Plan Careful Moves

Whenever I make a move (in any area such as the writing life or my physical location or my Internet websites), it's best when I make a careful plan then move. A careful plan allows for the best and most thorough outcome. It doesn't always happen this way.

For example, several months ago, I decided to move my Internet websites from Homestead.com to Hostgator.com. I have been a long-term advocate of Homestead.com and they host millions of websites plus have great "point and click" tools where you don't have to learn HTML or much computerese to operate them successfully. I've built about a dozen websites on Homestead.com and still have a number of my sites there.

I had some great reasons for switching to Hostgator.com including the additional technical capability, more space and a cheaper price. As I advanced in my technical skills for my sites, I constantly found things that I could not do on Homestead.com. In a sense, I had outgrown the "point and click" technology and was moving into a different area.

A couple of months ago, I began moving some of my websites to Hostgator.com. I started with some sites which did not have a lot of additional material associated with it and were easy to move. Then I moved my personal website http://www.terrywhalin.com/. I had been on Homestead for so many years that I "forgot" my main email address which people have around the globe: terry@terrywhalin.com was also connected to this account. For several days, I didn't get any email at this address (big clue). I had to make some additional changes to correct this issue.

This weekend, I moved my literary agency website from Homestead.com to Hostgator.com. If you searched for Whalin Literary Agency on Google, then you would find this entry:

Whalin Literary Agency
Whalin Literary Agency carries this experience in the marketplace. We help authors develop their ideas and then connect those authors to the best possible ...
whalinagency.homestead.com/ - 8k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

It is not what I wanted people to find for my agency website but was the top entry in Google. So...I made the switch this weekend and my new agency site is up and operational. I still have a few images to move and put in place but overall it has the same functionality as the old website.

Late last night I was pleased with this move. Then I remembered my agency email account was set up like my terry@terrywhalin.com Unless I made some additional technical moves, I would not be receiving those emails. I made the additional changes and that email is functional.

As I shift around my Internet websites, the work isn't finished. I have a number of my single product landing pages to move to my new Hostgator platform. With each site that I move, I learn something and become a little quicker at making this transition. I'm on my way as I carefully plan this transition.

Why am I telling you about it? I hope that my experience will be useful to you in your own moves and writing life. It's not simple for any of us.