How Many Websites Do You Manage?
An article from Net Business Blog on Why Building One Site is Better Than Building Multiple Sites came through on my Google Reader today. This is a topic I’ve thought a lot about and have always wanted to talk about it here, just have not done it. So, I figured with Net Business Blog giving their views, what better time for me to give mine.
Things Have Changed Over the Years
Back in 2002 when I started getting really interested in developing and publishing websites, I joined the SitePoint forums and I can remember a lot of talk on the forums about individuals developing and running multiple sites. A lot of publishers back then were really taking advantage of Google Adsense in that they were finding small niches, quickly developing a basic site with some original content and throwing some Google Ads on the site. The thought was to develop a large number of sites and make a dollar or two a day from each of those sites. You figure if you have 100 sites online and each is making two dollars a day, that’s not a bad payday at the end of each month for little work.
I think this whole thought process changed when Google brought the hammer down on the so called made for adsense (MFA) sites. I think from there, you started to see a shift in the types of sites that were being developed. Publishers were sticking to one or even a few sites at the most and putting their effort into those. The problem is that when you only have one site, it takes much more time to build it up where it’s making the same amount that maybe 100 sites at two dollars a day would make. The thought was that it’s much easier to throw 100 cookie cutter sites up that can quickly make two dollars a day or so than it is to really develop a quality site and get enough traffic to make $2000 from that one site.
Here’s What I Think
I agree with Dee at Net Business Blog in that if you’re trying to decide, go with one site over many. I believe you can see a much better return with one site compared to many. Sure, you might see a quicker return with multiple sites, but what good is a quick return if it’s not sustainable for a long time. One quality site could potentially last for years upon years and continue to make you money down the road when the guy trying to manage many sites simply gets so overwhelmed that they give up on all of the sites and end up making nothing. If you have a lot of people working for you, it may be a different story, but I’m making the assumption that it’s just one person running the 100 or so sites.
Although I agree that by the model to follow today is by putting every bit of your effort into one site, I still personally believe that a few sites is the best way to go. Running Random Jabber is MUCH more time consuming than I every could have anticipated, but it’s not so overwhelming that I couldn’t start a few more quality sites. I actually plan on starting a few more, but my problem is that I waste a lot of time online. It’s no secret that making your site a success requires that you network with others in your niche to get your name out there and hopefully draw in visitors, but I think I do a little to much networking at times. Instead of doing something really productive with one of my sites, I spend a lot of time on forums, reading blogs, and commenting on blogs. All these things are very important, and depending on your perspective could be considered productive, but I do a little to much to call it productive. I am getting close to the “wasting time” category. 
I am getting better though. I don’t waste near as much time as I used to. I’m much more efficient with my iGoogle homepage (that’s another article coming up in a few days).
What Do You Think?
Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think about this topic. If you don’t waste time online (like me) I don’t see why anyone can’t run at least a few quality sites but everyone has a different situation and that’s the reason for the article. I want to hear your situation and thoughts.
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Comments
I’ve got a few sites, some I maintain/update regularly and some just sit there and earn money without me having to do much. I have 3 blogs that I update at least once a week if not more. Because they’re on subjects I really like I tend to find it fairly easy to update them, and it takes maybe 5-10 minutes to write a quick post on them. Other sites I have however are often set up and then left. Admittedly some of these need updating, cleaning up and revising on the content and how the products/money making ideas are dealt with. Something I tend to sit down and do during the winter.
I do agree that you need to focus on one or two sites, get those as you want them before progressing. I’m a bad one for starting something and then not finishing it before starting the next! You end up with half done sites which are maybe running at 25% of their potential.
Posted on Fri Sep 14, 2007
Brian: I agree. It’s fine to have multiple blogs, but starting multiple blogs at the same time can be difficult if not almost setting yourself up for failure. Start one, build it, and then start another I think is best.
SarahG: Well, that’s nice you’re able to have some sites just sit there and bring in money. I think that’s ultimately what we all as publishers strive for.
I do the same thing too Sarah, with starting something and then starting something else before I finish the first. It’s really counter productive and it’s something I’m working on.
Posted on Sun Sep 16, 2007
Interesting thoughts… 
I think that it really depends on niche and exit strategy.
For instance, I maintain SEO, Marketing, and some creative control over three ecommerce websites. Each website caters to a different niche, so separation was absolutely necessary to gain ground and become an authority within their respective niches.
Likewise, previous to this I had owned an ecommerce site. If I had bundled it with my other projects at the time - It may have actually been more difficult to sell due to the complicated matter of appraisal and maintenance. I also owned a sister site to the ecommerce site which was a web directory - but I decided to keep them separate as part of the exit strategy.
I suppose you could say that I’m a fan of having separate sites for separate niches and/or projects. Not only are they easier to develop, but they’re easier (in my opinion) to market when made extremely specific.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned it’s too not put all of my eggs into one basket. Large websites are great, but smaller more focused websites are even better IMO!
Posted on Mon Sep 17, 2007
Paul: Yeah I agree with you that a site with a tight niche is easier to market. Take my site for example, I say that my site is “Random Thoughts on Web Design, Web Publishing, Blogging, Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Other Stuff.” I would hope that since all these topics can usually be intertwined that I wouldn’t lose any readership, but if I had cut that down and said the site is “Random Thoughts on Business,” it definitely would be easier to market. Although most people wouldn’t mind the other topics thrown into the mix, I’m guessing that some actually would be turned off if they were die hard business topics fans, but hated blogging topics, it’s going to be tough to market the blog to those people. Everytime you blog about blogging, you’re losing them.
On the other hand, I hope I’ve done a decent job of setting realistic expectations of what visitors can hope to find here. It’s suppose to be a personal weblog where I can essentially discuss anything, but at the same time trying to stick to a select few topics. I guess if it wasn’t such a personal blog, I would only stick to one topic.
I’ve thought about starting a golf blog in which I definitely would only blog about golf. I wouldn’t try to throw tennis in to the mix as well, as it would be dumb to try and pull that off.
Anyway, I’m rambling . Thanks for the thoughts.
Posted on Wed Sep 19, 2007
I’ve got numerous sites. Some I built and require absolutely no maintenance, and others require hours every day. These are obviously the ones that I care the most about and really hope to do a lot with. I think it’s important though, to diversify a little bit so all of your eggs aren’t in one basket.
Posted on Sun Sep 23, 2007
Sara: I’ve got a few ideas for sites in which I’d love to get online before the end of the year (may be wishful thinking). One will require quit a bit of time but I’m hoping the others will more or less run themselves. At least thats the plan anyway. Yeah, I definitely want to get my eggs in as many baskets as possible.
Can I ask what your other sites are (I only knew of two)? If you don’t want to share, I understand.
Posted on Sun Sep 23, 2007
My plan is to develop 5 to 10 very big sites that I can easily manage. I am also experimenting with one smaller site to see how it will perform in the long run.
The advantage of one big site is that you can become an authority in your niche and every new article (SEO optimized for a certain keyword) will thus rank high in search engines. 
Posted on Fri Sep 28, 2007
Tomaz: That sounds great. If you have an article written, I would love to hear your strategy for running five to ten big sites. With my schedule currently I’m not sure I could run more than four sites of any size, so I’m always looking for some good ideas for managing time and managing sites for efficiently.
Nice looking blog you have there. I didn’t have the chance to read any posts yet, but I did see some article titles that caught my attention. I’ll be back to read more.
Thanks for stopping by.
Posted on Sat Sep 29, 2007
I still think there is a HUGE benefit from an SEO standpoint by intelligently linking yoru relevant sites together. I have done this and I have several sites on the first page of google, no just need to monetize them...LOL.
Posted on Sun Sep 30, 2007
Mike: I agree, from an SEO standpoint, running multiple sites and linking them intelligently is great. I just don’t think I could run more than maybe 5 sites, tops. It amazes me to hear that someone has 100+ sites that they run. Good for them if they can sustain it, but I sure couldn’t.
Posted on Sun Sep 30, 2007
I agree Deron! I have 14 and many of those get ignored for too long!
Posted on Sun Sep 30, 2007
I have a pretty simple strategy that has taken me up to six figures. Start your main site / blog. Put up as much quality content as you can. Once you have a lot, find a niche that some of the content relates to and build a stand alone website (it needs to have about 10 pages). Do some basic work to get it into the search engines and once that happens, sell advertising on it.
The more content you produce, the more opportunities to create these smaller sites. While not all of them will make a lot of money, if a few do well, you have some truly passive income…
Posted on Tue Oct 16, 2007
Easier said than done Financial Hack! I have been online for 7 years in the golf niche and have dominated the search engines with many of my sites not to ever make a ton of money!
Getting sites ranked high enough to get the traffic to do what you said can take up to a year; or maybe never. Nobody will pay for advertising on a site unless it is atleast a PR 5 and gets a TON of proven traffic.
Posted on Tue Oct 16, 2007
Financial Hack: I’m not sure how one would go about selling advertising on a seemingly simply static website of about 10 pages? From my experience, advertisers are not going to pay money to advertise unless they have a popular site with good traffic stats, page rank, etc.. I would be curious to know your approach to getting advertisers on a static site such as that? Would the content ever change?
Mike: Yes, that’s true. It seems no one will pay for advertising unless the site has a high page rank, which we all know isn’t a good indication of the quality of the site or the traffic it receives. Unfortunately there isn’t really a great way to convince advertisers to advertise on your site so they are forced to rely on somewhat flawed tools such as page rank.
Posted on Tue Oct 16, 2007
Yeah Deron! So many people say how easy it is to slap up a small website and make “six figures”. That is not reality! No way! Not anymore anyway. I am in the trenches everyday of the week and I can tell you that is not the case.
Many newbie Internet entrepreneurs should not listen to that advice as it will mislead them and get them frustrated from the getgo. Making a living online takes a ton of “smart” work and ongoing work. No shortcut as so many marketers say in their “salesletter” sites selling information on how to make it on the net.
Posted on Tue Oct 16, 2007
Mike: Yep, I agree with you. I’m a “newbie internet entrepreneur” myself and I’d be lying if I told you I was just doing this solely for my personal enjoyment. It’s true, I do love blogging and developing sites, but my ultimate goal is to make a living doing it. I think I have pretty realistic expectations though. I didn’t come into blogging and publishing sites thinking I would be able to quit my day job in four months...or even four years for that matter.
Posted on Tue Oct 16, 2007
Nice topic,i manage 5 web sites and its not so easy yo manage them like to see out.
Posted on Sun Mar 2, 2008
Bebek: No, it’s definitely not easy. I currently manage two and soon to be three and it’s getting tougher and tougher to keep up with everything.
Posted on Sun Mar 2, 2008
I have 8 sites inculding my blogs. They are mainly used for linking to get a Serch engine ranking but out of that I mainly have two that I keep up to date. Even with only 8 there are too many things to do and to keep up with. I do like the blogs as they are so easy to update and post new happenings. I would like to know out of all the websites on the net how many actually get updated 2x a year I would bet that it is not a whole lot.
Posted on Mon Mar 10, 2008
I launched 19 legit blogs in January. Do you think that’s a bit compulsive:)
Every one of them has 10 unique articles on them with a second unique article pointing to them in the article directories. Now I play the waiting game with f#$#ng google. Slow going so far, but hopefully a handful of those blogs turn out in the next 3 months.
Posted on Mon Mar 10, 2008
Ticket Guy: I only run two sites right now (soon to be three) but I already have trouble finding time to update.
I’d say there are more than you think that update 2x a year or more. With a lot of sites today being blogs, I’d say they are updating on a more regular basis than they used to be.
Mike: Wow! launched 19 blogs in January? You did this all by yourself while finding time to update your existing blogs? That’s incredible!
Did you come up with the unique content or pay someone to write it for you?
Posted on Tue Mar 11, 2008
I could never have written all that content myself. I have invested quite a bit in each site, and hope the all-mighty google sees and appreciates the ‘unique’ content and linking I’ve been doing.
Posted on Tue Mar 11, 2008
Mike: I see, yeah I was thinking “holy cow” that’s a lot of writing.
Posted on Tue Mar 11, 2008
Hello Deron,
I am currently managing more than 12 websites for SEO projects,
How much website you are managing is not important the more important is how much efforts you are putting after the projects, and i step ahead day by day successfully with the better results for the all associated projects.
Posted on Thu Mar 13, 2008
James: 12 websites? That’s a lot! Yeah, good points. It all matters how much you’re putting into the site. You could only own one and have it be a failure if you’re not putting in any effort.
Posted on Thu Mar 13, 2008
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My name is Deron Sizemore and I am a web designer, web publisher, blogger and serial internet entrepreneur living in Lexington, Kentucky.
That is something that I have thought long and hard about.
I have a lot of interests, and at one point I was trying to have a blog for each. Needless to say, that lasted about a week. lol
At the beginning of your blogging career (at least), it is a good idea to have one blog - in my opinion. That way you won’t be sacraficing good content for the sake of multiple blogs. However, if you have the time/interest/etc, I would reccomend multiple blogs.
For example, Tomaz Mencinger of Freedom Ideas.com started his blogging carreer with a blog about tennis (his passion). He made some good money out of that, and now has second blog (Freedom Ideas) to build of his love for blogging. But he has been blogging for a year or two on his tennis blog before launching Freedom Ideas.
After all, many bloggers aren’t interested in tennis, but are interested in blogging. They wouldn’t want to subscribe to his blog and only get every other post or so about blogging and the others about tennis!
I’m kinda going with that idea. Launching multiple blogs at once is a bad idea - lame content is just about the only result. I am going to get myself established with plainBETA before I move onto my other blog, SupernaturalWarfare.
Eventually, in theory, I’ll have the time to get that blog going again - but untill then, I’m going to stick with plainBETA.
So - there’s my thoughts.
Managing multiple blogs is hard on the writer.
Keeping up with a blog where your interest is every other post is annoying and will not result in readers.
However, don’t get multiple blogs/sites for the quick buck - make sure you have good content - that will result in better long term gain.
Multiple blogs/sites is good - just hard.
Posted on Fri Sep 14, 2007