Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
Two blogs are better than one
I have been thinking about this for a while now. Whether it's better to focus on one blog or two share your attention between two.I run this blog and SA Rocks. I think that the two are mutually beneficial but conflict one another on occasion. It's a difficult balance but one that I think has been extremely beneficial for me.What you need to maintain two (or more) blogsYou need a clear definition of each blogDiscipline is essentialCreativity is a mustFocusGoalsA plan - this is the most important on that I think I missed out on. You need to have a plan for each blog and each post that you write. If you don't have a plan the blogs can begin to cancel one another out and overrun one another.The prosCross populationCross referencingAssociation linksPost ideasCross-blog debatesAssociated traffic (gaining traffic from SA Rocks as the author)Cross-promotionThe consCross population - try to keep your blog posts separate unless there is a clear and present need for them to link.Time constraintsMental drainContradiction - I've struggled with SA Rocks to keep my positive outlook on SA Rocks and maintain it on my personal blog. This could be seen as a pro and a con as blogging on SA Rocks has allowed me to stay away from negative topics on my personal blog.I would love to find out how many other bloggers run more than one blog and if you do, what problems are you finding?
Good content, niche markets and interesting angles
I have read many posts from many bloggers who claim to know how to create a successful blog. Much of the time I think that these guys are losers who have nothing better to do than to tell other people how to run their blogs. Not so.For the first time today I realised that the success of a blog depends on the content and concept behind the content. After only starting SA Rocks 10 days ago I officially reached the same Technorati rank as nicharalambous.com. I have been maintaining this blog for over 13 months and within 10 days SA Rocks has equaled the achievements of my personal blog.In my little tiny blogging brain this has proven to me that you can be the best damn writer in the world (which I am not) and still have no one read your blog. It's about niche markets, good content, interesting angles and meeting the needs of a market. SA Rocks does just this while nicharalambous.com is me blabbing on about my daily life and rubbish, which many millions of bloggers are doing.Learn your lessons now; if you want readers, think about your angle and plot things accordingly.
nicharalambous.com goes live - kind of
So after much thought and many confused looks on my face I sought help. And help I found in the form of Mike and Rafiq. I asked Mike for some assistance and while he thought he was of little help he asked Rafiq to drop me a line who not only helped me but did it without even looking at a PC!I am happy to be the happy moron in this case as I am guessing that there are others like myself who overlook the little things in life and create much trouble. Rafiq, you were right, an 0mmitted "www" sorted me out without a second attempt necessary.And with that shutterview is no more (in a manner of speaking) and 3jobblog is born, again.
Going, going, gone
It's time. I am going on holiday tomorrow and it is time for me to make the move to nicharalambous.com.After much thought and many decisions altered. I will be relocating my blog and renaming the theme of it to 3jobBlog. I will be altering the discussion slightly and will be talking more about my experiences as a working freelance journalist, an entrepreneur and a social person with a girlfriend, family and friends.I hope that this all works. If it doesn't this post serves as a warning that things might not work out!! If they don't I will be back online on the 20th of this month.
DNS setup complete
So after all my big talk and fast walk the custom domain wasn't as peachy pie as Blogger makes it out to be. This is especially true if you have made use of a South African site to purchase your url (nicharalambous.com). I had to pay an extra R160 to setup my DNS services. I have now paid R360 in total for one year and DNS issues. Not too bad but still, cut me a break.I am going to Durban for a well earned holiday from this Saturday to next. I will only be setting up the custom domain on Friday as I wont be posting it wont matter if it takes 2 days for the settings to kick in. So for now enjoy shutterview until Friday. If the site shuts down for a couple days you'll know why.
nicharalambous.com
I think that I am going to be renaming my blog to nicharalambous.com. I am not sure why, I have no particular reason but I think that it feels right. I have outgrown shutterview and will always be me so I will never outgrow nicharalambous.com. Plus I have already paid for the domain name.Now I need to redesign template a bit and figure out DNS settings so that Google can start distributing new url and maintain links of old.Wish me luck!
Wordpress offers .com hosting
I have been seriously considering moving my blog to a .com url. I think that this is a necessary movement for bloggers in the very near future and thought that over December it would be a good idea to get started. So I have emailed some people that I regard as knowledgeable in this area and have done some of my own research. Thus far the best solution that I have found involves Wordpress. A new feature has just been added to the Wordpress services; a feature that allows wordpress.com url's to be moved to .com url's. I think this is a brilliant idea. The only problem with this is that I am obviously a blogger user.Apparently Wordpress offers a service that allows for the importing of blogger blogs to Wordpress blogs. This might have to be done.There is a charge of $15 /per year if you are purchasing the desired url from Wordpress. If you have already purchased the url then the charge is a mere $10/per year or at the most R100/per year. I think this is a fantastic price for a brilliant deal and I think that I shall be making the moving to nicharalambous.com sometime very, very soon!