When I started trying to manage three blogs, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and in desperate need to organise. I’ve learned quite a few things over the past month since starting blog #3, but still am no expert.

I decided, therefore, to ask a few people who did successfully manage multiple blogs, and ask them what their “secrets” were. In searching for people to interview, however, I found it very difficult! It seems that most people running multiple blogs tended to neglect one or more of them (I wanted someone who was actively running several successful blogs), and a few of the people I found it turns out they were running “scraping” blogs, and I really didn’t want to have anything to do with that (I wanted to talk to people endevouring to create original content like I am). A lot of people seem to be running 2-3 blogs, but more than that is more rare than I thought!

And so I wrote to Kevin, who runs four successful and active blogs. I knew him from his popular humor blog Pointless Banter, and he agreed to let me in on his own blogging techniques so I could share them with you. He writes these blogs:

Pointlessbanter.net - “There is material on there over three years old, it originally started out on MySpace. It is what got me blogging and into writing, it is a humor blog and I guess my “personal” blog. The site has been up for over two years.”

Buzznetworker.com - “It technically has been up for ten months but due to some technical problems it really didn’t get going until like six months ago. It is about using social networking websites to increase recognition for your brand, your blog, or your business.”

Jambandnews.com - “That is about three months old right now. The title is self explanatory.”

staroffenders.com - “This blog is only a couple of months old but it has done well. It is a celebrity gossip blog focused on celebs in trouble.”

When I asked him which was the most successful, he said:

Trafficwise Pointlessbanter.net has exploded over the last few months.  StarOffenders could and will easily pass it though, because of the type of content people search for.

I asked Kevin about structuring his time, and he told me:

“I used [have a method for structuring time] to but I have honestly been struggling lately with work, grad school, and maintaining four blogs. For a few of my blogs that don’t need to have “breaking news” type of stuff I try and pre-write my content for at least two weeks at a time.”

He says he tries to write Monday through Friday on all four blogs, and so I asked if he ever had trouble keeping up with it all.

“Yeah it has gotten pretty rough as of late, I am thinking about scaling back to just doing two blogs, but of course if I spend a weekend on getting caught up I could be ok. I have been continually wrestling with this.”

I’m glad I’m not the only one!  Some days I feel like I can do it all and want to start 2 MORE blogs, and other days I feel like the three I have are overwhelming, and I want to shut one or two of them down.  I get the feeling a lot of bloggers have that experience.

So I asked Kevin whether he was in it for love or money (I’m sure I phrased it more delicately though.)  To have a full perspective on his experience, it was important to understand if this was a hobby or a real attempt at commercial enterprise.  He said:

“… Buzznetworker, Jambandnews, and StarOffenders are all part of the b5 blogging network. I get paid to write those. Pointlessbanter is my baby and my number one focus, it always has been and it will be until I am done blogging. That page does make some money through ad revenue and I have started actually trying to come up with an ad strategy for it instead of just throwing up google ads.”

Me: “What made you want to start so many? Is it a plan for making money online, or do you just have a lot of topics you wanted to cover?” Answer:

“Last year I was working from home as a consultant while going to school, so I had a little more time on my hands. I thought blogging would be a good way to add to my income. When I left to go to grad school I really thought about getting up to 8 blogs and using the money I made from that and my student loans to pay the bills. But I ended up landing a job as a new media manager for a local company, which kind of put a wrench in everything.

“These are all topics that I really enjoy and really like to talk about. The money, while nice, isn’t enough to get me out of bed and force me to blog in the morning. With my personal page I really couldn’t tackle the social networking thing or the music thing because it wouldn’t fit in with my style or what I talk about. These blogs were a good way for me to change things up a bit.”

I’ve considered giving up at least one of my blogs before, so I wondered if Kevin had ever been tempted to simplify as well.  I asked, “Do you have any blogs you’ve given up on, or do you nurture each one if it starts slowing down?”

“Right now I am thinking about asking them to find another writer for staroffenders and jambandnews. For a celebrity gossip blog to work you need to post 5 short stories a day and I just don’t have it in me right now. They all have a certain level of success already so I am handing them off in good health.”

Conclusions:

What I  found most interesting about this conversation was that it reinforced my own experiences with blogging.  I like it, I have had some success, but at the same time it’s a struggle not to give up, especially when life gets busy.

I’ve also discovered some specific techniques for managing my own time, which I’ll share with you in an upcoming post.  It really helps to organise, but knowing you need to organise and knowing where to start are two different things.  Details coming soon!

A huge, special thanks to Kevin for sharing his thoughts on running multiple blogs.  With all that work he has going, I’m amazed he had the time.  Thanks! 

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I’ve been looking a lot at RSS feeds lately. How to use them, how to promote them, and how to make my numbers grow. I know from my own experience that I forget about sites, even ones that I enjoy, and I’ve begun to use readers and find out what a great tool RSS really is.

So I want my own readers to be able to take advantage of this and be able to find me again if they’ve enjoyed something they’ve read. (This “they” is YOU, by the way.)

When I first started out I got the message, “Make your feed easy to find.” Check. I’ve put it at the top of my blogs.

But now I want to do even more!

First, I noticed that other people had nifty little footers at the bottom of their feeds. Some with adverts and some with messages that didn’t appear on their sites, so I did some research.

Wordpress Plugins:

• Feed Footer Plugin
• Better Feed Plugin
• PostPost
• Sig2Feed

But none did exactly what I was seeing, so I keep looking, and guess what? It’s a standard feature you can get for free on Feedburner. (Yes, I feel dumb.)

Seen these? Well all you have to do to have them on your own feed is click a few buttons! It’s incredibly easy if you’re already using Feedburner. Log in to your Feedburner account and click “Optimize”.

Then Click “Feed Flare” on the left column.

Then simply go down the list and tick which options you wish to show up on your feed in the Footer.

Save. And it’s done!

This will increase the chances that your RSS readers will interact with your blog!

Other good articles on RSS feeds:

• Increase RSS Subscriptions 
• John Chow’s RSS Competition.   (I include this as I think it’s a great idea and inspiring to think of creative ways to raise reader’s awareness of your feed!)

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I’ve discovered recently that a mere 3 blogs has been taking up most of my day. So I’ve been looking for things that will help keep my blogs from being a huge time sink-hole. I’ve found some great ideas. Some of which I already knew, others which are new to me and going to be a great help!

• Plan Ahead
  As of this week, I’m writing ALL my blog posts for About Blogging and Bitter Women in one day. This leaves the other days open for commenting and networking.
• Use a Feed Reader
  I can’t tell you how much time this has saved me. I used to spend hours and hours going to a couple dozen blogs that I wanted to check daily. With Google Reader, I can check over a hundred without having to do anything. And with this Google Reader Firefox Plugin , you can see how many unread items you have in Google Reader without having to change pages. Read my article about Choosing an RSS Reader .
• Read Less Often
  You don’t have to read every blog you visit every day! Consider visiting twice a week, and make a bookmark if you find something interesting and return on your writing day. This doesn’t mean read less. I still stand by my earlier statement that you must read more than you write. But you will use your time more efficiently if you do it in one sitting, rather than doing it in small increments throughout the day.
• Post Less Often
  I’ve done a little experimenting with the timing on my blogs, and have found that no one really minds if I don’t post 7 days a week. I’ve decided to post 5 times per week and skip weekends. My readership goes way down on the weekends, and I find that if I post on Saturday and Sunday, those posts are often ignored. I’m not sure, by the way, if this means that my readers have a life and spend the weekends with their families, or if it means that everyone blogs at work.
• Write Shorter Posts
  If you can make your point in 10 words, don’t take 10 paragraphs. Nobody minds shorter posts.
• Check Stats Less Often
  It’s easy to get addicted to checking your stats, especially early on when a spattering of new traffic is exciting. But recently I realised I was often checking my stats several times a day. Do it no more than once a day, and see if you can ween yourself down gradually to once a week. In truth, constant stat checking is nothing but a distraction! Same goes for checking earnings! If you find you absolutely cannot stop yourself from checking your Google earnings, or you find it inspiring to see the amounts stack up, then consider the Firefox Google Adsense add-on which will show you your earnings without you having to take time out.
• Scan Articles With a Critical Eye
  Ask yourself are you reading an article/blog? If you’re looking for a place to comment for the sake of leaving a link, let yourself scan, and don’t get sucked into reading an entire blog just because it’s interesting. See the next point for further explanation…
• Fun vs. Work
  If you find a blog you love and a blogger whose articles you can’t resist, that’s great! But don’t tell yourself you’re “working” when you go there and fritter around for an hour! Do visit friends’ blogs. I have a list of them that I enjoy visiting daily. But…. I had to remind myself that’s for FUN TIME and not WORK TIME.
• Take Time Away
  Yesterday was a Sunday, and I decided to go completely unplugged. No computer and no video games all day! With three active blogs going, it’s hard for me to take time away, but in truth, I came back feeling more refreshed and inspired than ever, with ideas bubbling away in my head.

What are your thoughts?
What are your techniques for saving time?
Other Resources:

• Top 5 Uncommon Timesavers for Bloggers
• The 10 Minute Daily Guide To Building Your Social Profile

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I wish I could tell you this title, “My Journey With The Naked Celebrity” means I’m having an affair with Brad Pitt, but no, I’ve started a new blog. Yes, I may be perilously close to having to face my blog addiction, but until then, I thought I’d tell you about it.

This blog, called The Naked Celebrity , is my first attempt at a blog that is designed primarily as a money-generator. I do find the topic interesting and the writing for it fun. What I mean by “made it as a money-generator” is that when I set it up, I decided to do so with monetizing in mind.

Becky, over at Preblogging, has some great tips for to follow before setting up your blog, including choosing your blogging niche .

I would also recommend that before you get started on creating a blog (that isn’t a personal blog) that you check out this article on problogger about choosing your niche . Despite having the same topics, the articles have a vastly different focus.

So when I decided to get started, I took the following steps:

1. Choose the niche.

After investigating what people are searching for using Google Trends and Google Adwords (which shows the popularity and competitiveness of terms that show up on Adsense and how much advertisers will pay for these terms), I decided to go with something in the celebrity vein.

“But, Jayne… you can’t stand celebrities.” That’s right, and so I realised that this could work in my favor. If you’ve been to my humor blog Bitter Women, you know that I love a good rant. So instead of just presenting the news like a thousand other blogs and websites do, I would put my own slant on it, and give it my own voice.

Ranting about how idiotic celebrities are would just never get old for me.

In order to create something different, I created a set of characters named Auntie Maude, Cousin Rose, and Uncle Horace who give their own opinions and funny observations about the silly gossip stories that abound.

2. Choose the Title

I chose “The Naked Celebrity” because putting those two words together turns it into search engine gold, but also because I liked the double-meaning.

3. Choose the design

I am so happy with the wordpress theme I chose, called The Morning After. It gives it a magazine feel, which I hope looks professional and slick. I felt that if I was going for the “gossip mag” feel, I didn’t want it to look too “homey” and it even veers away slightly from the traditional blog look. It IS slightly complex, as there are a lot of images to upload in various places for each article, but readers want pictures and eye-candy, so an image-rich layout is great, and I’m very pleased with how it’s turned out.

I’ve also picked this layout because the advertising fits well within it, and doesn’t look sloppy.

So now all that’s left is the final bit…

4. Fill it up with some content so it doesn’t look too bare.

Right now I only have a few articles up, so I need to add about a dozen more within a few days to fill out that celebrity name “category” list on the left.

Since this is my first attempt at a real monetised blog that is set up with SEO in mind, and working for search users, it’s something different for me, so I’m letting you in on my process, so you can learn along with me. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, I’d love to hear them!

*Note: I can report that some things seem to already be going well, even after just two days! I’ve already started getting click-throughs from Technorati on the celeb names. Why is a few clicks a big deal? None of my other blogs get any traffic from technorati at all! LOL

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Back as far as 2005, people were already asking if blogrolls were still relevant .

But at the Blogherald.com, they note that “A blogroll began as a place to recommend your favorite bloggers to others. Understanding the relationship the blogroll plays on your blog, the new Google Blog PageRank Patent puts more emphasis on blogrolls than ever before in determining your PageRank.”

But as pointed on in this conversation on Bloggst : Blogrolls often aren’t helpful, because they don’t really tell you what the site is about. Just a name. So you’re taking your chances, and often don’t get what you thought you would.

One critic (And I’m gutted that I can’t now find the link) said that very little traffic comes from blogrolls anyway, so his conclusion was that it isn’t worth cluttering up your sidebar with one. So in thinking about both sides of the argument I decided to see if my links on OTHER people’s blogrolls actually brings me any traffic.

So without further ado:

Please keep in mind this covers both Bitter Women and this blog, as they’re on the same domain, hence the humor-blogs.com listing.

I was surprised by a couple of things here.

#1 StumbleUpon kicks all other asses as far as my sites are concerned. This is very likely because since Bitter Women is a humor blog, it has the type of content people like to stumble. (I’ve noticed #s of diggs going up since I’ve added this blog.)

#2 Leaving comments IS worthwhile.

#3 Either Technorati sucks, or I have no clue how to use it effectively. (Every time I’ve tried to search for tips on Technorati, I just run into link train recommendations.)

My conclusion, you might think, is to say that if I only get 8.7% of 10% from being on other people’s blogrolls, it isn’t worth it to practice the blogroll love.

But… could it be that those people that have me on their blogrolls very possibly account for quite a few of that 51.7 direct address number?

My conclusion from this little stat delving excersize is that in terms of click-thrus, it’s not worth it, but in terms of building a community, it really is. Those blogrollers are often the ones that comment. Would they comment if they weren’t on my blogroll? Probably. But if it makes them feel more a part of my blogs, then it’s worth it to me.

In short: Stats don’t tell the whole story.

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