Running multiple blogs is a new and unique way of making money online. You can build a virtual empire by successfully setting up a number of blogs, but not without a lot of hard work. When you create more than one blog, you need to be completely committed to the task. Having a number of different blogs is quite useful, however, because they can significantly increase your online income. You can use them to promote each other, gain more overall traffic and ensure your exposure on the web.

Managing multiple blogs is a complicated task. It requires patience, a rigid schedule, a huge time commitment, and a lot of passion. If you have more than one blog, then you need to constantly be on your toes to ensure that everything, everywhere, is running smoothly. The following guide will help you manage your blogs efficiently and painlessly.

1. Create Clear Goals
It will be impossible to maintain multiple blogs without clear goals and a sturdy vision for each blog. It’s important to write down the name of the blog, the objective or vision, the tone, and the desired frequency of updates. Put this information into a simple chart and refer to it as often as necessary. It will help you keep your blogs clear and organized.

2. Streamline Management
Responding to comments and emails about your blogs can become an overwhelming task. One way to simplify this task is to use one central email. This will allow you to devote a chunk of your time to answering all emails and responding to all comments on your blogs. Having separate email accounts for each blog will require constantly logging in and out of accounts and failing to address comments and issues in a timely manner. Instead, forward emails to one account where you can quickly filter through them.

3. Search Engine Optimization
In order to drive traffic to each blog without getting bogged down in advertising, it’s important to optimize your blogs so they rank highly in search engines. This is the use of keywords, titles, images and optimized copy that allow your blogs to show up at the top of search results for high trafficked search phrases. It’s important for anyone maintaining multiple blogs to master SEO in order to build traffic and revenue.

4. Reach Out to Guest Bloggers
If you find that you’re getting bogged down and don’t have the time to write new posts for all of your blogs, it may be helpful to reach out to guest bloggers. Even though you many have to pay a small fee for the writer’s time and work, they will allow you to relax a little and get your other blogs up to date. There is one small caveat and that is that it’s important not to overuse guest bloggers, however, as blog audiences tend to like consistent voices.

5. Cross Promote
Whenever possible and relevant, cross promoting your blogs is an excellent way to drive traffic to your less popular blogs. If you’re writing about a related topic, even loosely, place a link in your post that will send readers to another one of your blogs. You may also want to use some ad space on blogs to promote your other blogs.

6. Pace Yourself
It’s important not to create multiple blogs at one time. When you first create a blog you will have to spend a lot of time and energy promoting and writing. In the first few months of a blog, it’s important to write new posts as often as possible. This makes launching multiple blogs simultaneously almost impossible (unless you plan on taking on staff writers). Set up one blog with a consistent and stable viewer base before moving on to additional blogs. This will ensure that your blogs are popular and financially stable. Multiple unsuccessful blogs will be less lucrative than a single successful one.

7. Scheduling
It’s important to establish a schedule that will allow you to devote enough time to each blog that it can become a success. Each writer must establish their own schedule that works best for themselves and their blog. If you need to post blogs daily, than consider segmenting the day. This will help you devote a certain amount of time to each blog and move on when it’s time to move on. If your blogs need posts less frequently, it may help to devote each day of the week to a different blog. A solid schedule is absolutely vital in maintaining high quality blogs.

This guest blog post was brought to you by a UK based writer call Tom Walker who writes a blog about design and advertising for an online store specializing in ink cartridges and other print supplies.

Normally, the tips we list here are examples of how you can improve your blog or marketing campaigns… new strategies, link optimization, business schemes and investment suggestions. However, every once and awhile we see people slip up, and it is important to point out mistakes.

How to Make Your Subscribers Mad, the BlogEngage Way

This afternoon, I got a virtual hazing email from my good buddy Brian, the owner of BlogEngage.com. Blog Engage is a semi-popular social media community that offers bloggers the ability to suggest their articles to a community of webmasters from around the world. It is an overdone idea that Brian so happen to execute very well, thus jumping Blog Engage to a decent position in the online market (though nowhere close to touching StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Mixx, etc.).

But enough background, let’s get back to that email:

“I wrote a post today that expresses my frustration with the recent lack of involvement from our members. I encourage you all to read it as it is very important this message gets across. We must stick together and vote for each other. http://www.blogengage.com/blogger/are-you-a-valuable-member-of-our-community/. Please read it with care in mind that we need to work together to make a difference in the blogosphere. 

Thanks,
Brian”

Really!? If people aren’t actively involved on your website/blog/etc., should you really send out a massive email telling people how it is their fault? No. The proper way to handle any drop off of traffic… is to do a better job grabbing traffic and encouraging your readers to get more involved. Run a promotion, increase advertising, change your platform, do something productive! Writing a flame post about how your community is falling apart because people aren’t trying their hardest to make you money is rediculous.

I expected some kind of promotion or message of encouragement, and what I saw was an angry blog post. Brian is one of my blogging buddies, so I want to say that he typically does a great job, but it is unacceptible to end any message to your readers by saying:  ”stop being a lamer” (no, I’m not making this up).

A Point of Confusion — The Site is Fine!

It is one thing to get frustrated because things aren’t going your way in terms of internet traffic, but at Blogengage.com, they have actually been doing a great job growing traffic. Take a look at this long-term traffic chart sponsored by Alexa.com:

As you can clearly see, traffic is on a big uptick from 2009 levels. Taking this, I would never have accepted a mass text from the owner telling me that the level of activity from his community ain’t good enough.

Maybe the Problem Ain’t So Obvious

Perhaps Brian was just talking about spammers, but even so… this is a problem with the model of his community, not the community! If I can log into Blogengage, submit my content, and walk away with exactly the same end result as if I was an active user, then why the heck would I waste my time being active? This is like if Twitter were to say “okay, everyone gets 2000 followers, and only 2000 followers, forever” — who would continue to care? After all, you are going to reach the same amount of people regardless of what you do. I suggest you think about what you are doing wrong rather than blaming people for taking advantage of the obvious hole in the system.

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This kind of public service announcement is more likely to put a bigger hole in your traffic than improve it, so why bother making your readers mad?

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Bottom Line: If you run a blog or a popular website of any kind, never ever ever ever send a mass email to your community belittling them for not trying harder. As a webmaster, it is your responsibility to make your community want to stay active. Brian is a great guy, and BlogEngage.com is a site you should check out and work with if you are looking for more traffic, but this kind of example is a great one to demonstrate an improper marketing tactic and how to avoid it.

-Jimvesting Dot Com

Okay folks, you talked me into it!

After recently launching a new design, that I continue to believe would be much more efficient and monetizable, I am going to cave into the pressure and re-do things like I had it before. It seems that despite my best efforts, the blogging community has fallen in love with the logo and mascot of old… so I have recently contacted my old designer and have started a fresh new concept for the blog.

THAT’S RIGHT… ITS ANOTHER NEW HEADER FOR JIMVESTING.COM!

I will not be using the same theme as my old header, but I am going to portray a new scene that is going to look more like a penthouse office. I am currently in the process of getting a few revisions from my designer, and then I will still need to integrate it into the header that I have currently, but it is going to look somewhat close to the demo I am about to show you.

My designer, Pinky from Freelancer.com, is doing a pretty good job drawing a header out of the sketch I provided him. Please feel free to laugh and make fun of my inability to draw with any level of competence… but it seemed to get the job done well enough!

My original hand-drawn and scanned-in version:
VERSION 1 (Click for Larger)

And here is how it looks once my designer took it apart:
VERSION 2 (Click for Larger)

Naturally I think there is a LOT of work that needs to be done (especially because our old logo is smack dab in the middle of the thing, haha), but  it is certainly coming along and I would love to get any feedback that you can offer on the logo in the comment section below.

The finished header will be out hopefully in around a week, and hopefully before that we can finish up the 30 day blogging series so that our full blog can be ready to go on all cylinders. Again, we’d love to hear your feedback so be sure to leave your comments below.

-Jimvesting dot com

A few years ago, I had a bad spell with Google’s popular Adwords pay-per-click (PPC) system that ultimately led to them suspending my account (albeit without just cause). I had just gotten involved with the online advertising industry, which is a fantastic way to make money, and was looking around for alternatives that could be as profitable.

Back in the day, if you didn’t have Google Adwords, you didn’t have much of a reason to even try. There were a few alternatives like Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter… and they sure as heck didn’t work very well. Now there is a brand new PPC program that I think has a very compelling business model and could make you mad money!

Introducing QueryAds.com

The difference between Query Ads and every other system out there is that they allow your to get ultra-targeted advertising on clicks, not views. From the sites that are in their database as “publishers” (aka – website owners that host ads and make money off of them), Query Ads will scrape data off of the websites to make a suggested list of keywords that people would be willing to bid on. This means that advertisers will have an easier time finding blogs and websites that produce good content… and they will be paid more per click!

Top Features for Advertisers:

- Query Ads will suggest the keywords for advertiser’s campaign instead of letting advertisers selecting the keywords initially. They can select any keywords from the list of relevant keywords matching that particular campaign

- Once a advertisers creates a campaign, Query Ads will save TONS of research time by sending emails when new available keywords have appeared in the database that are relevant to a advertisers active campaign

- Advertisers can see the traffic history of a keyword, therefore you can see if you can generate the traffic you desire before placing a bid

- Query Ads will ensure that you get more bang for your buck by pre-selecting publisher websites that are approved to display ads… this way you know that full-fledged quality control is important

The big point to get out of all of this: Query Ads specializes in the long tail keywords, so you get more targeted clicks… and none of the customers that mindlessly come through websites not knowing exactly what they want. Keywords that are long-tail (example: “making money with paid surveys” instead of “making money”) will fetch you better traffic for your ad dollar, and Query Ads executes on this idea like no other.

If you are looking for a great alternative to Google Adwords, which is arguably still advantageous if you know what you are doing, try Query Ads. If you want a simpler way to monetize your sites or get some highly effective advertising for your product, try Query Ads. There are many reasons to give the new kid on the block a shot, so I encourage you to check it out.

-Jimvesting.com

The brand new WordPress platform has finally been released!

Though still in beta, version 3.0 of the world’s most popular blogging platform is already causing chatter on the internet. We’ve been dealing with version 2 of WordPress for awhile, so whenever we step up to a new version it is a big deal. I’ve installed a fresh copy of WordPress on a testing server, and have messed with all of the new features to find out how it ticks.

To make things easier, Jimvesting.com brings you the first ever video review of all of the features! This thing is hot off the presses, because the blogging platform was just released a few hours ago… check out our comprehensive look at the new WordPress 3.0 Beta below:

So what’s different? Here are the three biggest features:

1. A New Default Theme!
Wave goodbye to the old “default” theme with a very generic-looking blue header with basic text and a standardized layout. The new theme in town is called “Twenty Ten” (for the year 2010), and it has a much sexier layout with the ability to quickly change out the header images and background colors.

2. Complete Integration with WordPress MU
If you’ve ever used WordPress Multi-User (MU), then you know the power behind the system. What was originally an extension off of the WordPress system, that allowed you to have a blog where you could install as many sub-blogs as you wanted, has been merged with standard WordPress so you can use both together!

3. Custom Post-Types
If you have used WordPress, you’ll know that the basic setup is to have Pages and Posts… nothing in-between. But what if you do a fair amount of podcasts, reviews or whatnot? You don’t want to label everything you put out as a “Post,” and now you don’t have to! Add a new section for just Podcasts or Reviews (& etc.) and you can more easily organize your blog for different types of content.

There are certainly a lot more features, but I have identified the above three as perhaps the most interesting. Feel free to check out the download page for the new version of WordPress… and hold on for the official release of WordPress 3.0 coming soon!

-Jimvesting.com