When you begin blogging, you may start by blogging about everything under the sun. Then it may come to a point in time that you find yourself developing a new interest or hobby in a very specific area- that’s when you may be creating new blogs to focus on them. You can call them niche blogs or blogs dealing with more specific topics.
I started from a blog that talked about very general everyday life things- like work, ideas, projects, philosophy, health, creative works, travel, etc. From a general blog, I’ve since created separate blogs to focus on certain topics from this blog:
- Health through lifestyle change and complementary healing– it has a blog of its own which I’ve maintained since 2006
- Archives on sites, artists or articles that inspire creativity and craft
- Travel blogs: Thailand, Malaysia, Angkor Wat and Sri Lanka
If you’ve already purchased your own domain name, you may want to consider creating new sites riding on that domain name like I do. By doing this, you need not purchase new domain names for each new site/blog.
The question is, should the name of your new site goes before or after your domain name? In my example, I’ve bought the domain name yinteing.com. And let’s say when I want to create a site using the name “visit-malaysia”, I have the following options of naming the site:
- visit-malaysia.yinteing.com, or
- yinteing.com/visit-malaysia
I plan to write this article in mind for those who is html challenged- because if you know html, you can basically overwrite anything by writing scripts. So for those who do not know and want to keep things as simple as possible, you would need to consider, the purpose of starting a separate site/blog.
Do you want the look and feel of the new site to be different than your existing blog? If yes, then you need to choose to have the new name before your domain name, example visit-malaysia.yinteing.com (do not forget the full stop before your domain name). By doing that, you have the option of customising your blogs to be different because basically, they’re not linked to one another.
This serve its purpose as you want to create a specific blog to write on a specific topic- so everything in your navigation bar, header and footer should reflect predominantly on the topic you write about.
For better illustration of what I’m trying to say, go to my site http://about.yinteing.com/ where I list down all my blogs. If you click on every blog listed there, you will notice the theme, ie layout, background colours, fonts, etc are different.
The creative side of me enjoy experimenting with different themes. With the new version of WordPress release, you can immediately install a new theme directly when you login to update your posts- you need not login to your hosting company to upload.
On the other hand, if you choose to have a new site created after your domain name, eg yinteing.com/visit-malaysia, you would need to get the help of someone who know how know how to personalise website to do a page with a different layout.
This approach is required especially for companies who have an official website (there is a different between a formal corporate website and a blog) but intend to create a blog. And they would normally have the additional resource of a programmer at their disposal.
For you and me who have none, then if you adopt that approach, the new site/blog will have the same navigation, header and footer as your current one. As such, if you may confuse readers who only want to read about the specific topic that you want to blog about.
Hello Yin, Glad I found your blogs. Your articles are really helpful. You really have a great writing skill and I really like you for that. Your writings reflect the kind of person you are, and I do perceive a likable personality in you based on your writings. By that perception, I know I have found the right person. I’m still a beginner on blogging, just made an account on blogger. Actually, it is such a shame that for how many years of adsense existence, I just found it out weeks ago, it was out of my desperation to support my study. I’m a college student and striving to learn as well as to finish my study. I made some mistakes and just lost a valuable scholarship..:(, Nay! Now it seems every thing on my life is scattered. I need to move forward and stay out of this situation quick, and put things right on its place, but I really need something to support me. Realizations and right intentions about things are just coming. I’m not one of those lucky person born with lots of financial support, but I guess that’s life:-) I hope you’ll be one of my mentors in blogging. Although the web provides a lot of information but I have a gut feeling that your advice will be better from those. Like you, I also love writing but unlike you, I still need experience. I actually suppress the urge to write sometime ago, because there’s a lot of ideas running on my head; starting from an early age, there are many things that my mind so concerned about. The thoughts are always racing up there, the phases were so fast, I start with a simple one, it will end to a more complex and depth one, until I decided to stop, to controlled my thoughts, to get my sleep back, because if I’m not I would really go insane with the kinds of thoughts I have. And, that’s left me stagnant through the years! Locked in a world I made for myself, addicted to fictions, every now and then craves for more more complicated twists from man’s imagination. It was may be because I found a temporary comfort on reading those materials. There’s no one to guide me, no right materials to use on my thirst for knowledge. No one to ask about without getting a weird look. But change came. Getting a failing grade and losing a scholarship are failures, but those are nothing compare to the greatest failure I have. Now, I’m starting again. I hope blogging will help me. I tried to work while studying but it just made some things worst. Its either I’ll stop studying and work first or find other means. I hope if it is not a burden to you, please do send me personalize email (if you don’t mind) about some tricks and information on blogging and the application for adsense. A million thanks in advance for you ,Yin, aside from the internal need to start again, I do really hope to be a beneficial writer for others, like you!
Hi Rasna,
Actually, compared to other seasoned bloggers out there, i really have no tricks or perhaps i am too straightforward type of person to know any tricks 🙂 . Whatever I know about Adsense like how to place the codes I have written on this blog. You can check out liewcf.com- the first Malaysian full time blogger, i’ve learned how to apply for Adsense by reading his blog. Mine is just a humble little site and it’s build on writing when the inspiration comes. I have to write a lot in my daily job, so the ‘forced’ practice is there.
Don’t be deterred by any failures in life. Perhaps you are meant to take a different path that would lead to something better by not being able to get the scholarship. You can find a day job- maybe not so demanding if you are starting out and then blog on the side. Because blogging takes time- and if I am in it for the money, i would have quit a long time ago because my earnings is nowhere near to pay the bills. and it’s not easy to maintain the blog if there is no passion about writing and sharing. With a little practice, words does flow out from a sincere heart.