HOEI

Being the first to comment on a blog can bring you more traffic from that blog’s visitors as compared to being the 37th person to comment.

If you are like me, then you probably do not visit the blogs of every single commenter after reading a blog post, especially if there are already dozens of comments. So how can you beat others to the punch and comment early on blogs where the blogger has never posted on a subject that you are passionate about?

Answer: Custom Feeds from Search Results

I subscribe to the feeds from custom blog search results on Google Blog Search and Technorati using my RSS feed reader. For instance, I might generate a Technorati search “in blog posts” for the string “burnlounge“. That will return me a list of every blogger that is pinging Technorati who has recently posted with the string “burnlounge” found anywhere in the post. I then use the handy little “Subscribe” icon with the traditional feed symbol off to the right side of the search results. This will often allow for me to be the first to comment on blogs where a person posts on a subject that I have expertise or current interest.

I was approached by a friend to sign on to BurnLounge as a retailer. After tracking feeds from some custom search results, I would now define BurnLounge as a multi level marketing version of iTunes. Being able to read about the experiences that many other people were having with BurnLounge helped me decide to pass on this business opportunity.

Building multiple blogs under one domain could be the key to accelerating your blogging career. Many high profile bloggers publish on multiple blogs, but very few do so under a single domain name. I could probably come up with just as many reasons not to build multiple blogs under a single domain, but instead I will focus on the top five reason that you should build multiple blogs under one domain. The following reasons support an argument against (1)hosting multiple blogs on separate domains or (2)having a large number of categories under a single blog.

1. Site Ranking – Getting links to separate blogs dedicated to various unrelated subjects all built on a single domain can raise the domains ranking on services like Alexa.

2. Single Domain Registration – You only have to pay for and track one domain registration.

3. SEO – A link to one blog is a vote for the domain it lives on with Google. A vote for your domain in turn raises all of the blogs in the search engine relevance simultaneously. So each blog actually helps all the other blogs rise in Google results.

4. Simplified Domain Maintenance – A single sitemap, robots.txt, etc. Also having a single point for FTP, email, and database management does make life easier. It is hard enough to administer multiple blogging control panels like with WordPress.

5. Niche Link Attraction – This point fits the argument for separate blogs in general, but plays well with the site ranking and SEO mentioned above. A niche blog with a narrow scope is more likely to get links from other bloggers who might disagree with some of the content of a single blog containing a large number of unrelated categories focused on controversial subjects. For instance, a liberal blogger who runs a popular cooking blog might be more comfortable driving traffic to my niche blog Grill’n Time rather than to a cooking category on The Land of Ozz where a large amount of blogging is based on conservative political opinions.

This idea of multiple blogs under a single domain should only be used if you are very confident that you will be retaining your domain name for the long term. For instance, let’s look at lashawnbarber.com. There is a high likelihood that La Shawn will not sell a domain name featuring her fairly uncommon name. So adding a second blog to the domain is not a big risk. La Shawn is one of the few high profile bloggers hosting multiple blogs under a single domain. Her second blog is located at lashawnbarber.com/ffc.

I have six separate blogs under HOEI.COM. You are reading the newest blog that was created when I switched the main page of my website to a blog. My other four blogs were built to focus on different subjects.

Caden’s Page – The story of our family’s triumphs and trials related to our son’s medical challenges. Caden was diagnosed with Di George Syndrome (22q11.2) after several heart defects were found during prenatal care.

Riley’s Page – A blog journaling some of the highlights in the life of my oldest son Riley.

The Land of Ozz – My personal blog featuring topics on parenting, technology, and spiritual growth. Includes a podcast of The Living Bible and a daily Bible reading plan.

Grill’n Time – A site (needing more attention) that is dedicated to cooking on and off of the grill.

Tech Land – Technical tips from TheOzz.

This post is participating in ProBlogger’s Top 5 – Group Writing Project.