The difficulty of running several blogs

There has been a lot of discussion regarding blog networks recently and the challenges that arise from running multiple blogs. David Peralty, one of the co-founders of the blog network Grand Effect, wrote a great post about a week or so ago entitled ‘Blog Advertising Difficulties: Blog Network Doesn’t Mean Big Money‘. In his post David explained the difficulty in getting a good advertising rate from ad networks. Just 2 days after David wrote this post it was announced that the popular blog network Know More Media was closing shop.

Jeremy Wright, CEO of b5Media, had invited bloggers from this closing network to join b5Media and a few days later gave some tips on how to run a successful blog network in his post ‘A Whole Lotta Thoughts On Blog Network Success‘. I found this post very insightful as Jeremy runs one of the biggest and most known blog networks on the web and he clearly knows how the blogging industry ticks. In particular he made a very good point about how the selling of ads works with networks. Here’s point 4 from the ‘10 Reasons Managing Bloggers (and Blog Ads) Is Harder Than Your Grandma’s Corns’ part of his post :

In order to move beyond AdSense-style ads, you need to move up the food chain: Most bloggers or groups who are forming blogs together assume that if you grow traffic, you’ll be able to quickly improve the quality of your ads. It’s really not that easy. You need to “move up the food chain”. The advertising food chain basically works like this: some media buyer somewhere (in an agency or in a company) decides he want to buy ads. He convinces his clients to spend something ridiculous like 20$ CPM on the ads. He then farms some of the ads out to the ad networks he works with at 4-5$ CPMs (TribalFusion, Burst, etc).

These networks then cross-sell and backfill their inventory to the point where regular bloggers are lucky to get a 1$CPM (if they can even get into the network). Boutique shops take the “high value” inventory and do the same cross-selling game, so that bloggers are lucky to get a 2-3$ CPM these days (it used to be 5-6$ CPM). And folk with direct relationships with media buyers get the rest (at 7-10$ CPMs). But if you thougt getting into the ad networks was hard, it’s 5x harder to get into the boutique networks and 100x times harder to get those direct relationships going.

The difficulty of running several blogs

One of the reasons I am very interested in all of this is because I run a few blogs myself. As well as Blogging Tips, last year I started an entertainment/joke type site with a friend and I started a UK technology blog too which concentrates on gadgets, gaming and computing. When I have time I also post on my personal blog too. I have never put as much energy into my joke and technology blogs as I have into BT though I am looking to rectify that.

The problems which I face with running multiple blogs are not that different from the problems which blog networks face. Infact, if my blogs were to become more successful I would definately consider co-branding these blogs in the way tradional blog networks do though I don’t think the day to day management of the blogs would change.

So what difficulties do you face when you run multiple blogs? Well, the biggest challenge is management. You have to manage your time effectively and if you have people writing for you, you need to manage them too. Updating your blogs software, design and coding your blogs theme and promoting your blog are tasks which all bloggers face however when you own a few blogs these tasks are obviously magnified. At times it can seem like a juggling act.

It isn’t always easy finding good bloggers

With my 2 other blogs, which I mentioned previously, traffic is not at a level where I am able to negotiate with ad networks. This is something which I will no doubt face in the future though the biggest problem I face with these blogs just now is finding good writers. This is a problem which I am sure many blog networks and indeed many blog owners face. It can be difficult for both the blog owner and the blogger to set blogging rates and I know that in general the money bloggers get for writing for blogs is quite low however from a blog owners point of view, it is very difficult to find an author who consistently writes good posts on a daily basis.

I recently parted ways with 2 authors with those blogs because of this. When they first started their posts were longer and more thought was being put into them. However, as time went by posts got shorter and most seemed like they were rushed. I have went through 4 or 5 authors for each blog and either I have been very unlucky or this is very common. The bloggers all started off enthusiastically but as time passed, the quality of posts dropped. The fact is, there are a lot of bloggers who don’t put the same effort into paid blog posts that they do into posts on their own blog, which I can appreciate to a certain extent.

Fortunately, BloggingTips hasn’t really had this problem and I’ve been happy with the vast majority of bloggers who have written on this blog and I believe there are a few reasons for this. First of all, authors write weekly and not daily, which means that authors should struggle less for post ideas and are less likely to rush posts. Secondly, all authors who write here have a blog of their own and since their blog is stated with all of their posts it’s in their best interests to write high quality articles as it promotes their own blog and raises their profile. With my other blogs this wasn’t the case, I don’t recall many of the bloggers running a blog of their own. With no blog and no interest to raise their blogging profile, the incentive to write great posts on a consistent basis is lower.

Going Solo

At the moment I do not have any authors hired for my 2 new blogs and therefore I will be writing all posts myself. There are pros and cons for doing this. By writing posts myself I can make sure that the standard of posts are higher and make sure the blogs go in the direction I want them. However, it also means a little more work for me which may be a problem some days. For example, if I have been spent a few hours writing a long post on BloggingTips and a few hours working on something else, the last thing I may want to do is write another few posts. Blogger fatigue affects everyone and the end result is usually a rushed poor quality post. This is something I am conscious about and another reason why time management is very important when you run multiple blogs.

Overview

I’m not surprised that some networks are struggling to be profitable. Large blog networks are in a position to negotiate with advertisers directly but challenges arise with more mouths to feed and more people to manage. More and more bloggers are opening a 2nd or even 3rd blog of their own and are facing the same problems which these blog networks are facing.

Regardless of the challenges that a 2nd, 3rd or 4th blog will create, it can be very rewarding so I wouldn’t discourage anyone from increasing their blogging portfolio. Just remember, it can be difficult to manage your time effectively with multiple blogs. Outsource some work if you can afford to do so and try and not put yourself in a position where you are stressed as one if not all of your blogs will suffer.