Blogussion » Darren Rowse

Why You Should Run Multiple Blogs for 3 Simple Reasons

Alex — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 04:00:07 +0000

Last week I wrote about why I thought running more than one blog at a time is a bad idea. After viewing the comments, I couldn’t help but think maybe it’s not such a bad thing. That, and I’m trying to start another blog myself. I thought about it more, and want to share with you why I think running multiple blogs can also be a good thing.

The one reason I gave opposing multiple blogs is that it takes too much time to run more than one blog, and that you will have a hard time succeeding with any blog you create.

Most of the responses were in agreement, and the two following answers basically sum up what everyone was talking about in the comments:

Murray Lunn: If you’re starting a new blog after one has been around for years, it’s certainly possible due to the vast backlog of articles, relationships and traffic you’re regularly receiving on your mature blog.

You certainly wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand of writing every day – you’d burn out. However, since the mature blog is so far along, I don’t feel it’s necessary to write every day, maybe twice or so a week.

Joella Molson: It is possible to write multiple blogs if you have the passion, the time and the organizational skills to pull it off.

So we all agreed that if you ran a blog with some sort of success prior to your new blog, or you just have the time and patience to actually manage multiple blogs, then you should go for it. Of course, it’s up to you and you’re free to do whatever you want!

But why would anyone want to run another blog? There are plenty of reasons why you wanted to start with just one blog, but do they all apply to creating yet another one?

I truly do see running a second or even third blog as an excellent opportunity to really define the kind of blogger you are. I mean, look at Darren Rowse. He runs ProBlogger, TwiTip, Digital Photography School and many others. Of course he just started with one blog, but expanded and now he is one of the top bloggers in the world.

I’m not saying that running multiple blogs is the key to achieving the same success, but there are definitely many great benefits that come out from doing it that can make things a lot easier for you in some ways.

1. More Income Opportunities

Just to get the most obvious reason out-of-the-way, running multiple blogs actually means a few different things for any income you make:

You can make more money from monetizing both blogs.
You can make more money in a diverse way.

When I talk about diverse income streams, I mean you can test different kinds of monetization methods. So one blog you can throw up Google Adsense, and you may want to focus more on selling those wretched banner ads on your other blog.

So not only can you in fact make more money, but you can use different techniques to do it that could make you even more than just trying them all on one blog.

2. Traffic Benefits

Opposed to a single blog, running multiple blogs can really give you a traffic boost. If you get about 1,000 unique visitors a day between 3 different blogs, that’s 3,000 visits and 3,000 possible conversions.

On the other hand, if you stick to one blog and average just 1,000…well, that’s all you’ll get. Between 3 different blogs you have a bit of an opportunity to really build audiences that will have a larger impact than just one.

Cross-Promotion

A truly interesting way of marketing your 2 or 3 blogs would to cross-promote them on each other. Meaning, link to Blog A on Blog B and vice-versa.

One blogger I see who does this very effectively is Jean-Baptise Jung. He runs a looot of blogs, but the few that he is probably most famous for all cross-promote each other very well:

I have always thought Jean makes a good example of a successful blogger who runs more than one, and I want you to visit his blogs and see how he does it (in the sidebars, his posts, etc.).

3. The Impact on You

Blogging for a long period changes how you view a lot of things, in and out of the blogging world (or is that just me?). But a few things can happen when you start-up another blog that will make you change the way you feel about blogging as a whole. If you look at it closely enough that is.

You’ll Have Fun: Blogging is fun! A lot of professional bloggers would never call what they do work, but game. Why else would you start even one blog? It seems fun to you, and running another blog with a totally different topic is going to be a blast for us blogging nerds!
Find Your True Niche: Hopefully if you do choose to run a few blogs, they’re in different niches. It would be a mistake to start 3 different blogging tips blogs. Maybe once you started up your cooking blog, you’d realize that maybe writing about landscaping wasn’t your true passion. You never know, it could happen!
Meet New People: Different blogs, different communities. You will meet new people in different niches, and start new relationships with them. You never know you’ll meet out there!
Learn New Things: I guarantee that if you can maintain two post frequencies on 2-3 blogs, then you will have learned what it takes to be a persistent, organized, successful blogger. That’s all you want from yourself, right?

How else do you think starting a new blog will change you?

Why Should You Run Multiple Blogs?

It’s not something everybody can do well, but running a second or third blog next to your primary blog can be tough. I failed at it the first time I tried to do it before I was ready, but I am determined to make it work out the second time.

What are the benefits you see in running more than one blog? Or, do you still think they’re not worth it? Can’t wait to hear your arguments!

Why Eggs?
I like to look for images that speak in metaphors to represent my blog posts. For this post, I chose a bunch of eggs. What do eggs have to do with the topic of this post? If you get it, I’ll be impressed…there’s a clue somewhere in the post!

Little Known Ways Darren Rowse Makes Money Blogging

Seth — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:01:08 +0000

Before Darren Rowse became “the Problogger” we all know as the face of the Blogging tips world, he was a full-time blogger earning a six-figure income.

Today we are going to talk about how he earned a full-time income from blogging before he became the famous blogging authority.

Darren Rowse “Problogger”

No matter your opinion of Darren Rowse as the most influential blogger in the blog tips niche, everyone must admit he is the branded authority for this topic. When Darren’s name is attached to something it does two things, succeeds and sells. He is a trusted authority for any new blogger and an old friend to many advanced bloggers.

His blog’s range from the ultimate in blogging tips to cool tutorials and Twitter news. Here are the profiles of his most well-known projects and blogs. These blogs are all created since 2005 and surprisingly all of them but Problogger.net have been created after Darren made six-figures.

When Problogger.net (Darren’s signature blog) was launched in 2005 it was not more than 9 months before Darren became a legitimate problogger who made six figures – $XXX,XXX. The article where Darren announces this monumental event can be read here - Darren Hits Six-Figures

Here are the profiles of Darren’s most well known blogs:

Problogger.net

Since 2005, Darren’s most influential blog has provided important tips and topical news to encourage and educate bloggers. As the face of Darren’s brand online, Problogger has become more than an income stream and far more as a resume for Darren’s authority as the problogger. - Problogger.net
Pageviews per day: 27,975 / Total Pageviews: 29,649,731 (in 5 years)

Digital Photography School

Started in 2006, Darren’s fun and tutorial rich photography blog has excelled at driving traffic and getting lots of subscribers. In addition to the tutorials and blog posts, digital photography school is unique because of its interactive forum community. - Digital Photography School
Subscribers: 345,030 / Alexa Rank: 7,156

Twitip

A recent addition to Darren’s arsenal, Twitip features awesome articles on how to use Twitter to drive traffic to your blogs and sites or how to use Twitter as a stand alone social media platform for networking. The blog just had a recent redesign and is looking good and getting more content posted every day - Twitip
Alexa Rank: 17,112 / Subscribers: 33,183 / Twitter: 81,102

Problogger.com

Problogger readers have long begged for a chance to have a forum on Darren’s blogging tips blog. After having a very successful mini series to make bloggers better, Darren decided to give it a try. So far the project has been a success with lots of posts, active members, and a full-time moderator – Problogger.com
Members: 2,080 / Total Posts: 15,000+

The most important point in this article is this…. Darren became a six-figure blogger before his books, before Problogger had more than 700 subscribers, and before his widely popular TwiTips and Digital Photography School blogs. Darren was a Problogger from other blogs.

Those blogs and his strategy are what we are going to explore today. Too often bloggers try to emulate Darren’s strategy by creating a huge tips blog and becoming an authority on one site. While this may work, Darren’s trusted strategy.. because it obviously worked is far better. First lets look at his income sources at the time of his six-figure income.

Note: Problogger.net was very small at the time, comments were low, and traffic was no where near its current milestones. Its important to understand this was 5 years ago and the other major blogs I listed above did not exist.

Six Figure Blogging

Darren’s income can be traced [with a bit of investigative journalism] back to a variety of blogs coming from 2 major domain names. The two domains are breakingnewsblog.com and livingroom.org. If you go to the main page of either domain you can see very basic graphics, limited text and no monetization. So how did he do it?

The key was each of these domains had many sub-domains. Each sub-domain was very targeted to specific topics like digital cameras, printers, camera phones, and even unmanned aerial vehicles. The blogs were then very keyword specific and advertising inundated. The blogs brought in lots of search engine traffic and if you look at them today they are still bringing more traffic then 80% of other blogs even though many have not been updated for years.

Does this sound not only interesting but weird? Yes the blogs are not pretty, the designs are generally bad, and some are not even on wordpress (oh no!), but this gives us a great example of making money online. Here’s a visual for how Darren was doing it:

Darren’s Strategy

The 3 major pillars in Darren’s strategy that I can tell from looking at the blogs and review some of their statistical information are these:

1. Keyword Rich Content – Articles on site about printers, robotics, or other random topics are both specific and targeted. Post topics are very detailed and the reviews are precisely what both search engines and users would look for on the subject. The keywords are also linked throughout the site to each other and all of his sub-domains are linked in the footers of his blogs, making his blogs search engine optimized (SEO).

What You Should Do

The visualization helps us to realize to make six-figures it is much more realistic if there are multiple sources of income coming in from a variety of monetization methods. What this means to you is that if you want to be a six-figure blogger or even just a full-time blogger for that matter you should diversify your income and learn from a Problogger.

I would start now by getting yourself a blog if you don’t have one [if you need help contact us and we'll help] and then get writing. Start producing as much content as you can for your blog and when you start to see search engine traffic coming into your blog then begin another blog and do the same. As you build traffic on one blog and start earning money on it, find a writer for the blog and start to pay them for content and regular posting. Then all you have to do is write a post a week [based on the topic] and adminster the blog.

Every time you reach this point of success then start a new blog. The writer you hire will continue to produce content for your blog while you build up the content on a new site. This way you do not have to spend any money you do not have. Over time the writer will put so much content on your blog you will not only be paying for their services but you will start making a profit. After you have built up a few blogs with lots of content, its time to ramp up the monetization.

To monetize you can check out some of these tips for making money blogging, or just find a great way to make money from your niche topic. The possibilities are endless and the financial investment is minimal. If you are willing to put the time into your blogs you can be a six-figure blogger too, just like Darren Rowse!