So, you have one blog, but being the awesome and full of surprises person, you would like to branch out and start another blog. It is no surprise that you would considering you probably have content on your first blog that you have so much more to say, but want to have a site focused on just that topic. That is okay, but really – when is the right time to take on building another blog.
Blogging can become time consuming, especially if you are passionate about what you know and want to share with other people. Juggling two or more sites is truly a talent. It takes trying to make sure both sites succeed, especially if your ambition is to be the best in whatever niche communities you try to develop an authority within.
The best time is really when you have a plan down on how you want to run your new website. A lot of people do put a site up on the fly, but sometimes those same sites burn out as fast as they started.
Successful sites take a good plan for the foundation that will leave the website open later on for any content re-focus that is necessary and any plans for strategically marketing to wider audiences.
Of course, time is a huge factor. Your investment on how much time you can spend can really be huge. While you could accept guest posts, when you build a site and start engaging with people in conversation, they are hoping to read your material. However, with careful planning, your guest posts can be that extra zing your site needs every so often to carry it to the next level.
Research is a huge key as well. Before you open a new website, you need to know your niche.
- Who are the bloggers that are the authority in your niche?
- What kind of topics or opinions can you bring to the table that is unique and interesting?
- How and who can you promote your new website to?
- Do you have the time to not just blog, but also return comments and perhaps even reply to comments left on your own articles?
Throughout the years, I have seen a lot of websites open and close. I have opened and closed a few myself. However, some of the blogs I have seen closed, the major issues were lack of time, lack of interest, and lack of knowledge.
While you can write the content, if you want people to read it, you have to tell people somehow.
What advice do you have for bloggers looking to branch out and start more than one blog?
The best time is when your existing blog already has a certain traffic level so you can start to channel visitors from your old to your new blog so that they can help you in getting the word out.
That is actually as good snippet of advice. It does makes sense – would be pointless to start another if you had no reach from the first.
Nice ideas and tips for starting the next blog. Yes you are true, writing unique blogs and posting replies to comments really work. I am also doing. Thanks for sharing your exprience. I appreciate your post.
I think that it's better to have one excellent blog rather than 2 or more other blogs of lower quality. I guess blogging is a very time consuming job especially if you want to earn money with it. So you have to devote practically all your free time.
I strongly recommend focusing on ONE blog. If you really have more than one interest and they don't overlap you could do what Stephanie Suesan Smith of the blog of the same name did and use subdomains to create one blog. The down-side to that is she actually has three separate installs on that one domain so that means more time spent managing.
Managing a blog is so time-consuming (updating WP, plugins, moderating and answering comments, etc.) that having more than one spreads you thin. What I believe will happen is that there will be more groups of bloggers creating niche blogs – possibly even geo-targeted niche blogs – because it is far easier to grow a blog when there are more people to write, promote and do guest posts that provide incoming links and new visitors, subscribers and commentators.
There is a post on my blog about positiioning your blog where the money is that more fully explains where I believe the future of blogging is: in geo-targeted niche blogs.
My recent post Blog Outreach- Garden Bloggers Reach Audiences Beneficial to Related Small Businesses
I normally focus on 1 site, but after 8+ years in blogging, I have branched out. I have my WordPress blog, and my Mommy Blog, but Blondish.net has always been my home. Those needed to be thrown into their own. I am not much for the subdomain issue because as a web host myself, sub domains also are going to take up that added effort to your site’s database resources. People forget that, so if you have a branch of your site off your top level doing pretty good and eating up the allotted data from your webhost, you are more than likely down the road are going to experience downtime issues.
However, your friend with the multi- WP installs, she could go with the 1 install of WordPress and domain map the other installs (since WP 3.0+ has Mu capabilities.) It might tighten up her resource load later on.
This is the reason I stopped hosting some friends’ blogs under one of my oldest domains I have.
My only issue with the community niche blogs is the quality of articles being written. It is one of the things I have drifted away from other sites that forgot about the quality.
Nile, I agree totally with you that you need to have a plan – unless you intend it strictly for fun or as a creative release. But even then, I would have a plan. Why not? Don't we all want to earn a little extra cash?
As you so wisely point out, you need to know who your audience will be. Then as in any other business, you'll need some way to differentiate yourself. Why would your readers follow you among the hundreds of thousands of blogs already out there on your topic. (Of course, I'm guessing here.)
I think that without a well thought out plan, the risk is that you'll be directing your energies away from primary blog. To me, a better use of my time would be to guest blog. That would build awareness of you and test the waters so to speak. Having said this, I have a few ideas in the back of my mind that are quietly germinating for another blog or two while I work on the strategy/plan. 🙂
I always have ideas for websites. It is usually the time factor that hinders me…lol. I have run different types of sites over the years while being a blogger. As a webmaster who does everything from the coding, graphic design, content creation, and promotion, I have learned that while you have the idea and already have 1 thing going, jumping into another is not always ideal.
However, for those who can make that time and have a focus that is sturdy enough to keep the site going, then I would encourage going for that 2nd blog OR website venture. I have seen a lot of promising websites, especially blogs in the past 10 years die out because of losing that focus or never having one to begin with (even if it was a personal site and updated once a week.)
Thanks you Sherryl!
Good article. In reading some comments, I'd just like to add that I find building a blog doesn't necessarily need to be overly time-consuming. I acknowledge the majority of blog building is going to be spent on content creation. The trick really is in efficiency and leveraging your content so you're making the most of your energy. I was surprised myself when I started actually tracking real productive actions for content creation. I found an article I estimated would take me an hour to write only takes 15 or 20 minutes when I'm timing it. I see no reason why you can't successfully grow a blog with a post a day. I've seen many blogs that do quite well with 4 to 5 posts a week.
I think the main focus needs to be on actually "doing what you're doing while you're doing it"! I suspect that the average person who spends a couple hours "working" on their blog is actually only doing about 30 minutes of real work on it. It's lack of efficiency and leveraging that creates a situation where running a blog seems time-consuming or tedious.
By leveraging I mean cross-purposing your content across a number of platforms to get the most of it. This is a very effective manner to free up time. For example, I'll be using this comment that I wrote to create an article, since it's turning out to be long enough to have been one. And if you're anything like me, you have a TON of usable content in your sent folder in the form of emails you've written. I could probably power a blog for the next 10 years using just my Gmail account and a past habit of writing some very long emails!
You can get a lot out of your content. I'm not talking about just reposting it across several blogs, but adapting it, expanding upon it, shortening it to fit the mediums you're utilizing. Take a blog post and make it into a YouTube video. Take a witty Twitter comment that people liked and turn it into a blog post. Take a blog post and make it into a full article. Use the content of your blog post to inspire a question on Quora or add a poll. Use an older blog post for automailer content (assuming you have a newsletter or you're marketing something, which you should be even if it's just yourself!).
Definitely appreciate this useful advice. Truly when it comes to a new website, there are so many things to be considered. Really this advice should be kept in the mind because there are many expectations bond with new website. Thanks guy for this tips.