Comments on: How Many Blogs to Focus Upon?

By: Make Money Online - The Internet Income Blog

Make Money Online - The Internet Income Blog — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 15:14:21 +0000

If You Plant It, Will It Grow?

During the last few days, my family and I have been busy in the garden. Well, mostly my family— but I’ve contributed too. ;-) However, it’s winter here Down Under, so there are cases where it’s…

By: » The Bloglogic Shakedown BlogLogic.net

» The Bloglogic Shakedown BlogLogic.net — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 20:25:30 +0000

[...] ly 6, 2005 The Bloglogic Shakedown Darren Rowse recently posted a nice piece called How Many Blogs To Focus Upon? that, in a way, clarified a few things [...]

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 10:22:37 +0000

Most of my blogs are very new so it’s hard to evaluate any of them realistically yet. Also, I regularly remind myself of a website that I let go even though it was pretty popular (back in the mid 90s way before blogs hit the scene). I could’ve used that as a platform for other things but I let it go for a number of reasons, and wish I hadn’t.

So I’m reluctant to let my current projects go unless I get a strong gut instinct that I shouldn’t be working on them any more.

Generally, I don’t think you can make a reliable decision on a blog that’s less than 6-12 months old, given the time it takes for various sources (search engines, directories, inbound links) to build up.

By: duncan

duncan — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 02:12:10 +0000

I think you need to look at it from an search engine view point, and that’s the more links on more sites the more all the sites will benefit. Sure, you can pay for them or exchange links with other sites but having a network to do it on makes it that much easier in leveraging your existing traffic at promoting new sites. Also from my perspective the higher traffic blogs don’t always make as much money, for example my smallest blog at the moment in terms of traffic makes far more in revenue in percentage to its traffic than any other blog on the network.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 23:51:48 +0000

You could just continue with the non performing blogs as a side thing. And post less frequently on them; say just 10% or any number that justify what you are making on it. If traffic from Google is the problem it could be vise to sit on them, they could suddenly take off if Google suddenly starts to rank it.

By: Michele

Michele — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:21:47 +0000

The other thing I would wonder about is how you could have the same level of energy and enthusiasm maintaining 20 blogs as opposed to 6 (or some other number).

By: Jeremy Wright

Jeremy Wright — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:10:42 +0000

Darren, I used to flip sites for a living (ie: build them, then sell them for 10-20x monthly earnings). My rule was always: if the site has plateau’d, not grown, or shrunk for 6 straight months, it’s time to sell.

Looking back across the more than 50 sites I’ve build and flipped, I can’t see any that I regret dumping at the time. The money, traffic, userbase simply wasn’t there.

It’s one thing if you’re seeing steady growth (10-20%/month). It’s another if a blog is languishing in the 100 pages/day world for over a year. Sorry, but even if that hits it big, it’s unlikely to pay off in the end.

By: Bill Peschel

Bill Peschel — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:10:03 +0000

It’s risky to pare back too hard, because if your top two blogs start to decline, what are you going to do next?

At the same time, is the effort you’re putting into 18 underperforming blogs worth the effort? How much return are you getting from them. A cost-benefit analysis may give you some ideas.

I clicked over to your laptop blog and thought it was interesting. Do you have anything on large screen TVs? Circuit City is offering a 70″ Hitachi as part of a package system for about nine grand. My wife saw it, then dragged me back for another visit. We had decided to buy a larger TV (like a 36″), but now we’re going to wait. After seeing that setup, we *want* the movie experience at home, and now prices are falling that people in our price range (e.g., salary of under $50K a year), can actually afford it.

I know, one anecdote, but my wife and I are cautious people, and our first contact with a 70″ set made a big impression on us. Since prices are only going to go down, I suspect this is the Next Big Thing.

By: Allan Burns

Allan Burns — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 22:04:53 +0000

Thast encouraging that it takes about a year before a site really starts to see traffic. My sites currently have very low traffic, one of them has been up for 6 months now. I do hope soon that they will start to see some Google traffic, especially after spending time producing quality content.

By: John (SYNTAGMA)

John (SYNTAGMA) — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 21:41:30 +0000

Remember the 80/20 principle.

By: Heat

Heat — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 21:01:23 +0000

Great post Darren….

This post made me think alot, and i speak while thinking now:

This post reminds me of Heat Entertainment blog, which i funded 1.5 months ago, and closed after about 3 weeks of acticity due to the lack of readership, of course some will say i should’ve waited longer but…i wasn’t that keen about Entertainment without discussions, so i guess i wasn’t built and ready enough to wait for the success to come (and i doubted if it’ll ever come)

So i decided to continue with my main Graphic Designs blog, that took off pretty fast comparing to what i expected it to…but even if it didn’t, i’ll still be posting and updating daily…cause i post with passion, due to the fact that i’m very attracted to graphic designs..

I recently opened a new personal blog, with some rants, and interesting outlooks on different things, it’s not taking off that well right now…but i didn’t even open it so it to….it’s just my personal outlet..

Generally, i think i won’t be playing that waiting game too much because i’m not that patient (which is bad), but someone like you, who have alot of blogs and income streams, can afford waiting for (more) big cash to come ;)

Just an opinion of a very rookie :)
Heat

By: Ken

Ken — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 20:45:01 +0000

Good question Darren, I think for myself, even though my blog has been up for about 2.5 months, I’m starting to see traffic go up because of the guest blogging that I’ve doen for your two sites. But not sure how long that will last for. All I can do is keep writing.

You mentioned that it took 18 months before you really were able to go full time with this, but I’m sure one day a lot of this stuff will pan out.

Also, it seems that a blog has to hit a certain mass of posts before it really starts to become something substantial in terms of not only being a blog but a reference site too.

I’m barely scratching the surface with my blog but I’m hoping if I continue to chug at it, it will become a more viable blog for those who are interested in digital photo.