Some of you noticed over the past weeks, that I was struggling with the fact that my blog here presents multiple interests. I had the idea to transfer the technology related articles to a new technology blog but I had this very uncomfortable feeling with two blogs.
I can be very inspired, and I really love to write about all my interests and my multi-interest blog here allows me to discharge the ideas and this is why I wanted place the focus here again. But then I opened a fortune cookie after visiting an Asia restaurant. The message inspired me to give the new technology blog a second chance. But to be honest, I seriously should listen to my feelings and not to the message of a fortune cookie.
I researched a little bit today, just because I was nosy what other people would say about blogs with multiple subjects. Yes, you will find people who suggest to create a dozen of blogs for all your interests but there are also many people who suggest to concentrate on one blog. To be honest, I was one of them in the past too.
After trying it again and after giving my new technology blog a second chance, here is what peeves me the most while managing more than just one blog:
1. I can find inspiration several times in a week and the ideas are not always related to one and the same subject. I would need tons of niche blogs if I really would want to separate all the subjects.
2. It´s me, who writes and I am a little bit selfish at this point. I do not want to be expert in several niches. I know some things in different fields, but I do not want to proof this with a gazillion of appropriate niche blogs. If I feel that I can share some interesting knowledge, I want to have one place where I can do this.
3. Even if some so-called SEO experts suggest that a niche blog works better, I should know that my own rules made it possible that my general blog could be called established with at least noteworthy Google visitors and a little bit revenue for my efforts, without losing sight of the fun factor while blogging and without being too obsessed about traffic but still focused on my interests.
4. I dislike to switch between several dashboards while pushing out new articles. I dislike it even more to decide on which blog I want to publish the content.
5. I have time, but I do not have time to manage two blogs and everything that has to do with it (social media accounts for example).
6. I can show discipline and I am a fairly consistent blogger but my motivation can´t go be beyond one blog as it seems.
7. Even a technology niche blog could be split into small fragments and niches. You can scare away people who want to read about games with articles about computer hardware, and hardware interested people if they find your gaming articles.
8. Establishing one blog is possible, establishing a second one too but it will be a pain and not easy.
9. I am afraid that I would start to prefer one blog over the other, so that it would hurt one of the blogs.
Ok this is a lot. But what about my peeves with my multi-interest blog here?
1. I started to dislike my domain name and I am aware that I could change the name but it would be a lot of work, and could set me back to the beginning for a while when we talk about Google visibility.
2. I am aware of the fact that multiple subjects could always scare people away. A broader blog can generate traffic but I think it´s not a lie that a niche blog is better when it comes to a loyal follower base as the content can at least be much more targeted than on a blog with multiple subjects.
I must say that point one is really a huge problem for me at the moment. I don´t like the domain name anymore and wonder why I didn´t have a better idea. The name describes the blog very well but the name sounds awkward anyhow. I mean the word “diary” sounds strange anyhow but maybe I have just the feeling because I saw the name for too long? Point two is not a too big problem as most of the readers visit the blog with help of the Google search anyway.
My comparison makes clear that I prefer just one blog over managing more than one. I would like several niche blogs if I could cut myself in half, but I can´t. That is the reality. And finally blogging should be fun… I should do it based on my own rules I guess.
I am also not sure why I wanted to have a technology niche blog, if this blog here was already heavily focused on some technology subjects? Maybe because I didn´t want to annoy people with my life stories, if they find here because of a software related tutorial article? Maybe because the click-through rate would be better on a niche blog? Why do I care if the traffic is not too bad here either?
It´s too funny how an idea can push you back and forth. But if this list and article here is not clear enough? My comparison shows that I really prefer to put all the energy in this blog here. Why do I still think so much about it?
One last try could be to make the new technology domain to a german blog but then there would be some other concerns. But I would need to write another article to talk about them.
Maybe I really should just forget the other domain and go back to focus on this blog here. I mean if the domain name is my biggest peeve, how tiny is this problem compared to the peeves I have with multiple blogs?
Diary of Dennis 
Just keep this blog as it is: it’s nice to have varity in the issues discussed, and the domain name is no problem: it fits the content: in a diary you write all sorts of stuff. Don’t worry! And yes, two blogs is a lot of work.
Thank´s for the encouragement. I guess you are right. I decided yesterday, to import all the articles from the other blog to this one here. I´m done with two blogs. It would be more headache for me, to manage two blogs but I want that blogging is fun.
And about the domain name, I agree… the name fits to the different articles here. Maybe I am just bored by the name but this is a tiny problem. Focus is back here as it always was.
Thanks for your input 🙂
[ Smiles ] Dennis, my blog deals with a multiplicity of topics and it appears to be doing rather well.
Thats nice to hear Renard. It works well in my case too and I do wonder why I did want to start a second blog. Maybe also because of curiosity. But I decided now to put the focus back to this blog here. I dislike it to have two places with english articles as I always needed to decide where to put the english tech articles, since this blog here has been about technology anyway too.
I could imagine to make the other domain to a german blog but I am not sure yet. But if I do, I could recycle and rewrite the best articles of this blog here in german and that maybe wouldn´t hurt as I would do this only time by time and with the best articles (not much time consuming then). On this way I could still heavily focus on this blog here. But as said. I´m not sure but the domain does not cost so much that I will stress me with the decision.
Thank´s for your opinion Renard . 🙂
Dennis, life’s too short to continue working on a domain that you don’t like. I have a very similar predicament. cafearjun is too personal, and I somehow don’t see it becoming this awesome business. The good thing is, I changed domains for another site and with the htaccess and web.config 301s it’s really not that hard and if you’re still not happy, I recommend reading about it and making the shift. You won’t lose much search traffic and may be more motivated to write.
I did set myself a plan to overcome the problems… the plan consists of two stages…
1. I do currently work on a CSS script, the new layout is already live, although there are still some bugs that I need to fix this week.
2. I will rent a domain that I like more, and then I will do a 301 redirect to not lose too much traffic after the rebranding.
I am at the moment in the process of step 1. I will wait with step 2 because changing the blog layout together with a new domain is never a good idea SEO-wise… so, I will do step 2 January or so. I think I won’t change my blogging behaviour, I like it personal, that’s what did drive my blog… I dislike limitations, I want to write about more than just subject and it worked well so far, it’s just the domain that I don’t like, but the change will come.
I think there are a lot of concepts when it comes to blogging, I do think we should decide how we want to blog… a lot of people talk about niche blogging, that’s fine if it’s working for so many, but I do not believe that it will ever work for me, it would kill the fun for me… that’s what I tell people, do it on your way, so that you have fun whith blogging, that’s how you can move forward 🙂
I’m thinking of starting a multi-interest blog too. It’s just…how do I go about categorizing my posts when what I’ll be posting on seriously have very little relevance to each other? I also worry that one day my header will run out of space for me to list all my categories!
Hi Sienna,
At first I really had problems to decide how to create categories and tags, it was a complete mess in my first year. Later, I started to clean up the mess. I noticed, for a broad blog, it’s better to only have a few categories with the main subjects, and to use post tags more often. When you know you have 8 unrelated interests, you create a category for each interest, and you apply one or two of them for the post you write, if they fit, apart from that you describe the article with tags. I have categories like “technology”, “pc games”, “nature and animals”, “photography and design” and one more category called “this and that”. Most of the time my posts fit into the main categories, if not, if I write about something new, I will apply the category “this and that”. If I write about birds, I would for example apply the category “nature and animals”, and tag the post with keywords like photos of birds, the bird name and so on, to describe the post more in details. So, to get to a point, you can try to create categories for your main interests, try to stay below 10 categories or so, otherwise you will get the mentioned mess… you can go over the top with keywords as said, but you shouldn’t with categories. Another thing you could do at the beginning, you could only use tags and no categories, and after a year or two, you could check out your tags and look for the most used tags and decide to convert some of the most often used tags to categories. I would probably have applied the last tip, if I would have known that this is an option, but back then I didn’t get this idea. 🙂 I hope this gave you some ideas!
Thank you! I’ll keep that in mind. 🙂 Just curious, how do you make money from your website (assuming that you do)? We can talk over email if you prefer! Haha.
It’s a bit different in my case as I am hosting my blog on wordpress.com and our options are different. However, they have an advertising program called WordAds and I get a bit of income each month due to the ads. I wrote a review in public on my blog where I explain how it works here, although the review is a bit outdated as it was written in the year 2014, but I am still in this program: https://diaryofdennis.com/2014/02/21/my-wordads-review/
If you are hosting your site on a shared host, or on a cloud of another company (also called self-hosting), then there are other options like the Google Adsense program.
Then there is also affiliate marketing, that works for both, you could write product reviews and add Amazon affiliate links. That is just one option out of thousands…. there are hundreds of affiliate programs that could fit to some of your articles. Apart from that, some bloggers do also earn money with promoted content, where a company writes the article and gives you money to publish it on your site in return for backlinks. The last mentioned option does only work if your blog is very well established and if your domain has nice stats.
Generally, I never would write a blog for the only purpose to earn money, because this is the recipe to fail hard. But I assume that’s not what you plan to do, but some people do why I often like to mention it. Most essential is that you love the activity blogging, that is the most important aspect, and with that you might create a blog with thousands of visitors but it’ll take some time. Like with all interests, you might be able to earn money but not right after the start. I know from others, that many people start because of the money, and if they notice that money doesn’t flow in right away, they give up after a few months, while passionated bloggers couldn’t care less if they don’t get an income, which is why they will get an income at some point as they never stopped to keep their blogs updated.
So, in short, there are definitely a lot of ways to earn money with a blog, but it takes time, and if it’s your only focus, you will be frustrated, and if it’s not your only focus, you will gladly take the pocket money even if you know that you won’t get rich by it. 🙂