Hello Sitepoint Community. I have a bit of a dilemma that I would love for the community to give their advice on.
I would like to be a more active blogger but struggle on deciding whether all the things I blog about should be contained in one blog or should be separated into different blogs because my areas of interest are so varied. I worry that some of my content may not be interesting to my subscribers. The down side to separating though is increase in maintenance and splitting of my traffic and pagerank.
My primary goals with blogging are as follows:
- increase my internet popularity (mostly, for purposes of getting more traffic)
- pass that lovely traffic onto my primary content sites:
— paperdemon.com, an art and writing community site similar to deviantart.
— paperdemonmedia.com, a site where i post my animated works. - income (would be nice but not essential)
The following is a list of areas with blogging potential. Some I have already done some blogging in:
Doodler Blog
content amount: medium
I work for google as a doodler: do a google search for “google triforce.” I could post when I have a new doodle up somewhere in the world. Usually have one every two to three weeks somewhere. This seems more of coming from a “professional” angle than a personal angle which makes me think this maybe should be separate?
Video Game Music
content amount: very low, infrequent
I used to be active in recording video game music (zelda, metroid, final fantasy). I don’t have much to say/post on this topic, but its an area that I am well known in.
Cosplay (Costumes)
Content amount: high
I usually make one costume per year and usually they are very involved, requiring multiple blog posts to explain the process.
pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/bogusred/Halloween2008IkeLink#
example blog posts: http://www.bogusred.net/blog/10/archive_2007-10
Zelda Wedding
Content amount: med-high
planning of my zelda themed wedding (it will be epic). I’m pretty sure this should be separated from everything else. But this content will only last one to two years. Content will be how I create all the zelda themed props, decor, and my dress. Maybe should be combined with the cosplay blog?
Dementia
content amount: high
Do people really care about the stuff going on in my personal life? Probably not. But one thing that I’m going through right now is caring for my dad who has Dementia. Blogging about it could be therapeutic for me as well as provide guidance for anyone else going through something similar. I haven’t blogged about it yet but I’ve kept a personal diary of everything that’s happened since it started. But it seems this one is most likely to be separate from everything else.
Web Development and design
content amount: med
I used to be interested in this but there are so many bloggers that blog on this topic, is it worth it to get into it? It’s an area of great interest for me as I do develop in PHP, jQuery/Javascript, MySQL, XML. PaperDemon.com is my biggest project which I could draw examples from. I could also discuss strategies on running the community.
Animation
content amount: low-med
Could have potential to go to high content amount if i blog about in progress stuff rather than “new episode posted” type content. Currently split into different sections of this site. I think they should at least all be combined into one update feed. SHould it also be combined with other topics above?
main: http://paperdemonmedia.com/
zarbon’s masterpiece theater (no new episodes will be released as the show ended): http://zarbonsmt.paperdemonmedia.com/
surviving together: http://survivingtogether.paperdemonmedia.com/
Farmville
content amount: high
Last year I got into Farmville and started a strategy blog. I got myself out of the game in February but am thinking maybe this blog has potential. I get more comments on this than I do any of my other blogs. However it does not fulfill my primary goals, except it brings in a bit of income. This can waste a lot of my time though. the game is addicting. It is currently separate.
http://harvestguide.net/main/
Also I wonder if some of these topics above should not be blogged about at all. I could end up spending more time blogging than creating my “primary content” (PaperDemon.com and PaperDemonMedia.com).
I look forward to any insight the community can give me here. This problem is a major reason I haven’t blogged too much. My current blog seems so disorganized and random.