When To Do A New Website

Technology and activities change throughout life. When I posted my first website a decade ago I had written a series of self-published books, sold one to a conventional publisher and was writing others. Because my newest book "Backyard Deer Hunting: Converting Deer To Dinner For Pennies Per Pound" was to be self-published and lacked the support of a publishing house, I started my first web site, titled "Backyard Deer Hunting" to match the theme of the book.

Subsequently I published "Crossbow Hunting," "X-Treme Muzzleloading," and an eight-book e-book series on muzzleloading guns. As these were all outdoor related I kept the same website, adding the new titles as they appeared. Life events and age happened. In my late 70s, I became increasingly unable to do many of the outdoor activities that I once enjoyed because of mobility and balance issues. I could no longer stand on my feet all day or walk miles at the time. My physical strength was leaving me. I still had a desire to write, but these physical issues were causing me to change directions.

I developed some new business concepts and based on what I had observed working for a variety of companies, produced three business books, "Ideas For New Businesses," "Create Your Own Job Security" and "Make Your Own Job: Anytime Anywhere, At Any Age." These were done over a three-year period and were tacked onto my old website even though quite different in subject matter. They were supported by a new business-related blog "Create Your Own Job Security," but the blog did not catch nearly the number of eyeballs as my website. Those who signed up for the website grew to nearly 10,000, but they were craving my outdoor materials, rather than the business content.

Another new departure came with my first novel, "Father Of The Grooms," which was published as a First Draft e-book, wich was followed by seven reworks of a screenplay, then a re-write published as "Until Death Do You Part: An American Family Meets Their Sicilian Cousins." This novel was followed by yet another version of the screenplay, "Blood Ties."

Now I had outdoor, business, novels and screenplays on my old outdoor-oriented website. It was time for a change. Not only was the change needed because of content reasons, but it was also needed because technological advances made my old site difficult to load on phones or tablets and more secure purchasing links were available. As the object of any website is to make it easily accessible to viewers, either I needed to make three different websites or combine them under a more general category.

I decided to redo the site as the Wm. Hovey Smith site which made more sense that trying to shove everything in the old outdoor-related site while retaining the blogs about my business books, novels and screenplays. When your site's content changes or technology makes your site obsolete, it time to go ahead and change it even through some content may be lost.

To look at the new site Google Wm. Hovey Smith and follow the link.