As I entered the conference hall, I overheard a young seminar attendee proudly proclaim, “I have 1000 blogs!“.
His companion's response was so intense that I thought she might swoon, so I moved hastily to find a seat on the other side of the room and contemplate what I'd just heard.
One thousand blogs, indeed.
She must have thought she'd just hit the rich blogger jackpot.
I wonder however if the young man told her how much money it cost him to register and host those blogs? Or, how much time it took to set each blog up? Or, if each of those blogs was a ‘splog' with content scraped (stolen) from more credible bloggers? OR, how much money each of those blogs made in a month?
Let me guess. Maybe a buck each for a gross total of 12 grand a year?
Hopefully she figured out that he wasn't really a rich blogger when she saw his '77 Celica in the hotel parking lot.
Then again, I know folks with only 20 real blogs who aren't exactly getting rich blogging either.
They're affiliating in all the ‘lucrative niches' with blogs about diets and weight loss, acne and diabetes cures, muscle building, dating, affiliate marketing, how to make money blogging, search engine marketing, credit and finance, debt reduction, travel, self-help and … you guessed it, the wonders of acai berry.
Not much wrong with those markets. They're big, evergreen and I'm in a few of them myself. 🙂
They've invested in all the training courses and ‘essential tools' — keyword research tools, link cloaking and tracking software, site building software, seo tools, article spinners, nifty templates, etc.
They work very hard, spending long hours tending to their sites. They also spend gobs of time researching the web for new tools and training that will give them the ‘edge' they need to get more traffic to their blogs.
And yet after investing all that time and money, the few visitors their blogs do get don't buy what they are promoting.
So, what's the problem?
The problem isn't their choice of market. Neither is it a failure to invest time and money in their business.
The problem is lack of focus and having their most precious resource – time – spread far too thin.
If your blogging business resembles that described above, here are a few suggestions that will give you the ‘edge' you seek.
- Pick one of your existing blogs — just ONE.
- Focus exclusively on that blog alone for the next 90 days.
- If the blog's main market is huge, focus on a sub-category of the topic.
- Get your autoresponder opt-in form up on the blog. VERY important!
- Set up your blog broadcast so your posts automatically go out to your subscribers.
- Pick a few products to promote and write reviews.
- Write 3 – 5 blog posts relevant to each of those products.
- Moderate and respond to comments left by your readers.
- Visit related forums and blogs and leave helpful comments with a link back to your blog.
- If your blog needs a fresh look, install a new theme.
Perhaps most importantly, make a commitment to visit other blogs only to research your market's interests for the purpose of article writing and to share valuable information through comments.
To keep your focus on marketing, consider outsourcing those tasks that your find difficult and/or time consuming.
Last but not least — make sure that the blog you choose to focus on is making money before you start working on another.
Hint: I worked in only one niche for the first 5 years I was online.
If you've been hoodwinked into believing that you need 20 or 1000 blogs to make money online – check out Affiliate Blogger PRO.
I teach what I do – run a minimal number of blogs to make piles of cash.
If you'd rather blog about topics in which you are truly interested, check out my blogger video training today where you will do what you love, share your passion and make money online.
I would love to just cut back on one or two blogs. I have been suckered into thinking that micro niche blogs are more profitable. Is it possible to go deep and wide as far as a niche blog goes? I am passionate about my family and would like to spend my time in just this one niche, but is it too wide? I would like to talk about everything from family vacations, to disciplining toddlers, to recipes, to romantic getaways for the hubby. Is that too much for one blog? I would love to know your opinion.
I came back to re-read this post. I re-read A LOT of your posts because I’m addicted to your site…..lol
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I love love love the picture that you included with this post. It’s HILARIOUS! Absolutely perfect portrayal of someone that has taken on too much. I will admit to working on 7 niche sites, but they are sites that I’m passionate about. I just could not decide on one niche. I’m a multi-tasker and get bored with working on just one.
However, I’m definitely at my limit. The part in the post where someone was bragging about having 1000 blogs did not surprise me. There are quite a few “gurus” out there that teach people to “build 100 blogs/sites that make a dollar per day”.
Well, that has worked for some people, but it also burns people out. Personally, I would be hard pressed to find 100, let alone 1000 niches that I was truly interested in enough to build a site for, even a micro site. I would rather build sites on things that I’m truly interested in.
Please everyone listen to her. I so agree with Rosalind, I was guilty of the same and I learned the hard way, but I am glad I did. I only focus on my blog where I record my process and of course my secret niche, we all that one we don’t want anyone to know because we think they’re going to come and take all our sales.
Follow her advice really, thanks Rosalind, I wish I would have seen this in my beginnings.
I totally agree with you Rosalind. blogs is all about quality not quantity. I don’t think having a 1000 blogs will give any time for quality.
Hi Laura,
I’m not a novice, but I’ve always eschewed the autoresponder thing for the most part. See, I’ve created products, but none of those are for the audience for two of my blogs, and the third is actually my normal business blog, not a “make money online” blog of any time, and thus I don’t feel it’s appropriate for me to collect email addresses there. For my main business, I already send a biweekly newsletter that always has my products listed, and those people subscribed so I got those email addresses and still don’t have to use an autoresponder for it.
See, for specific reasons I could see why someone might use one. But if one didn’t have a product, and even with a delay of a day they’d still get the RSS feed eventually, I’m missing why a brand new blogger would need one.
Rosalind, thank you for these little golden nuggets. 🙂 I belong to Lynn Terrys’ Elites; this month’s challenge is to sreamline our business..
Mitch – I’m not Rosalind (I have a firm grasp on the obvious) but I think I can help to answer your question. A couple of reasons it’s good to have an autoresponder even if you have an RSS feed:
1. RSS feeds are not as reliable time-wise as e-mail. I am a subscriber to my own feed, and I find that sometimes I don’t get notified that a new blog post is up until a day or so after I actually published it.
2. An autoresponder allows you to set up a series of followup messages in which you can provide information that is not necessarily included on your blog, including information about products you have created or affiliate products.
I apologize if this info sounds like it’s talking down to you – I don’t know what your level of knowledge is – but I thought it might be helpful to others who read your question. 🙂
As always, your take on the matter is right on the money…
1000 blogs, 20 blogs, 10 blogs even, it’s practically impossible to generate so much content that’s marginally up to par as far as quality and originality that paying followers expect and deserve!
I like all of this except one thing that I have to ask you about. That being the autoresponder. If people subscribe to your RSS feed and thus get your blog, why would you need an autoresponder? Isn’t it easier to encourage people to subscribe to your feed?
Hi Rosalind! I’ve been learning from you for a short while now. In my new blog,I just spoke of your recent post “How Many Blogs?” and linked to your site. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience!
Oh yeah, and ’77 Celica – too funny! ROFL!!!
Excellent post, Rosalind! I’ve been trying to do just this, recently – focus on one site and one site only! I am the queen of distractions and doing too much stuff – so that none of it is profitable!
A while back I went down to two blogs from probably 7 or 8. It was a great decision. Some of the old ones still get traffic, but I can focus more on what needs doing and be more creative with what I have.
Not quite down to one as you suggested, but a decrease can be a major help in running the remainder better.
Ros, great advice. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the “get rich quick” crap that people send, that it’s easy to think that doing 100 different things at once is the way to make big money. Or always shifting to the next big idea that some expert says will make you rich in 30 days without much work. Do yourself a favor, unsubscribe from all the emails you get with the next “big idea” and instead follow the bullet points above.
1000 blogs it baffles the mind how one would take care of them!
Kind of like 100s or 1000s of women 🙂
Thanks so much for the info. You consistently give great pointers and true “meat and potato” content. I currently have three blogs that I just started so this info is just what I needed. Thank you again and keep it coming.
Ros, I can’t agree with you more.
I chose one hobby niche and for nearly 12 months only focused on the one blog and one niche. It was very hard ignoring the people saying build a hundred blogs and one or two will hit the jackpot.
But, I slowly created a list which is over 10k now, sent them a weekly newsletter and created a full time income for myself. The best part is that in Nov 2009 I created a $27/mo membership component of the same blog which takes about 3 hours of my time every week to update.
By being in the one niche I have created this expansive knowledge of exactly who my customers are and what they want, who my competitors are, what information is out there and much more.
In my opinion it is the only way to go…
Cheers
Ian
It’s frustrating to have your content scraped and copied by lazy sploggers. I’m in the process of having copyright attorneys send some pretty scary papers to one particular scraper who after repeated requests won’t stop. He even went so far as to send me some psycho threats. Yeaaaaaa! Fun times. All I wanted was for him to stop stealing my stuff.
I think people need to spend more time working on themselves more than their blogs. Become interesting enough to make me want to read your stuff. Most bloggers are bland and boring people, hence why they hide behind a computer screen under unverify-able aliases and avatars instead of writing “THEIR” story.
Hey! That’s me under that collapsed stack of white bricks looking so totally out of focus. Once again, your truths will set me free, Rosalind. It’s so easy to get unfocused, distracted, distraught (we might be missing something!) to the point where the only progress I seem to be making is in faster and faster spinning whirlpools. Thanks for throwing the lifeline so often!