google, imo
Elliot –
Out of curiosity, where are you currently hosting your blog, and where are you moving it to?
Good luck with the move, and I hope it’s uneventful 😉
@ Yitzchok
A friend has been hosting it since inception. He’s been extremely helpful and very responsive to my needs. Traffic is double over last year and even more over the prior year… taking up a lot of bandwidth, and whenever there’s a plugin issue with my blog, it really impacts his other sites. I am moving it to Liquid Web.
Great post Elliot and nice to hear about your experiences with ActingCoach.com. I am working hard on doing the same with Kayaking stores on Kayaking.org. Even though each converted sale is only $5/month it will definitely add up as we put on hundreds (and hopefully thousands) or Kayaking stores.
Just got back from Palm Springs so I know how good it feels to get back home 🙂
Congrats on the acting coach sign up. The first is always the most rewarding. Soon enough you’ll be busy with referrals. I’m sure DogWalker.com and ActingCoach.com will make some nice revenue.
You should use Burbank.com to promote the site. They’re basically promoting the same area.
I finally found some funds to purchase a .co and a few .com domains I put on the back burner. I only have two more .co to go. I initially only purchased 4 .co, but I located 4 that I couldn’t pass up on. Of course, good .com continue to surface.
Sometimes I would rather not search for them, considering that I’m limited on funds. These are elite .co and .com finds that are unregistered domains sitting around collecting dust.
I have two pages of domains that I want to register in the next few weeks. One is a .org that is still up for sale on Sedo. I know this .org domain in the next few months. The last owner never put up a price on the domain. They used the “make offer” option.
I found an awesome .com that’s essentially a diamond in the rough. I couldn’t believe I located such a great domain. It’s always cool to find good stuff, but not fun when you have to push them to the side because of money.
Congrats on the acting coach sign up, your blog move, and every other project you have going on.
I would be interested in a blog post about how to migrate your wordpress blog to a new host.
Thanks you, for blogging.
I would be interested too on transferring the blog. And learning who did that for you, plus the new hosting company you choose. I’ve considered moving my blog and a Noah’s classified directory, but am apprehensive about doing this on my own.
@Elliot
Reg ActingCouch – does WhyPark give you an option to offer yearly subscriptions? Maybe that would be a better solution than a monthly subscription. You would have to worry less about people renewing every month. I also know it’s easier to get people to sign up for a small amount and maybe renew every month than it is for a larger amount for a yearly subscription.
Maybe it’s worth a shot.
Talked to WhyPark and they only offer Monthly subscriptions 🙁
Also – isn’t WhyPark charging $5 and 15% per sign up? So, people will need to keep that in mind when adjusting the monthly fees.