I’ve seen in mentioned here and several other places that one way to make money online is to set up a blog “empireâ€. In other words, build, launch, and maintain 10-20 (or more) individual blogs. I don’t really have an interest in doing that, but I’m trying to get my head around that concept. It just seems like a lot of work, compared to just building one or two sites with lots of good (really good) content. Here’s what I don’t understand: Should each blog have it’s own domain name? If so, I would think that could get expensive and difficult to manage. Unless…you buy one of those $5/mo plans that offer multiple domains. Is that how it’s done? What about content? I’m having trouble keeping my head above water developing content for 3 sites. I can’t imagine doing it for 10 or 20 (or more). Advertising. Again, I have difficulty enough with my 3 sites. How do you drive traffic to all these blogs? I assume this is full-time work. Correct? Anyway, just curious to hear from you bloggers describing how it’s done…
Norebbo - you are not alone. There are many who feel that it is better to have one or two "main" sites as opposed to spreading thin with 10 to 20...
Yeah, I don't mean to start a flame war or anything, but to me, it just seems easier to focus on one or two things at a time. Anyway, I started this thread in hopes that some of us "website" guys and gals can learn something from the bloggers (and vise versa).
I'm with you on this one, I couldn't imagine trying to keep more than one blog balanced with work and life. Not sure if that's laziness or apathy, though. I'd rather keep my focus on one good one and hope people actually read it, not just park something for backlinks. But I'm probably wrong on this matter, as I am an SEO putz.
I'd recommend only a few quality sites, but if you have a good enough system in place, you can simply hire writers. I know a lot of people would use wordpress (multi-user), but I'd feel comfortable with a custom product. Within a central 'dashboard', I'd be able to configure each site, write for each site from the one control panel, advertise from the same control panel etc. It'd probably wind up fulltime
Sure, this might consume all of your time and you have to pay attention and spend a lot of time and effort in it. Launching many blogs mainly helps with building your links, however, if you are just creating blogs to make links, I think this isn't good, your aim from creating any blog should be your passion about the subject, otherwise, the content will be more likely poor.
Answer: 1.Yes. 2.Find the hottest niche such as tech 3.Link exchange with other blog 4.Part time only
That's a pretty generic answer. Even if the content is something in which the webmaster is knowledgeable and interested in, I still think that it would be a ton of work to update multiple blogs on a regular basis. I guess I'm just envious of the folks who have the time to do that. I sure don't.
I'm right there with you, I barely have time to keep up on simple things like squidoo and 1 blog while balancing life and whatnot. No idea how people can do multiples like this, kudos to them.
More blogs more links you could sell i guess right? Also even if you just set up a bunch and had a little content they would still be aging in googles eyes so a year or 2 from now you will have an established, indexed site to develop if you find the time and energy rather then starting from scratch with a new domain name.
Not a bad idea, might be worth a try to just park one for a spell and see what happens when I get time for it...currently have one on the back burner that I could be doing this with...
This is very true. I'm thinking about doing this with a website I want to start. I already have the idea, the template (I built it for another project), and a good source of content. I just don't have the time. But setting it up and letting it sit for a while might not be such a bad idea...
I guess I'm on the other side of the fence when it comes to lots of little sites vs. 1 or 2 big sites... and whether they're static sites or blogs doesn't really matter in my opinion, the concept of a "blog empire" is the same as a "minisite empire" isn't it? I would think there's pros and cons for either building lots of small sites or building just 1 or 2 large sites; but for me it comes down to these two things: - Variety, I like to mix up what I'm working on every couple of days or I'll get bored. If I had to publish pages and articles about "red widgets" every single day I'd quit and find a real job because that would drive me insane - No fear of your topic(s) falling from favor. With a large site you always run the risk that whatever topic your site is about might become unpopular or outdated, then you've got thousands of pages, articles and backlinks out there giving you nothing back. With lots of small sites you don't care when one dies off, you just replace it tomorrow. Look at all those giant Windows Help Sites out there with everything from registry problem help to windows performance tweaks, there's still good money being made on them I'm sure but every day MS is losing market share to Mac and with that there is bound to be a drop in available traffic and revenue for those site owners--my point is no topic is really safe for the long haul and what a shame to invest so much into something only to see it fall to nothing for reasons beyond your control. On Norebbo's 4 questions, for me the answers are: 1. Yes, and with multiple account hosting it's not really that expensive. For under $7 per month I host up to 10 sites on an account (never more than 10 because I want lots of IP blocks in my network), so the hosting works out to well under a $1 monthly per site. 2. For content I use a mixture of unique and RSS on most of my sites. The unique is good for obvious reasons, and the RSS works to keep even my static pages slightly dynamic, which search engines seem to like. 3. I use articles, social networks and lots of RSS almost exclusively, so no expenses really other than my time. 4. Full-time work and then some... but isn't anything that's truly profitable going to be?