This post is part of the weekly Q&A section. Just use the contact form if you want to submit a question.
Suppose one blogger has got multiple interests , like Books, Gadgets and Cars. Will he get more readers and traffic when he writes about them in separate blogs, or if he writes about all of them on a single blog?
Both strategies can work. Let’s analyze the pros and cons of each of them.
Pros of One Blog with Many Topics
The largest advantage of this model is that you will have a very strong domain, since it will receive the link juice from all the different topics and content channels. Over time it will become relatively easy to rank for keywords because of the high trust that the root domain has. That is why websites like Wikipedia or Digg rank so well in Google.
Another advantage of this model is the unlimited potential for expansion. Provided your domain is a generic one, you will be able to add and remove topics over the time without needing to rework the brand.
Cons of One Blog with Many Topics
The main disadvantage of one large blog covering many topics is the fact that it will require a huge amount of time, energy and money to become successful.
Why? Because you would need to shape it as a content portal. That means that you should have a design that supports the portal structure, different channels inside it, and different writers to keep each of the channels updated regularly.
Trying to do a content portal by yourself and with no investment would probably yield mediocre results.
Pros of Many Blogs with One Topic
The advantage of having many blogs, each with a niche topic, is the fact that it will be easier to attract loyal visitors on each of those sites. The sharper your focus, the easier it is to convince a first time visitor that he should come back tomorrow or subscribe to your RSS feed.
Secondly, niche websites are also easier to be monetized. Advertisers like to be able to control the audience that is going to see their ads.
Cons of Many Blogs with One Topic
The disadvantage of having many blogs, each with a niche topic, is the time and energy that you will need to spend managing them. You will inevitably need to worry about the web hosting, web design, software, maintenance so on. The higher the number of sites you have, the more time they will consume with those tasks.
Additionally, there is always the risk to spread yourself too thin. If you can’t keep up with the content production and promotion activities on all the blogs, they will probably tank over the time.
As you can see there are pros and cons related to both strategies. Choosing one over the other is a personal decision.
My preferred strategy is to go with niche blogs. You just need to make sure that your niche is not too narrow. For example creating a blog about “Nepal Photography” would probably not be a good idea. If you choose “Digital Photography,” however, you should be fine.
I also prefer to focus on the development of one website or blog at a time. Trying to do too many things at once is one of the most common business mistakes.
What do you think?