Having more than one blog is not for everyone, I know. I currently have 5 blogs and only two are related to my products/shops. I’ll tell you why I have 5.
My main blog has the same name as my website and Etsy shop. This bog gets most of my attention, it is where I talk about my products, post lots of pictures of my items and try to build a reader-base of people with related interests. I openly promote my products but I feature ONLY related products from other sellers and invite them to view the post where their items are featured.
http://www.qualitycords.blogspot.com My 2nd blog was created to “Spotlight” individual items. I am in the necklace cord business and because of that I come across many beautiful pendants. I decided to feature the best in this blog because It wouldn’t really be a “spotlight” feature if it got lost among cute stories of my dogs, promotional pictures of my necklace cords and recipes for apple pie. So I keep this blog clean and feature only handmade pendants. Readers know just what to expect when they visit this blog.
http://www.spotlightonpendants.blogspot.com My 3rd blog is my “whatever” blog. This is where I would put the cute stories of my dog, the apple pie recipe or a movie/book review. (you get the picture right?). This blog can get silly at times. Basically anything goes.
http://www.whilesurfingtheweb.blogspot.com My 4th and 5th blogs have nothing to do whatsoever with my product. One is geared toward a specific target audience because it is where I post my own Christian poems. That is all you will see there.
http://www.poetryandpraise.blogspot.com The last blog is something I came up with one day. It is a search for a family I know nothing about. It is the more serious, somewhat personal blog; this is where I post when I’m feeling nostalgic or melancholy.
http://www.lookingforjanet.blogspot.com The funny thing is that they are NOT a lot of work. (besides, they are FREE) Once my blogs are set up it is just as easy to post to one as it is to post to another. But I can keep each one clean and eliminate the “what is this blog about” question.
As a reader, I get very flustered when I visit a blog and it has so many random posts and more ads than content, that I quickly lose interest. (Especially if it also has crazy background colors) personally, I like to know right away what the blog is about. This way I make a note of it and when I want to read about “X” subject, I know just where to go.
Each of my blogs has my Etsy mini in the side bar (well not now cause it is in vacation mode! lol) and at the bottom of each post I include my links. I also have a little secret: In order to lessen the clutter but still get more incoming links I add an “invisible” line of anchors to each and every post on each blog. I create a line of search words used by my customers and turn them into links to my website. When I post them I make them the same color as the background so they are not visible. Google sees them, which is what matters but visitors don’t so they are not bombarded with too much “hey, go see my website” stuff.
I love to blog and sometimes I’m in a business mood, sometimes I’m in a silly mood and sometimes I’m in a serious mood, but in the end the main purpose for creating blogs, at least for me, was to build incoming links to my website and increase my google rank. Having more than one blog does that for me.
