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4 tips for managing multiple blogs
< A more conventional approach to earning a living online | Unsorted Posts | When one topic takes over a blog... >
Many people struggle to stay on top of one blog. Why on earth would you have more than one?
Sometimes, you want to blog about something that just doesn't fit your niche. This is potentially an opportunity for starting a new blog. Here are some tips to help you stay on top of multiple blogs.
1. Set the boundaries.
I currently have four blogs. Each has a different focus although they all have one thing in common: me!
Managing all of these blogs requires careful organisation. If I have something to blog about, I need to think where is belongs. If all of my blogs focused on the same niche, I wouldn't be able to choose where to post.
Besides "Ben Barden: Defining Web Jargon", my blogs are:
Injader Blog: Injader is the content management system that I use for all of my sites. I update this blog with information relating to new and future versions of Injader, along with a few helpful guides when I have time. New versions come out fairly regularly, but not on a strict schedule, so it would be tough to set a day and time when this blog gets updated.
This is a great example of a blog that you should subscribe to if you want to hear the latest. It's just more convenient that way. Subscribe to the Injader Blog here.
Music Blog: Whenever I have something to share about my music, I'll post it here. At the moment it uses the same design as my main blog but the posts are in a separate feed.
lyricless blog: At the moment lyricless is really just a place to find instrumental music - the site itself is very basic, but it does the job. The blog doesn't get updated very often but there is plenty of music to download for free.
2. Use a different blogging frequency for each.
You're reading my main blog, which is my first priority. To be honest the update frequency has been difficult to stick to recently, but you'll usually see a new post every other day. My other blogs are updated less frequently, usually on an "as needed" basis.
3. Link them together where appropriate.
You can easily put a link from one of your blogs to one of the others, but it's better if you occasionally link to your other blogs within your blog entries.
While your target audience might not be interested in blogs on other topics, you never know until you try. This is the ideal way to blog about more than one topic without losing subscribers because you keep changing the subject.
Be safe by linking unrelated topics back to your main niche - so if you have a romance blog and you want to write about music, write something about romantic music. See how easy it can be?
This tip applies to all of your blogs - if you have good reason to link back to your main site from one of your other blogs, do it!
4. Remember your priorities.
Don't force yourself to update loads of blogs every single day. You'll almost certainly experience "blogger burnout", and it may creep up on you much faster than if you only write in one blog. Think of it as an extra task in addition to your main blog - always put your main blog first.
It's not for everyone, but having multiple blogs can work for some people.
Do you have multiple blogs? How do you manage them?
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Comments on 4 tips for managing multiple blogs
I have two that I focus on. You made me think about starting another just for the blog posts but I don't think I really want another blog or to yet another blog about blogging. My two blogs are the personal one and Word Grrls. Word Grrls started as storage for all my articles written for several other websites and online networks and newsletters. At some point I began writing a daily writing prompt cause I just enjoy doing it (most days). Having a blog which you update daily is a chore. There are days when you don't have anything to say or don't have energy/ time to do it. The new prescheduled posts at Blogger are a good help.
I have my own domain which I don't use for anything much these days. When I wasn't blogging it was all I had. A learning space for working out HTML. Just files with my ASCII art mainly. Trying to come up with a new plan that will work for that domain and myself. I'd like better organization of things I want to do but I don't want to fall into having too many things to do either. You can make yourself crazy that way.
Edited: August 21, 2008 11:02
Eesh... I don't know how you guys do it. I can barely keep up with one!! Great tips Ben!
I agree with fragileheart. Too much can make you crazy. I have three blogs, my edgeofsanity blog, the voices, and one I keep for my Grand daughter. I do have a hard time keeping them all up. Edgeofsanity is my favorite so I do spend most of my time on it.
I used to have 3 blogs updating every day. Then two, and then one.
You're totally right about the blogger burnout thing. I lasted only a couple of months before I got tired of it. It felt too much like pressuring myself to do something. Now I just have one blog and I plan on updating it on an as-needed basis (probably every 2-4 days).
I think it's much better to focus on one blog and make it great than to focus on many junk blogs.
Thanks for the comments everyone. :)
Well, I'm not too sure if I could ever survive managing 4 blogs as I'm not too good when it comes to organization, let alone prioritization.
Thanks for the tips, I'll keep that in mind.
Yan
Managing 2 blogs has been a trip recently. I like the idea of using a different posting frequency for each blog. I had been working hard to post something to each blog pretty regularly. I have always focused more on my original blog, though. I thought I would do a family blog, but I haven't really kept up with it, mostly because the rest of the family hasn't been interested. Good tips, Ben, and others here, too.
Wow, really? I guess I can count them.
Ok, I have 9. Nine. I'm gearing up to start #10.
Perhaps an explanation...
The main one that I nurture is the Pass It On Plates Blog where I blog about my business, Pass It On Plates. A side kick blog is the Plate Diaries, which uses a blogging platform to do a guest book function. (Please visit my website to see what I'm talking about.)
One is for family updates and I think my only reader is my mom, who lives have way across the country. Then there's a blog where I forward goofy emails - my co-workers visit often to get to game site links on the sidebar. (shhh!)
One is private that I use for business collaboration with my staff in different states. The rest are also private and I use them to organize & edit posts from flickr, manage post ideas to keep the active blogs from getting too cluttered, etc. Each private blog has a separate function; all behind the scenes stuff.
Future blog #10 will be for a new business venture that has started.
Whew! I feel dizzy now.
I think blogging can be contagious. My husband now has two (one for cooking and the other for Deaf issues) and daughter also has two (teen angst stuff and a daily photo blog).
Hey Ben. Remember me???? Life's been busy of late. :)
Did you realise that you and I posted on the same topic on the same day? I had a post on Juggling Multiple Blogs posted on Aussie Bloggers on the same day you posted this one. I wrote mine a while back though. LOL. Different content but same concept. Perhaps we're some how in "blogging synch". :)
Welcome, Pam - thanks for stopping by.
Lightening, I noticed that - I had no idea you were going to write a post on the same subject. I guess with so many of us blogging, duplication is possible. :) Oh well, no biggie!
Ben, between my wife and I we currently have 3 blogs, and that's plenty. She does content for 2 of them and I do admin and promotion; the third is all my baby. Don't tell her, but I'm secretly having a competition to be bigger than her main one; it'll take a bit of time though, cos she's got a year's head start on me.
Seriously though, it does get tough to keep on top of them all, and one definitely has to prioritise. But I believe different blogs for different niches is very important. No focus == no readers.
I got 4 blogspots, two self hosted domain name blogs, and one using another free platform. Initially, I intend to have separate topics and targets for each of them. But I had a hard time managing them all, so I just prioritized one, and updated the others from time to time.