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A perennial question that comes up over and over on forums is “Should I have just one blog, or should I have several?”
I have some answers for this question. But my answer isn’t cut and dried… your answer depends partly on your goals. Here’s my point of view.
The case for one blog
If you have a very tightly defined subject that you are able to easily write about, it’s an easy answer: you just need one blog. If you aren’t exactly sure of your subject, but have some general ideas, you should probably start with one blog.
Having just one blog benefits you in several ways:
- Much easier to maintain.
The WordPress code, themes and plugins all need to be kept up to date, and having more than one blog makes that more time consuming.
- Easier to develop in depth.
Building an appealing blog takes time, talent and dedication. If you haven’t done this once in depth, it’s more difficult to do it in depth across more than one blog.
- Easier to become an authority on your subject matter. When you are writing with focus about a single subject, you can explore that subject in depth, tease out the fine details, and become an authority on the subject.
- Tighter focus means better search engine results.
While search engine algorithms are necessarily proprietary, it’s common sense supported by empirical evidence that tightly focused blogs are going to get better search engine results.
You may find yourself writing on more than one topic as time goes by. That’s not at all unusual, and I’ll discuss getting led astray below.
The case for more than one blog
Suppose you have many interests, and the time to pursue more than one to at least some degree. Writing on two or more blogs may be just the ticket.
Benefits of having more than one blog include:
- Good separation between topic areas.
One focus area per blog, allowing you to build multiple independent brands at a comfortable pace.
- Leverage skill and knowledge.
Each technical advance you make on one blog can be more rapidly implemented on each succeeding blog. For example, notice the advertisements in the sidebar. It took some time to figure out how to implement these ads here on Website In A Weekend, but much less time implement ads on There Is NO Box.
Getting led astray
Suppose you have tight focus when you start out, but your writing starts to lead you elsewhere? You have two options: 1. expand the scope of your blog to naturally include your new interest, or 2. start a new blog. Both options are viable, depending on your depth of interest. For example, I have an interest in productivity, and write about productivity on a regular basis.
I also have an interest in Crassulaceae and Apocynaceae, specifically, the genus kalanchoe and genus hoya. But my interest isn’t deep enough (that is, I don’t have enough time) to warrant creating a completely new blog for these incredible plants. Instead, I use these plants as human interest topics within articles on productivity, programming, marketing, etc.
There is one serious caveat for writing on more than one topic: search engines are easily confused, and may rate your site down as spammy.
Actually, there is even more potential trouble: search engines don’t do well with rhetorical devices such as analogy and metaphor. When you use such devices and add other human interest elements into your articles, such emotionally powerful engagement provides great benefit to readers… but confuses search engines: is this article about plants, or C programming, or productivity? The reader can (or should be able to) determine very quickly. Computer search algorithms, maybe not so much.
Other interests include computational mechanics and surfing. These are interests serious enough to rate their own blogs… and I’ll be sure to announce these blogs once I have enough written to support a launch. I’ll use my experience learned here on Website In A Weekend to create much better launches.
Deep focus versus broad overview
There is a closely related issue here: should your blog be very narrowly focused and go deep into a specific topic, or should it be more broadly focused and cover several related topics?
This is also an excellent question. The case for narrowly focused blogs is covered above. However, blogs covering several topics in a broader sense can be very useful: broader focus allows you to accumulate content for future blogs. Later, once you have developed enough pillar content to launch a blog, you can start the new one with already developed content and use HTTP 301 redirects to point search engines to the indexed material on the new blog. This leverages longevity, important for search engine results. Very handy!
