Most of you know that I have lots of differents blogs: This one, WpRecipes and CatsWhoCode of course, but also PsdVibe and some niche blog in my native language, French.
A question that many people keep asking me is “Why do you have so many different blogs, and
how can you manage them?” Althout it can seems to be pretty hard, managing 4 or 5 blogs is far from being impossible, and it also have lots of good points.
Why having multiple blogs is good
The answer to this question is pretty simple : First, it allow you to diverse yourself and talk about various subjects, which is very cool if you are, like me, a curious person with lots of points of interest.For example, I love the city of New York so I wanted to blog about it. Of course, I can’t write posts about visiting NYC on WpRecipes! So I created this new blog.
People usually enjoy reading a blog because they’re interested in a particular niche subject : For example, WpRecipes readers likes WordPress tips and Cats Who Code readers wants to see Web Development related articles. Both of them aren’t interested to see blogging tips on theses blogs. I have experienced it with the “Blogging Tips” category on Cats Who Code, which never was a success.
In comparision, the blog that you’re currently reading and which focus on blogging tips, already gets more visits than Cats Who Code blogging articles.
At last but not least, the financial aspect of multiple blogs is also very important. I run BSA ads on 4 of my blogs, which basically means that at the end of the month, I earned 4 times what I’d earn with a single blog.
Same goes with Adsense : More traffic == more clicks == more money in your pocket. That’s simple as that.
How to manage multiple blogs
Ok, from what I wrote before, owning multiple blogs seems to be really good because it allow you to write in a wide range of topics, and also to earn more money.
But you have to keep in mind that managing 4 or 5 blogs takes a lot of time and require you to be very well organized. Here is some tips I apply to manage all my sites:
Be organised
Of course, the first think that comes to my mind while thinking about multiple blogs is to be organized. Working on 5 blogs isn’t harder than working on a single one, but you have to create schedules for your blog posts releases.
As an example, here is my post schedule for a normal week:
- Cats Who Code : One post each monday, sometimes another one on thursday.
- WpRecipes : One post on mondays, wednesdays and fridays.
- Cats Who Blog : One post on mondays and thursdays.
- PsdVibe : One post on mondays every two weeks.
- Visiter New York : 2 posts per weeks.
Define priorities
When managing many blogs, it is important to keep in mind that all of them don’t have the same value. Some are better money makers, and some are just your favorite because you love the topic.
So should you work more on your “best” blogs? It is a hard question to answer because of course you should put your best content on the front, but you also should work more on weaker blog that maybe just need a small push to become great element of your network.
Use blog A to promote blog B, and vice versa
While reading this article, have you seen that I have made some links to my other blogs? This is called free backlinks and the more blogs you have, the more links you can do from a blog to another.
Even better : You can use blog A to showcase the best content of blog B for example. I have done it on Cats Who Code before, with an article that showcase the best WordPress hacks of the month. As most of them were from my other blog WpRecipes, I won new visitors and readers.
One blog at a time
The harder part in a life of a blog is definitely its first 6 months. During this time, you have to promote your blog intensively and establish it as a leader in its niche.
This take time and require lots of efforts. Of course, once the blog is established you can slow down a bit. For example, when I launched WpRecipes in October 2008, I posted one new recipe per day. After I got 1000 RSS subscribers, I decided that I could post a bit less on this blog and to turn my focus on new projects.
This is why you should never launch two or three blogs at the same time. Launch one, make it a leader in its niche and use its success to promote your second blog. Etc, etc.
Don’t ask for too much
Althougth having multiple blog is great, you have to keep in mind that it is very time consumming. When you’re enjoying some success, it is very tempting to think about creating a new blog for even more success, but it’s not always good.
Just like online casinos, blogging can lead to an addiction and I’m pretty sure that you don’t want to neglect your familly or daily job just because you love blogging.
Don’t ask for too much, make little, but sure, steps. And always remember that success is created on long time periods.
And you, how many blogs do you manage? Do you plan to create more in a near future?
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Thanks for this awesome post! I’m just now getting into building a network of blogs and focusing on one at a time is definitely important. While my primary blog is stable, it’s definitely still a power struggle between maintaining them both.
Hi Corey, and thanks for stoping by! Indeed building a network of blogs isn’t not an easy task, so I hope this post is going to help you. Good luck!
I own 4 blogs, however only 1 is core, the other 3 are stagnant as i don’t have time for them and they’re not generating an income. Would love to get a blogger for each to generate content for it, however the resources are limited to achieve that goal, at the moment am adding press releases on the two as I get them. One is on soccer, the other on entrepreneurs and last a personal blog.
I go back and forth with this. For a while I was posting on about 4 blogs, with a few others in “niche” development.
Now, I’m concentrating on developing just one blog and letting the others “glide.”
So your advice about building a presence one blog first seems very good, it matched my experience.
How do you keep up to date with all the changes in WordPress and its plugins?
Do you run your blogs from WordPress Multi User (WPMU) ?
Thanks!
@macBoy : I don’t use lots of WP plugins, and those I use are quite easy to update. My blogs are all independant (no WPMU) so yes it is very boring and time-consumming when I have to update all of them.
Happilly, WP have the auto-upgrade functionality since a version or two, and this save a lot of time and hassle!
I’m inspired by your example… all of them in fact. I manage about 4 blogs, all of which serve different purposes, and it is neat to find ways to cross-promote them when possible. Great article!
Just a question, how would I partner with an interested blogger in order for him/her to contribute content without me paying? I’m searching for a win/win situation where a blogger finds value in running with my blog because there is some benefit outside of money from me. Obviously if the there concerned is making money, then paying a retainer is a given, however I’m referring to a blog not making any cent at present. Maybe offering some ad space where that blogger could add his/her adsense and affiliate banners (would that not be attractive enough?).
Please help me here, as I want to get my stagnant blogs in action.
@Muzi Mohale : It is possible to find someone who’ll agree to write for free on your blog if (s)he can get something else, for example backlinks or new readers.
I had several guest bloggers on my blog CatsWhoCode, and I never paid any of them. But your blog is quite new, it can be hard to find someone interested.
The first step should be to create a “Contribute” page on your blog if you don’t have one yet, so people will know that you’re currently looking for partners and what you can offer to them.
If you need some inspiration, you can have a look to this page.
So true! This is a great resource…!
I’m thinking about launching 2 at the same time though. call me daring.
Great post Jean! I guess you would be someone who knows what he’s talking about on this subject as you do run some very successful blogs yourself.
I have two blogs, but I only update one! I really want to manage both, but things are just getting to crazy. I think I need to read this article a few times over and really plan out how I want to manage two blogs, a freelance business and school.
Thanks man, bookmarked and subscribed to the blog!
@Alex Fraiser : Glad to see someone from a blog I read on here
Sometime time helps a lot.
Indeed managing multiple blogs + school + business is quite hard, but I’m pretty sure you’re good enought to do it
I run several WP Blogs (private and client blogs) and I am always annoyed by updating WP and plugins
you spend more time to stay actual with all the updates then writing posts
that is really annoying
I’ve been trying to maintain multiple blogs since I started a couple years ago but always came up with the same end product, a bunch of dormant blogs.
I’m just now starting to catch on to these ideas myself. I’ve organized all my thoughts on paper. From the relauch of one blog, its posting schedual and newsletter system to launching my next blog in afew months and it’s posting schedual.
I’m gonna stop before I tell you my life story, great post, I’ll be back
You just need to add the helpful tool HOOTSUITE to manage several blogs.
Great post!
I guess it will be easier to use this kind of strategy after WP 3.0 and the WPMU merge.
In the digital department I am the manager of, our technical guys have set up our magazine websites with WPMU (these contain different article categories as well as several individual blogs) as well as several magazine websites in one install of WPMU. As far as I have understood, it has made it much easier to keep them updating with plugins etc. compared to the WP hive solution we used to have.
As for the money aspect, I also think using a strategy of spreading nische content is smart if it is indeed manageable from a practical point of view. Some sites are great traffic magnets but are difficult to monetize. These can be traffic motors for those smaller, more nisched sites where CPM rates are higher. By leading traffic this way, more advertising revenue can be earned over time from endemic advertisers.