Combination and Separation
If you think what I've done in the past is amusing, you should see what I'm going to be doing next. It's going to be confusing unless you've been following along.
It's no secret that I'm having trouble keeping up with 3 blogs. Power outages, DSL connectivity problems, bad weather and a whole host of things I have no control over make it hard to keep up with just this one. I have a plan and a lot of you may believe it's a step backward while I believe it's a step forward.
Integration: Combining 3 Blogs into One
I'm happy I didn't spend too much money in my expansion efforts. I think I spent less than $30 in US dollars for a new domain name (videotyme.com for 2 years) and that's about it. The "Blog & Article Reviews" blog is on a subdomain and hasn't cost me anything except my time.
Using a plugin on those other blogs, I'll be able to integrate the posts and articles into this blog without many people noticing. It will take some time, maybe a week or so, but I think the results will be worth it. Pending reviews will start being done here as soon as I get a handle on everything (probably tomorrow).
Am I Crazy?
Some of you may think I am. "VideoTyme" has a Google PageRank (PR) of 2. "Blog & Article Reviews" has a PR of 3. The former gets about a 10th of the traffic that this blog gets and the latter gets very little traffic. This blog can easily absorb that traffic.
Redirecting is a fantastic way of moving stuff around, both within a domain and from another domain. I'll be using temporary redirects for a period and then permanent redirects for another period before killing the other blogs completely. This blog will get at least another hundred unique visitors per day as a result of the changes.
Segregation: Creating Niche Blogs from Existing Posts
There are some really solid articles on this blog that have both PR and rank on the 1st page of the search engine results pages (SERPS) and can be expanded into niche blogs. "Hot Buttered Corn" is one example. It has a PR of 2 and it's number 1 in the Google SERPS. It's a perfect candidate for a humor blog.
The niche blogs I'm talking about are going to be a secret until they start drawing a lot of traffic. The search engines will know about them and people will find them by searching for the terms, but I won't be advertising them to bloggers, webmasters or anyone who won't be clicking on ads. Their URLs will be used in comments and other places, but will be used as discreetly as possible. They won't be blogs at all. They'll look like ducks, quack like ducks, but they won't be ducks if you can understand what I mean.
Am I Still Crazy?
Some of the articles I'm going to be using for the niche blogs bring traffic to this blog on a regular basis. Why on Earth would I want to sabotage this blog? The plain truth is that I plan to eventually de-monetize this blog completely.
I know for a fact that one good niche blog will make more money than this blog ever has, so why not? I think the monetization of this blog in the first place has stifled a lot of my creativity. If I don't have to mess with monetization, I can be free to test and experiment with different things. With monetization in place, I'm limited as to what I can get away with.
Niche Keywords
I'll tell you up front that I have a 4-character dot com domain name that I'll be using as a hub for subdomains. Each subdomain name will contain targeted keywords. Since I'll never sell the main domain name, the characters aren't very important.
I already have 2 niche blogs ready to work and I'm hoping to have both in place by the end of the week. One has a VERY competitive keyword along with a noncompetitive keyword while the other has 2 mildly competitive keywords. I expect one of them to get sandboxed, but not the other one. Can you guess which one I expect to take forever to rank in the SERPS?
Please Follow Along
I plan to take you on a roller coaster ride of success and failure. Once per month, at bare minimum, I plan to announce the results of my efforts. I invite you to follow along as I tell you what did or didn't work.
Similar Posts:
Wow, RT! This is one of the first posts on any site that has excited me in a long time! For some reason, I've got this feeling that you've stumbled on something great! Of course, I'm also looking forward to the new non-monetized Untwistedvortex. I think that this combination of efforts will stimulate your writing to new heights. I'm behind you on this one.
I'm very excited about the things to come. Whether I make any money in the process is not important. Well, okay, it IS important, but not as important as what I'm going to be learning.
Since I see you as untraditional and no-nonsense, this move is right up your alley. Hope it works out and am looking forward to seeing your results.
Lisa’s last blog post… We Got FREE Gas!
Things are going to rock.
That's an incredibly interesting pursuit you are taking on. Combining some blogs and separating others based on single posts! I've never heard of something like that, but diversification is always good and merging similar blogs to make them all stronger can work too.
hi RT, I love rollercoasters and can't wait for the "ride". I have a feeling there will be good information to learn for those that look for it. I'll be looking, and appreciate that at least you'll give us monthly updates. I also understand why a lot of it will be under the radar for now. Can't wait!
Breaking off existing content into a new blog is a very good way to launch a new site. I have done this multiple times in the past and it has really paid off for me.
One such niche blog, that I seeded with about 20 articles recently sold for about $600 after making about the same off of it over the holiday shopping season.
When the next holiday shoping season starts I can just make another one and shift someone more seasoned articles over to give it a traffic kick-start.
Hi RT,
I like the idea of combining your "general" type topics and farming out the "niches". Should be interesting to watch. Who knows, you may be starting a trend here.
Todd
Todd’s last blog post… Tips for Local Niche Bloggers
I use a service that shows me the SERPS page every time someone searches. I'm looking at those searches to see where the niches should come from. Of course, I'm using WordTracker and other tools to make sure they're worthwhile niches to pursue. It doesn't do any good to set up niches that get very few searches per day.