7 Reasons to Start a Second Blog (And Why Successful Bloggers Do)

A guest post by Bamboo Forest of Tick Tock Timer

I now write for two blogs: Tick Tock Timer and Pun Intended.

Soon after starting a second blog, I quickly realized the many benefits it offers.

1. You have instant readership. If you’re like me, you’ve been blogging for a while. Hopefully you’ve gained at least some loyal readers. Once you start a new blog and announce it on your current blog, you’re almost guaranteed some of your readers will hop on board and subscribe. While probably only a small percentage will, it’s still nice knowing your new blog won’t be starting from scratch inundated by crickets.

2. Your writing improves. Having a blog is one of the best things you can do to improve your writing. But when you start a second blog, your writing improves dramatically. You’re forced to focus on a different subject to a different audience. This practice takes you out of your comfort zone and teaches you to convey information in new ways. The result is you become a more skillful, well-rounded writer.

3. You gain marketing skills. With my first blog, my twitter account is me being my typical insane self. But when I started my second blog, which is exclusively on the subject of personal-development—I learned to use my new twitter account in saner ways.

Initially I started tweeting one inspirational quote a day. I soon realized, though, that the influential ‘wise men’ of twitter only do quotes of others occasionally. Instead, they focus on their own insights and share them with the world. I realized that this strategy has much greater potential because anyone can browse great quotes of others. But, if you want the perspective of the person behind the twitter account, following them becomes necessary.

Another opportunity that becomes available is you can now guest post on other blogs that share your new niche. By doing so you’ll make new relationships with different bloggers that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

The above are only two of many new marketing skills you’ll gain by starting a second blog.

4. You tap into new demographics. My first blog is basically 90% humor and 10% inspiration. My second blog, however, is entirely personal-development. Many people who subscribe to my first blog won’t subscribe to my second and vice versa.

This has many advantages. If you start a second blog and it becomes successful, you now have the opportunity to market new products and services to a new audience. Same with ad revenue: a different niche with a different audience means new potential advertisers. Having two successful blogs can be much more profitable than just one. Two streams of income are always superior to one.

5. Your knowledge grows. With a new blog, you now have to increase your knowledge on the new topic you’ll be blogging on. I’ve begun reading books and closely following blogs that are in the same niche as my new blog. While you may have some foreknowledge of the subject prior to starting your second blog–it’s still imperative to stay up to date and expand your grasp of the subject if shining in the blogosphere’s important to you. Starting a second blog is highly conducive to becoming very knowledgeable, very quickly in your topic of choice.

6. You discover you can consistently write good posts on another subject. While I sometimes write personal-development articles on my first blog, it was never my focus. Once it became my focus with my new blog, my capacity to write on this subject significantly increased.

In the beginning, my goal was to write just one article a week. Later, I decided one to two is better. In a strange way, it’s hard to discover how good you can write on a certain subject until you put yourself in a position where you have to write on that subject regularly.

Another wonderful benefit is that I developed varied ways to write on the same subject. On my old blog, I often write personal-development articles in a somewhat playful and humorous way. With my new blog, I’m a little less humorous in my delivery, which I think is better for my audience there. And since my new blog is part of an online timer site, I emphasize the importance of the present moment in virtually every post I write.

7. Successful bloggers often start a second blog.

Since quite a few successful bloggers have started a second blog, there must be something to it. Instead of telling you why I think some have, I’ve decided to ask two of them myself.

Their responses:

Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips: “In my opinion starting a second blog can be a smart decision, but you must do it at the right time. That is, you should wait until your first blog is established, else you would be spreading yourself too thin. Daily Blog Tips was actually the third blog I started, and I decided to create it because I knew I had a lot of unique content to contribute in this niche (e.g., the tips and tricks I was learning promoting and monetizing my other two blogs).”

Mark McGuinness of Lateral Action: “I’ve started two new blogs since my original blog, Wishful Thinking (www.wishfulthinking.co.uk). The first time was when I realised that my audience, who signed up for articles about creativity, weren’t interested in my occasional pieces about poetry, so I started a separate poetry blog (www.markmcguinness.com). Lesson: stay on topic or risk your readers’ wrath!

The second time was when I started Lateral Action (www.lateralaction.com) with Brian Clark and Tony Clark. The topic of creativity + productivity was fairly close to Wishful Thinking, but we had a very clear vision of what we wanted to achieve with the new site, so we took time to plan it out carefully. My first blog was an experiment, with some things working really well and plenty of others vanishing without trace. So Lateral Action was a great opportunity to start over again from scratch, using everything I’d learned from my first two years of blogging. Plus the creative input of two great partners!”

Word of Caution

Starting a second blog is awesome. I absolutely love it. But I only recommend it if you can give both blogs proper attention. If you only have enough time to attend to one, starting a second is a mistake.

Also, make sure you’re passionate about the subject your second blog will cover. Otherwise you’ll burn out or end up with a mediocre blog.

If you have the time and passion, starting a second blog has great benefits, not the least of which is making you a better writer and creating new opportunities to make money.

It just might be the ticket for you.

Will you take a look at Bamboo Forest’s online timer? He thinks it will help you be insanely productive and that’s probably something you want, right? He also writes for Pun Intended, a blog that will make you laugh like a hyena.