Why One Blog Cannot Be All Things To All Readers

Recently, several of my coaching clients have struggled with the same issue. They wanted to blog a book—maybe even more than one book, but they felt the book didn’t necessarily fit into the focus of their pre-existing blog.

They didn’t initially, however, like my solution to their problem: Start a new, additional blog focused only on the topic of your blogged book. After some thought they realized it might be a good idea.

Most writers and bloggers don’t want more than one blog. They often struggle to keep up with one blog. They think having more than one blog means more work—more posts to write. So they cram all the topics about which they want to write into one blog. In the end, juggling all those topics in one place gets exhausting for the blogger–and for the reader.

It’s true you may need to write and publish posts a bit more often if you have more than one blog. But in fact one blog can’t be all things to all readers—or to one writer or blogger. Thus, you will achieve more with more blogs rather than less in some cases.

Let me tell you about two of my clients. Sandy has a successful blog primarily about living fully and joyfully. However, she also blogs about living with Lyme Disease. Additionally, she is contemplating blogging her memoir, which tells the story of her own struggle with the disease. She wants to do all of this on the same site, but she isn’t sure how her readers will react or how she will fit it into the posting schedule she’s created. (On certain days she writes about specific things.) During our coaching session I suggested she move the Lyme Disease posts and memoir, both of which are related, to a new blog site. There she can create a resource on Lyme Disease and even later blog more books on the topic, if she wants to do so.

Rachel is a life coach, spiritual director and worksite wellness expert. All of these topics are listed on her website. She joined a coaching group because she wanted to monetize her blog by blogging some short books. She initially wanted to include all three topics on one blog. After I suggested breaking at least one of the topics out into a separate blog, she did just that, putting worksite wellness by itself on another site. It did not fit with life coaching and spiritual direction and made more sense as a stand-alone blog. The other two topics seemed to work well together, and some of her life coaching clients actually opted to also hire her for spiritual direction (and vice versa). Now she could target her market–and her clients–with each blog and not worry that some readers would feel she was off topic.

Here are some things to keep in mind if you are struggling with more than one topic on your blog and wondering how to keep things organized, pull in more readers or set up a blogged book:

• It can be more difficult to try and manage one multi-subject blogs than several blogs single-subject blogs.
• It’s easier for readers to navigate and read a single-topic blog.
• You will gain more readers with a blog that has a singular focus.
• A one-topic blog will rise in the search engines faster than a multiple-topic blog.
• A one-topic blog is more discoverable on line and has a higher likelihood of rising to #1 Google status (and of doing so quickly).
• It’s easier to blog a book—and to promote a book—on a single-topic blog.

It’s true that you will need to post a minimum of twice per week on each blog for the first 6-12 months. More is better (3-7 times per week). But you can space it out, posting three times per week on one (M-W-F) and twice a week on another (T-TH). That’s what I do on my blogs, www.writenonfictionnow.com and www.howtoblogabook.com. I post to my other two blogs, www.mysoncandance.com and www.asthespiritmovesme.com, on the weekend and during the week when I can, but they have been in existence a long time; I don’t need to post to them as often an longer. (If I did post to them more often, I’d gain more readers.)

If you are like me and you have a lot to say about a lot of things, stop trying to make one blog be all things to all readers. And stop trying to be all things to all your readers on one blog. It really can’t be done—at least not well.

Would you like to blog a book or book a blog? Go from BLOGGER to AUTHOR in 2013! Blog-to-Book Coaching Groups forming NOW for November-December. Give yourself the gift of YOUR OWN PUBLISHED book this holiday season. Reserve your spot now by clicking here.

If you live in N. California, consider attending this one-time-only small group workshop in the Santa Cruz Mountains on How to Blog Your Way to a Book Deal on October 27.

Photo courtesy of renjith krishnan