If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know that we started a second blog back in 2020, and currently, we run 6 blogs in total with 4 of them doing quite well (check out this income report or our 2020 blog).
Starting our first blog (the one you’re reading now), was the single best decision of our lives, and there are many reasons to start your first blog, but in this post, I want to speak to those of you who already have a blog.
It may come as a surprise to some that starting a second blog can actually give your main blog a massive boost, while also helping to recharge your creative juices in a new niche.
10 Reasons To Start a Second (or 3rd, or 4th..) Blog
Recently I wrote a massive guide to 101 niche website ideas. If you can’t think of a new idea from that post, there are thousands more that may come to mind if you read it, as some of them are quite broad. If you’re still not sure if you want to have two sites or if you’d be able to handle the workload, read on.
Here are 10 reasons to start another blog or website.
1. You Can Do it Right From The Start
You’d be surprised just how much you learned from starting your first blog. I know I was. So much of the initial frustration and confusion about choosing a blog name, what to write, and how to make money was gone, which meant that I was able to focus on exactly what needed to be done, rather than running in circles and wasting time like we did when we first started this blog.
I already knew how to become a travel blogger, and the important features of a successful blog, so learning how to build a successful blog in another niche was easier the second time around.
I could skip those more challenging phases of blogging and dive right into the important stuff.
If you’ve had your blog for more than a year or two, I’m sure you’d agree that the early days of your blog are a complete mess. Things aren’t categorized properly, you didn’t interlink things properly, your permalinks are a disaster, etc.
Your second blog can be different. With your second blog, you can build it from the ground up… the right way.
I honestly think that’s why my most recent couple of blogs were earning a full-time income within a year. I build them right from the start and Google recognized my blogs as new kids on the block, but also realized that they were built properly.
Therefore, I started getting traffic and earning money just a couple of months after pushing them live.
If you’re still not sure you’d be able to build your second blog up the right way, you can check out our WordPress Beginner Blogger Course which will ensure you master fast-loading website design, blog post writing, and site structure so your blog can get the head start it deserves.
2. Leverage Multiple Blogs For Link Building
This was a massive lightbulb moment in my multiple-blog-running career. Suddenly I realized that I could leverage my first blog to get guest posts that link to my new one.
Let’s say you have a blog with a DA of 20 (if this is all Greek to you, check out our guide on link building), and you just started a brand new blog with a DA1.
It would be very difficult to get people to link to such a new site from their own blogs because there’d be nothing in it for them (your site wouldn’t offer them any return “link juice” for their own SEO).
But if you can offer them a feature on your DA20 site in exchange for them featuring your brand new site, suddenly you have a win-win opportunity, and trust me, your link-building will become a thousand times easier.
I was able to build upwards of 30 links per month in the first few months by leveraging my other sites. And that wasn’t always linking from Goats On The Road (a relatively high DA). I often received backlinks in exchange for features on my smaller sites that were DA15-30 at the time.
By leveraging your existing sites in this way, you can build many more links to both sites. Once your new site gets a bit of SEO clout behind it, you can also use it to get more links to your flagship site, and the positive effects start to compound.
To learn more about SEO and best practices to quickly grow your traffic, check out our Free SEO Training Video Here.
3. Get Big Media Features
When you have a brand new site, it’s almost impossible to get featured on big media websites like those that you see in the “As Seen In” section of this blog’s home page.
But with a second and third blog, suddenly you have a bit of a portfolio going. In my case, this helped with getting features, and it also rejuvenated my freelance writing career.
For one, getting featured on finance websites and those covering things like creative writing and freelance writing becomes much easier. Now you have a story. You’ve already built one blog up and now you’re building another.
Secondly, your first blog is proof that you know what you’re doing and it can be your writing example site to get media features for your smaller site.
And lastly, the same exchange of blogroll features can happen with big media features. Just like building backlinks with your blogging colleagues, a lot of bigger media sites may be interested in a link from your bigger website, even if it’s only a DA15 or 20.
That means, if the media site is relevant to your brand and fits naturally in your content, you can link to a useful post on the big media site, and in exchange, they may feature your new blog.
4. Income Diversification
Whether you’re starting a niche site, a passion blog, or a blog for your business, income diversification is very important in modern-day blogging.
Affiliate programs come and go. Product sales go up and down. Advertising revenue fluctuates in certain niches.
With a second or third blog, suddenly you can diversify your income streams into different affiliate programs, different advertising marketplaces, and entirely new revenue sources.
When I started building my second website, I simply Googled different affiliate programs and other potential monetary channels.
Soon I had almost a dozen new income ideas that I had never even thought about with Goats On The Road, and because I already knew the importance of affiliate marketing, I was off to the races.
The same went for my third site and another one that we purchased. Suddenly we had dozens of income streams which meant that our eggs were spread across many more baskets.
The new site was able to land sponsorships from completely different brands and businesses, and that changed the model for that business entirely. The same went for the other sites that we eventually started and acquired.
Trust me, that’s a much better feeling than relying on one site with just a few income streams.
5. Algorithm Diversification
Ever since around 2019, this has been an incredibly important form of diversification. Google is no longer the benevolent internet God it once was.
These days, even if you think you’re doing everything right, a core algorithm update from Google can send your traffic into a tailspin.
Of course, you can usually avoid traffic drops if you follow proper SEO, but sometimes Google makes mistakes, or you made a mistake you didn’t think of, and BOOM. You suddenly have 30-50% less traffic.
By having multiple sites, you can hedge your bets on the Google Gamble and keep a more consistent and reliable income.
It’s happened to me quite a few times. While we haven’t been too negatively impacted by algo updates for many years, we do still see the odd bump and drop in traffic around the time of the updates.
But in most cases, a couple of our sites will go up, and a couple will go down. By having a few on the go, it has helped to break even or do better in almost all core update scenarios.
6. E-E-A-T
Google announced the importance of E-A-T (Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) back in 2014, and in 2022 they added another E for Experience.
This means that Google scans the internet, and your own blog, to try to prove that you are worth listening to. If Google concludes that you don’t know anything about the topics you’re talking about, they won’t show you in search results and thus, you’ll get no traffic.
By having multiple blogs, you’re giving Google perhaps the biggest signal that you know what you’re doing. At the very least, in the blogging world.
This of course isn’t as effective if your 2 blogs are in completely different niches, but having two websites still shows Google that you know about blogging, how to write content, and how to help readers.
Ever since we started running multiple blogs, all of them have been growing. Of course, this is mainly due to the fact that we’ve consistently written content on them and promoted them, but also I do believe that Google has increased our E-E-A-T, particularly as bloggers and digital nomads, because we have multiple sites.
7. Cross-Promotion
You might be surprised that I waited all the way until number 7 on this list to add what is probably the most obvious reason to have multiple blogs. Well, I wanted to wow you with some lesser-known ideas before hitting this obvious one 😉.
Cross-promotion is a very effective way to grow a brand-new blog from zero to hero in a short period of time.
If you already have one blog that has some following, maybe it gets some traffic, maybe you have an email list of avid followers, or maybe you have a few hundred on social media. This is pure gold for your second site.
Aside from the obvious benefit of simply sharing your content from the new blog across all of your more established channels, there’s also an SEO benefit here as well.
The main SEO signals for Google are still quality content and quality backlinks, but second to those more obvious triggers is what we call “no link mentions”.
This is when your blog gets a decent amount of traffic from a source that doesn’t directly link to your blog. You can do this by simply talking about your new blog on different channels without linking to it.
Sounds counterintuitive doesn’t it? But it works.
People will then Google around to try and find this blog you’re talking about and voila, you have some no-link mentions.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t link to the blog too. If you have multiple blogs, they should be interlinked with each other quite a bit. But every once in a while, a no-link mention can really help boost your blog’s SEO, and if you have multiple blogs… you have the answer.
8. Fall-Back Productivity
We’ve been running this blog now for over a decade and while we still have about a thousand posts in mind and a million ideas of how to make it better, we still found ourselves in creative ruts from time to time.
One of the best things about having a secondary site is the idea of fall-back productivity and backup passion.
What I mean by this is that when you hit writer’s block on your main project, you have another one to quickly move to until you feel re-inspired.
I did this countless times and I did it back and forth between our two blogs and now that we have 4, I find myself passing between them and keeping myself 100% productive by doing something every day I sit down on my laptop.
This is invaluable. If you already have a blog, you know that some days you just don’t know what to do. Or maybe you do know what to do, but you don’t feel like it.
By having a second passion project, you can always feel inspired and always have something to move to when you feel burnt out by certain tasks and jobs that go along with blogging.
9. Open Creative Doors
Of course, by starting a blog in a new niche, you’ll have access to a new audience and an entirely new passion to write and build content around.
But aside from that, you’ll also be able to expand on topics and ideas that may not fit with your current brand.
For example, a lot of people have vegan/eco blogs, but they also love to travel. If they post countless videos of themselves on planes, then their audience will not likely jive with the potential harm to the environment, no matter how much they offset their carbons.
Maybe those bloggers would love to share their travel stories but are worried about the audience backlash. Well, this is the perfect case for another blog.
You can run new websites in new niches that would otherwise not fit on your main site. I’m not saying to go against everything you believe in on a second site.
But if there’s a content pivot you’ve always wanted to take but couldn’t because your current blog has somewhat pigeonholed you, then a second blog can be the answer.
10. The Challenge is Rewarding
This could’ve easily been the number 1 reason to start a second blog. It’s challenging and it’s fun.
We had three main reasons why we started a second blog in 2020.
- To Prove It Still Works: I get emails every day from people asking if it’s still possible to start a blog and earn money. Their concern was that we started Goats On The Road a decade ago when there was no competition and that’s why we were successful. This was the main reason I started my second blog. I had to prove to those readers, and myself, that I could build a blog in any niche and earn a job-quitting income from it within a year. Long story short, it worked. And we’ve done it again and again.
- To Diversify During COVID: As you can imagine, a global pandemic was not good for anyone in the travel industry. Of course, far worst things came from it, but for us, this was a pretty big hit. I touched on diversification a couple of times in this post already, and for us, starting a blog about something that didn’t require people to travel and be around others was very important during those times and it kept our creativity going.
- To Challenge Ourselves: Back to this final item on my list of reasons to start a second or third blog or website. The challenge was incredibly rewarding. I loved building the blog up from scratch and doing everything right. I loved connecting with a brand-new audience and I felt inspired by the new topics we were covering and the new forms of content we were creating.
Having a challenge and purpose in life is something that really does make me happy. For me, money doesn’t buy happiness at all. Helping other people does.
We’ve always tried to use our blogs to help people in some way or another. Whether that’s to quit jobs they don’t enjoy and become digital nomads, or to start a blog on their own, the most rewarding emails we get are from people who found benefits from the pages we’ve published on the web.
Having multiple blogs has expanded our reach and made it possible for us to help more people achieve different types of goals, while giving us that exciting challenge that life often requires.
FAQs About Starting & Running Multiple Blogs
Check out our Free Beginner Blogging Course. When you start a blog from this page, you’ll automatically receive our free course that will show you step-by-step, with screen-recorded video tutorials, exactly how to start, design, and grow a successful blog in any niche… even if you’re not tech-savvy.
When we started our second blog, we started learning how to be much more productive with all of our blogging tasks. I cover a lot about productivity in our Complete WordPress Course, so if you’re not sure about how to optimize your time, check that out.
This is basically exactly what we covered in this post, but to summarise, having multiple sites can help you cross-promote, build links, diversify, keep productive, and have a rewarding challenge in your life.
This is a tough one to answer. If you have finished our Free Course with your first blog, then you’ll likely already know enough about how to blog to start a second one alongside it. If you find that you still don’t know how to design your blog, write blog posts and run the site, I’d hold off until you fully have a grasp on blogging before starting a second website.
Check out our post on 101 Niche Website Ideas, then once you’ve considered a niche that you’re passionate about, do some SEO Keyword Research and see if there’s potential for traffic growth. Finally, decide if there are enough monetization methods in the niche to earn an income.
This is incredibly important. Maybe you already have a travel blog that covers the world, but you want to start a new blog that is specific to Thailand. I one hundred percent recommend you still start that Thailand blog, even if you already have content about Thailand on your world travel blog. The more niche your new blog is, the better. You’ll be able to get better sponsors and press trips too. It’s very hard to be successful with a broad “travel blog” these days, so by niching down, even to a specific city, you can ensure your second blog is unique, while also helping you to grow faster.
One thing I highly recommend for those who run multiple blogs is to start thinking in scale. This doesn’t mean you lose the sole of your blogs to growth and expansion. But you may hire writers, or assistants to help with the more mundane tasks of blogging. If one of your blogs already earns income, I recommend spending that revenue on staff for both websites so that you can grow more quickly.
The main con of starting a second blog is that you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin. But if you’re wise with your time management and you work hard on both sites consistently, you can have multiple successful blogs without burning yourself out.
What are you waiting for?
I wasn’t kidding when I said the best decision we ever made was starting this blog that you’re reading, and I’m just as happy that we started our others.
Now we have multiple websites that give us purpose and help us to have an impact on a broader audience. The most rewarding aspect of blogging has always been getting positive feedback from readers telling us that we had an impact in some way, however small.
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Now we are able to get those emails from a variety of different audiences all passionate about different things.
On top of that, the passive income we’ve earned from these multiple blogs is something we are still eternally grateful for.
When we were working 50-75 hours per week in Canada in law firms and oil rigs, we could’ve never dreamed of earning more while working a fraction of the time on our computers and being completely location independent.
This is a life that we wouldn’t trade for the world and we owe it to our blogs and ourselves for having the courage to start Goats On The Road when we did, and to continue to pivot with new blogs as we grew.
I hope you found this post helpful and I hope it inspires you to consider starting a second (or third) blog.
As always… happy blogging!
