How do I best revive an old web brand/property?

Almost 10 years ago I had an irreverent industry-focused blog with runaway popularity that pretty much achieved total saturation within a big niche. For business reasons (to continue working in the industry) my partner and I shut it down (content removed/domain kept) after a run that was only a year and a half (wholly contained in the desktop era - mobile was still getting its legs). I still hear about the blog often - my partner says he does on a daily basis.

We're looking into starting it up again. I know a lot has changed since we first did it - something we started for fun morphed into something beyond our imagination - and quick. No LLC, and clumsy (but did okay) in our advertising efforts ... just a wordpress platform and started banging out content.

This time we want to launch it right.

So it will be:
• blog, 2-3 posts a day on a WP
• newsletter, no experience with this format but it will be integral. writing humorous, topical content that gets forwarded is our cornerstone and strength. We will shoot out a daily column @ 500-800 words
• podcasts (and eventually video content)
• all in on social media to support the branding effort (our skills very suited to instagram)

So we have the LLC ready and we want to be ready to monetize as we scale up.
So far I'm penciled in to have:
• 3 banners w/ server side platform ads for the site.
• We'll find sponsors to the newsletter, I suppose negotiate for weekly or monthly sponsorship and/or links? I could use some feedback on the capabilities of what a newsletter can deliver in terms of images, links, etc.
• Merch. Last time we sold boxes of T-shirts and bumperstickers ... maybe over a thousand shirts, I forget. I had them made by a local guy, then sold them via PayPal on the site, and mailed them off ourselves. Exhausting, hilarious process - but I know there are better ways.

Would love someone's thoughts on this matter, whether suggestions or potential pit falls/blind spots, it's all good.

Quick things to think about:

I'd look up the backlink profile and see if there were any posts that absolutely slayed it and I'd bring them back or 301 those pages to closely related new posts.

I'd consider trying to go through the Wayback Machine archive and resurrecting as much of the old content as possible regardless of links. Why not, if it's just a copy and paste ordeal.

I agree about sponsors for the newsletters, podcasts, videos... that's big money apparently, especially if you can get brands lined up and each item has a sponsor. You could do the same on the site itself, where you can have sponsors on the top of your ad waterfall. And if they run out of impression or time then it falls back to Adsense, etc. You just have to price it so you make more with the sponsors.

If you can sell that high of a volume of shirts, I'd have them made at volume for cheaper and sent to Amazon for fulfillment. You could do one of those Cafe Press / Tee Spring operations but you'll pay more of a share since it's a one-at-a-time pressing versus a screen print in bulk.

It sounds like you're ready to saturate again. Will the saturation point provide a great amount of profit for you? If not, will a liquidation? Because saturation is definitely going to be a full time ordeal, even if you grow a team. Being everywhere at all times means what it means. Is there enough cash flow or an exit plan that justifies that level of involvement, is what I'm trying to ask.

Sounds great and exciting. Can't wait to hear about it as it happens.

Would love to see this one over in the Lab as a journal if that is something you'd be up for!

animalstyle said:

Would love to see this one over in the Lab as a journal if that is something you'd be up for!

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Not even sure what that is - but after skimming over some of the Lab, HELL YES.

Ryuzaki said:

Quick things to think about:

I'd look up the backlink profile and see if there were any posts that absolutely slayed it and I'd bring them back or 301 those pages to closely related new posts.

I'd consider trying to go through the Wayback Machine archive and resurrecting as much of the old content as possible regardless of links. Why not, if it's just a copy and paste ordeal.

I agree about sponsors for the newsletters, podcasts, videos... that's big money apparently, especially if you can get brands lined up and each item has a sponsor. You could do the same on the site itself, where you can have sponsors on the top of your ad waterfall. And if they run out of impression or time then it falls back to Adsense, etc. You just have to price it so you make more with the sponsors.

If you can sell that high of a volume of shirts, I'd have them made at volume for cheaper and sent to Amazon for fulfillment. You could do one of those Cafe Press / Tee Spring operations but you'll pay more of a share since it's a one-at-a-time pressing versus a screen print in bulk.

It sounds like you're ready to saturate again. Will the saturation point provide a great amount of profit for you? If not, will a liquidation? Because saturation is definitely going to be a full time ordeal, even if you grow a team. Being everywhere at all times means what it means. Is there enough cash flow or an exit plan that justifies that level of involvement, is what I'm trying to ask.

Sounds great and exciting. Can't wait to hear about it as it happens.

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Some great feedback thanks. The Amazon suggestion alone - man! I had no idea.

I think one of the first things to do is figure out what kind of traffic goals to set. We had to flame out of the site so fast the first go around, that I don't really have access to the stats ... I think we had 200-400k uniques monthly - and I'm not even sure any more. I have some old content we can repost (and revisit), but not all of it sadly.

You should defo revive the old content, even if you have to use waybackmachine to get it all. And if some is not relevant anymore (industry has moved on) then create /archive/ category and 301 what the old url paths used to be to new versions of that content.. and at least get any old link juice back, if the old content had some power.

its cool that after years of posting alongside you at wickedfire, i know more about you now after just a few posts than i ever did there. its good to be at a joint that's about business.

dsoul said:

You should defo revive the old content, even if you have to use waybackmachine to get it all. And if some is not relevant anymore (industry has moved on) then create /archive/ category and 301 what the old url paths used to be to new versions of that content.. and at least get any old link juice back, if the old content had some power.

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Though not a ton, Wayback yielded some great stuff. And what's great is the content completely works to repost then update 10 yrs on! Not too worried about SEO at this point bc I think the traffic will be there, aiming to handle it and scale up right.

janus said:

its cool that after years of posting alongside you at wickedfire, i know more about you now after just a few posts than i ever did there. its good to be at a joint that's about business.

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Hiya Janus! Loved WF - and screwing around more than business stuff too, admittedly, but it absolutely is good to be on this site. Knew of BuilderSociety, even joined awhile back (over 2 years ago, apparently), but I've been working a job like a slob the last few years. This project is thrusting me back 100% into an entrepreneurial space.

dsoul said:

You should defo revive the old content, even if you have to use waybackmachine to get it all. And if some is not relevant anymore (industry has moved on) then create /archive/ category and 301 what the old url paths used to be to new versions of that content.. and at least get any old link juice back, if the old content had some power.

Click to expand...

Project back on. Amazingly, I still had (part) of the original database so I deleted the plugins, updated to latest version of Wordpress, and voila! Plenty of original content with even the original comments from the gallery - which I thought was totally gone.

So now we're creating content and hammering out an advertising strategy, really looking at how we can execute the newsletter.

We're also doing financial sector PR, possible article in Bloomberg or WSJ, that can help persuade advertisers that site is legit within financial circles. That's something that might not be readily apparent at face value.

infoslob said:

Project back on. Amazingly, I still had (part) of the original database so I deleted the plugins, updated to latest version of Wordpress, and voila! Plenty of original content with even the original comments from the gallery - which I thought was totally gone.

So now we're creating content and hammering out an advertising strategy, really looking at how we can execute the newsletter.

We're also doing financial sector PR, possible article in Bloomberg or WSJ, that can help persuade advertisers that site is legit within financial circles. That's something that might not be readily apparent at face value.

Click to expand...

First off, congrats on not blowing up the original DB and keeping that sucker somewhere safe all this time.

There's def a ton of ways you can get a content strategy going without too much craziness and hit your stride towards being that expert authority you're looking to reclaim.

I'd suggest looking for university students who are pursuing a degree in whatever your market might be, IF that is aligned with your business interests. Hire them as writers, most universities have a job board or internship offering that you can tap into and start getting people who are completing 4-8 years of study on the topic. Do this for multiple universities that are local first, then regional, etc until you have a solid team producing content. Obviously this is a later step and potentially heading towards some of the "final boss" stuff I keep reading about in here.

Another option with those students when the time and funds allow is to grab an agency license of Kudani which is a content writing team's wet dream. Social, graphic design, newsletter building, article co-citation, analytics integration, and the like. Check it out and see if it's what you're looking for, because if you're going to get a lot of attention, that's the easy way to do it.

That content is gonna need to get off-site. Invest in a 2 tier IFTTT web-ring and a monthly license of Syndwire with a 2 tier web-ring there to cover all your bases. Expensive, but once you've built up an authority ring, you should have about 250+ web properties posting about all your content on autopilot, with accounts that you own specifically.

I've mentioned this in another post as well, but start with the list, build that sucker as quickly and quietly as you can (don't forget Google Tag Manager and FB Pixel for conversion optimization down the line as a paid route), and then sell the rights to mail your advertiser's promo to your list. See if you can find a copy of Ryan Deiss' Email Machine training floating around and grab the templates from that, and create a self-managing, auto-promoting sales funnel that you can plug JVs into down the line once you've taken those advertiser relationships to the next level that they become a portion of your income and have a vested interest in building that blog out.

Super next level stuff: Start a free Podcast with Anchor.FM. This service will allow you to plug the written articles in as a transcription for your podcast, you read aloud into the app, record, publish to Stitcher, Apple Car, Android Auto, iTunes, Youtube, Soundcloud (strip the video), Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Bonus: Anchor.FM formats for ALL of those services in the desktop app, and has an RSS feed, which both IFTTT and Syndwire operate off of to post your content.

You know what else has an RSS feed? YouTube.

Go domainate something, and happy hunting.