Blogging has seen a rollercoaster ride in the past few decades.
From its rise in the 90’s to its legendary fall in the early 2000’s, we have seen it come and go as a trend and source of income.
In this day and age, the digital world is taking over, and blogging has returned as a viable occupation. There are now millions of blogs out there, tackling every niche and topic, no matter how obscure or odd it might be.
The beautiful thing about running a blog is that you can turn your passion and hobby into income. You can genuinely generate a decent salary by writing about what you love, as long as you’re good and pay attention to some technical details.
But in this dire competition, it’s tough to see how you can distinguish yourself as a content creator with just one blog.
Have you thought about starting a second blog?
Perhaps your first blog is doing great, but if you want to branch out on your writing, you need to understand that you will have to change your voice.
A new niche requires a different way of approaching your audience. Think well and hard if you are ready to develop another voice for your writing and if you can keep up with it. It will only be exhausting should you fail.
Before heading into a new venture, you need to establish why people should read your content. Unless you come up with an innovative topic that few people discuss, you will have fierce competition.
Before setting up multiple blogs, remember that you will have to make something new and become someone’s favorite source of inspiration.
If you’re thinking about starting another blog, don’t forget that you are human and that there are only so many hours in the day.
You’ll have to post regularly, write in all categories, take care of social media promotion, along with emails and newsletters. That is challenging enough with just one blog, so consider the time and energy you will have to invest into two.
We bloggers love multitasking, but sometimes have a difficult time understanding when we have reached our limit. Passion drives it, and it refuses to let those flames burn down before we burn ourselves out. So know when you have too many, and never sacrifice quality for quantity.
If you can hack it, you will find there are numerous benefits to setting up and managing multiple blogs. It’s not an easy road to take, but the destination will be well worth it.
You will be on your way to building an “empire” as they say, where you will have a vast online presence. Many say they simply don’t have the time to manage more than one blog. However, it may just be because they don’t understand the benefits.
Bonus: Learn how to set up a WordPress blog in 5 minutes here.
Multiple blogs are easier to manage
Perhaps you have heard the pancake rule. It implies that the first pancake almost always ends up burnt, weirdly-shaped, and a failure.
The same goes for blogging. Your first blog might not be a failure, but it likely has numerous mistakes littered across it after a long time of trial and error. In fact, you may head to your old articles and realize how many blunders you’ve committed.
At the same time, though, you also understand how much you’ve learned.
Whether it’s the actual building process or growing your new blog’s influence, you will notice a different pace that will be faster and more efficient.
Your second blog will incorporate all the wisdom and knowledge the years have offered you. It will not be your first draft, but a high-quality source that shows that someone with experience is behind the wheel.
Viewers will feel that confidence in your writing. It will create more credibility for your new blog, and in turn, your visibility will skyrocket.
They help you avoid compromise
It may be a part of life, but sometimes it can be satisfying to avoid it when it comes to your writing. There are numerous niches and categories to sort your content, but one topic might not fall into the right one. It’s interesting, trending, and may genuinely increase your traffic, but it barely has a place on your site. They say that the Miscellaneous/Others category is the true weak link of any website, so you don’t want any of your articles to fall there.
Instead, you can create multiple blogs that will have an appropriate place for them. One site cannot cover everything without compromising credibility. Thus, you may avoid it by managing multiple blogs that tackle different niches.
Major publications like The New York Times have supplements like The New York Times Magazine where they delve more into fashion, lifestyle, and design. It takes away the serious edge of writing about worldwide events and truly impacting stories. It’s a clever tactic of maintaining their reputation without doing something such as adding a style section on their already-existent publication.
You can apply the same to your blog. It will allow you time to develop your skills and expand your horizons. More importantly, you will be able to write without the dreaded necessity of the business world that is compromised.
You can keep one for work, one for play
Multiple blogs will take off the pressure. It sounds as if they will require a lot of work, and they will. However, they will allow you to perhaps create a medium for your passions that are more lighthearted.
If you are a writer at heart, sometimes you don’t want to live by a schedule. Managing multiple blogs means that you can have one for yourself, write what you please and whenever you want without keeping an eye on the numbers.
It may be the perfect outlet. It could improve the quality of your other blogs and prevent you from burning out. Sticking to scheduled posting and perfect keyword research can be exhausting. By creating a separate blog that is solely for yourself, with no expectations or pressure, your other sites will benefit.
This is a common practice among writers, even famous ones. Agatha Christie, for example, was an exceptional author, with an impressive collection of 66 mystery novels that have thrilled the world. However, fewer people know that she also wrote six romance novels under the pseudonym, Mary Westmacott.
They posed as her outlet, a change of pace, and a release from the pressure that her name had created due to people’s expectation of quality, style, and theme. This can translate beautifully into your own writing experience, namely blogging. Maintain a second site where you can relax and write about whatever it is you please, no matter how relevant or popular it is.
You could have your own brand
Multiple blogs open up new doors for you, such as making your own brand. That implies creating a common name for all, but with a slight twist that is entirely appropriate for their niche.
It’s an excellent way of using your already-existent online presence to boost your new content. Thus, you can create a brand for yourself or a chain of websites that are related in name but not in topic. It will allow you to expand on your content while keeping your online influence and adding more to it.
Managing multiple blogs means that you can interlink them. It’s a good way to reassure your viewers that they can expect the same high-quality content you have delivered before. It will increase traffic and successfully help you in creating a brand for yourself. However, never lose sight that it implies the responsibility of meeting the usual standards regarding content quality and frequency of posting.
A good example would be National Geographic. While their publication is known worldwide for its exquisite writing and thirst for adventure, the same could be directed toward children.
Thus, they created National Geographic Kids, with the goal to educate children and inspire them to explore the world. The topics are quite different, as some may be inappropriate for kids, and the approach is easier for younger minds to grasp. However, the famous brand name persists.
They’re a great way to do cross promotion
Multiple blogs are an excellent way of stepping into the terrain that is “cross-promotion”.
As long as it’s applicable, it’s entirely acceptable that you help promote one site with the other and vice versa. It will create several backlinks that will increase your traffic and influence.
It’s important to keep in mind that you don’t become spam. While Google is a fan of blogs that actively use links toward other content, too many promotional links could get you penalized.
The best part about it is that it’s free, you know the policies and styles of both websites, and you can certainly trust the information. Take into account the matter of Domain Strength and your site’s authority in the eyes of Google. The more links you have, the better the reputation. Your blog’s credibility will increase.
Just make sure you don’t abuse this function as it is frowned upon by search engines. Continuous promotion of one site will draw the bad kind of attention and you may end up with one of your site’s penalized.
Keep it balanced and practical. Don’t just do it for the sake of promotion. It has to make sense.
You can get more advertising deals
A blog that earns traffic will undoubtedly attract advertisers. However, most don’t know the real value of multiple websites to advertisers. They have a limited amount of ads for each site, which means that you, in turn, have only a certain number of deals you can cut with them.
By having multiple blogs, the potential is increased tenfold because you can strike partnerships with the same advertiser but for more sites. That means you can double the benefits of one forged connection, which will ultimately increase your income.
You have already made the contact, so half the job will be done. Not to mention that multiple blogs will increase your online presence on search engines, and more advertisers will find your website. That, in turn, will increase your credibility in Google’s eyes and draw in more visitors.
So, if you’re writing for the purpose of monetizing your work, it’s certainly more practical to manage more than just one blog.
WordPress has a useful plugin that can help you manage multiple ads.
All of these are beyond the usual benefits of managing multiple blogs and dealing with the challenges that may appear:
- Increased revenue
- Diversified content
- Wider social media reach
- Exploring multiple niches
- Easier to rank
How to set up multiple blogs
If you’re convinced that you are ready to set up and manage multiple blogs, you will need the proper understanding of how to do it.
The most popular tool for setting up multiple WordPress blogs is WordPress MU, now made easier to continue your experience with something you are likely already familiar with. However, you will also need to make a decision on how you wish to manage them.
The process of installing WordPress should already be familiar after the first blog is already set up. However, the wp-config.php file will have to be slightly different for each different type of database.
There is an easier way, by creating separate blogs on a single WordPress install. However, it’s arguably a little flawed in the sense that you will not truly have a separation between them. In the end, it’s up to your preference and SEO management capabilities.
Bonus:Learn how to set up a WordPress blog in 5 minutes here.
Wrap
Managing multiple blogs is not an easy task, and some frequently undertake it without knowing the resulting burdens. However, understanding the benefits will lessen the strain.
It may be a challenge that will double your workload, but it can also have excellent results in a matter of months. Once you have gotten a taste of the potential success, you may even be tempted to build more and more.
Just remember to keep yourself in check and know when to stop and when it’s spinning out of control. As it is with everything in life, moderation is key.
Guest Author: Dustin Ford is a well-known writer. He is published on many websites and his opinion is valued.