Multi Topic Blog Vs Single Topic Blog: Pros and Cons

One of the most difficult parts of starting a blog is deciding what you’re going to blog about. The niche(s) you choose play a major role in your blog’s traffic and earnings potential. Most bloggers choose to focus on a single niche while others decide to cover multiple niches on the same blog. So which style of blogging is best? This guide examines the pros and cons of starting a multi topic blog vs single topic blog to help you decide. We’ll cover SEO, content creation, marketing, building an audience, monetizing, and much more.

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure policy for details.

What is a Niche?

In blogging and SEO, a niche is just another word for a topic. The terms are interchangeable. Most niches target a particular niche audience. This could mean a specific demographic, industry, geographic location, activity, lifestyle, product, etc. Most blogs focus on one niche.

There are thousands of potential niches to choose from. A few of the most popular blog niches include travel, lifestyle, finance, food, photography, technology, blogging, fashion, dieting, pets, automotive, relationships, and motherhood. There can be some overlap between niches.

You can start a niche blog about pretty much any topic that you’re interested in and knowledgeable about. Your niche could even be something mundane. For example, if you happen to have deep knowledge about vacuum cleaners or foot care, you could start a niche blog about either of those topics and find success.

What is a Multi-Niche Blog?

A multi-niche blog simply covers multiple topics. The benefit of this is that you can write about all of your interests on the same blog. For example, you could write about photography one day then share your favorite recipe the next. Most multi-niche bloggers choose 3-5 niches to cover and write 20+ posts about each niche. You could cover dozens of topics on the same blog and add new topics as your interests evolve.

Which is Better? Multi-Topic Blog Vs Single Topic Blog

Many bloggers suggest that you need to focus on a single topic to find success in blogging. You may read that multi-topic blogs are only suitable for those who are blogging for fun or for personal use and not for making money. This is false. While it may be easier to grow and monetize a single topic blog when you’re starting out, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. You can absolutely find success and make money with a multi-topic blog.

The truth is that there are benefits and drawbacks to each type of blog. In the following sections, we’ll compare and contrast multi-niche vs single topic blogging. To do this, we’ll examine several of the most critical aspects of blogging including SEO, marketing, traffic growth, monetization, and more.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Multi-Niche and Single Topic Blogs

It’s easier to do good SEO and rank a single topic blog on the search engines than a multi-niche blog. The reason has to do with the way the search engines rank results.

Think about SEO as a competition. In this competition, each of your blog posts competes with all of the other blog posts with the same keywords. Google’s search algorithm ranks the top posts on the same topic from best to worst. Over 200 factors are taken into consideration. Your reward for creating one of the top posts and winning this competition is organic traffic from the search engine.

While creating your content, you need to optimize it for the search engines. We don’t know exactly how Google’s algorithm works but we do know some of the main factors that are considered.

Two of the more important ranking factors these days are authority and relevance. Search engines determine your blog’s authority and relevance by analyzing the content itself as well as the external links pointed to your site.

You can build authority by creating in-depth content about a topic and building high-quality links. You can become relevant by staying on topic in your content and building links from sources that are related to that content.

The search engine considers your site’s authority and relevance at the individual page level as well as the entire domain level. These are known as Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA). Sites and pages with higher authority and more relevant content rank higher.

It’s easier to build authority and remain relevant when you’re writing about a single topic rather than multiple topics.

For example, maybe you want to rank a blog post for the keywords “How to Bake Sourdough Bread.”

Imagine you run a single topic blog all about baking bread. All of your articles are about bread. All of your external links coming from bread and food related blogs. Your blog appear incredibly authoritative and relevant at both the page and domain level because it covers one topic in-depth. All of the content focuses on one topic. All of the internal and external links come from related and relevant sources. Your article may rank higher in the SERPS because the blog appears more authoritative and relevant to the search engine algorithm.

Now, imagine you’re trying to rank for the same “How to Bake Sourdough Bread” keyword with a multi-niche blog. Maybe this blog contains posts about baking, trucks, and photography. Only 1/3 of the articles are about baking. There may be links coming from different blogs on a multitude of topics. In this case, the blog doesn’t appear very authoritative because most of the content isn’t about bread baking. It may not appear relevant on the domain level because there are links coming from sites that are completely unrelated to bread baking. As a result, the search engine ranking can suffer. In fact, your content may rank lower than that of a single topic blog, even if your content is better.

From the search engine’s perspective, there is a greater likelihood that a single topic blog offers higher quality and more relevant content because the entire blog is dedicated to that one topic. For this reason, you have a greater chance of building authority and relevance with a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog.

Of course, this isn’t to say that the single topic blog will always outrank the multi-niche blog. Remember, there are over 200 factors at play. It is possible to create a highly authoritative and relevant multi-niche blog. It just takes more effort. Also, the search engine algorithms are constantly evolving and improving.

Another important ranking factor to consider is trust. This has to do with the integrity of your site as well as the quality of your content and backlinks. If you’re running a multi-nice blog and one of your niches has spammy backlinks, misinformation, plagiarism, bad spelling and grammar, low-quality pixelated images, poor formatting, too many ads, etc. you may lose trust and your whole site could suffer as a result. Even if your other content is good.

For example, maybe an expert dog trainer writes a top-ranking post about how to train a dog to sit. This same person also writes conspiracy theory articles. They post both articles to their multi-niche blog. In this case, the search engines may rank the dog training article lower because the site isn’t very trustworthy because it contains misinformation about conspiracy theories.

For more in-depth info, check out this great guide to authority, relevance, and trust from Search Engine Journal.

Takeaway- SEO is easier for a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog. When you cover one topic, you can rank faster and more easily.

Creating Content for Multi Topic and Single Topic Blogs

As the saying goes, content is king. If you can create high-quality content, you will bring in traffic and make money.

It’s far easier to create content for a multi-niche blog simply because you have so many options in terms of what you can write about. If you run out of ideas for one of your niches, you can just move to the next. If you run out of ideas for all of your niches, you can just create a new category and start writing about another topic that interests you. With a multi-niche blog, you will never run out of content ideas. It’s impossible.

For example, this blog started out about living in Tijuana. After a year or so, I pretty much ran out of article ideas. I decided to widen my niche to travel. When I got tired of that, I expanded my niche to outdoors and travel.

The problem with some single topic blog niches is that you can eventually run out of things to write about if your niche is narrow enough. For example, there is only so much you can say about toothbrushes or calculators or keyboards. Of course, some niches are so broad that you’ll never run out of things to write about. For example, you could millions of words about travel or lifestyle or food and never run out of article ideas.

Another benefit of multi-niche blogging is that the content can be easier to write because you can limit yourself to writing about only what you know. It’s much faster and easier to write an article about something that you have experience with and knowledge of than something you know nothing about.

If you write about a single topic long enough, eventually you’ll reach the limits of your knowledge. At this point, you’ll have to research each article extensively so you can provide your readers with deep, accurate, and useful information.

In order to write a good article about a topic you know nothing about, you might spend 10+ hours researching. If you’re familiar with the topic, you may only need to spend an hour or so fact checking and researching a couple of ideas that you’re unfamiliar with.

Takeaway- Content is easier to produce for a multi-niche blog. You don’t have to worry about running out of article ideas either.

Building an Audience and Catering to Your Reader’s Needs

Building a core group of regular readers is crucial for your blog. Your regular visitors subscribe to your newsletter, return to your site regularly, read your articles, follow you on social media, comment, and hopefully share your content with their friends. This helps you gain exposure and traffic organically. Your regular visitors are also much more likely to buy any products that you sell. They’re also cool people who share an interest with you.

Building and maintaining an audience is much easier when you blog about a single topic than multiple topics. The reason is that most people follow your blog because they share one specific interest with you. Not all of your interests. If you blog about coffee, your readers want to learn more about coffee. They don’t want to read about sculpting, even though you might be interested in sculpting. People may also be less likely to subscribe if they see a multitude of articles about topics they’re not interested in when they visit your blog.

Your fans also want to read your blog regularly. Preferably weekly. It’s much easier to grow your audience and cater to your reader’s needs if you regularly post content about the same topic. This way, your audience knows what to expect so they will keep returning. If you only post about a particular topic once every couple of months, your audience may grow more slowly or even shrink. People value regularity and reliability.

For example, imagine you subscribe to a blog because you enjoy reading the articles about pets. If the blog owner posts one article about dogs then the next about cell phones or the stock market or winter jackets, you may very well unsubscribe or stop following because you’re not interested in the other topics that they write about. If only ¼ of the content on the site is about pets and the blogger only posts about pets a handful of times per year, you’ll probably not subscribe in the first place. After all, you don’t want random topics that don’t interest you showing up in your feed or email.

This is a major problem with multi-niche blogging. It’s difficult to grow an audience in the first place. When you do grow an audience, it’s very fragmented and difficult to maintain. You’ll see fewer subscribers and followers and experience more unfollows.

For example, some people might have subscribed for your articles about food while others subscribed for your articles about tech. Some of these people will unsubscribe or stop following if you write about topics that they aren’t interested in too frequently. You have to strike a balance, which is difficult. You can’t please everyone.

Takeaway- It’s far easier to grow an audience with a single-topic blog than multi-niche blog.

Marketing a Multi Niche Vs Single Topic Blog

Marketing helps you grow your audience, increase traffic, and reach new readers who otherwise wouldn’t see your content. For a blog, marketing can involve posting your content or links to your content on your favorite social media platforms, email marketing, and paying for ads.

It is much easier to market a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog. The reason is that you audience is much more targeted. Everyone who visits your blog already has some level of interest in all of your content because it covers the same general topic. The more targeted your audience is, the more successful your marketing campaign will be. With a highly targeted audience, you’ll bring in more traffic, get more ad impressions, make more sales, and gain more interactions and shares. Basically, whatever your goal is, it will be easier to achieve.

If you run a multi-niche blog, only a portion of your social media followers and email subscribers will have an interest in a given post. If you cover 3 niches equally, only 1/3 of your followers are targeted for each niche. You’ll have a lower conversion rate and fewer interactions because your audience is less targeted.

For example, say you blog only about woodworking on your blog. If you share a post about types of wood on Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, you know that all of your followers will have an interest in it. If you run a multi-niche blog about woodworking, cars, and welding, and share a post about different types of wood, only a fraction of your followers and subscribers will be interested.

Social Media Marketing for Single and Multi-Niche Blogs

Regardless of which type of blog you start, you should grab all of the social media handles that you can for your blog’s name so nobody else takes them. You’ll at least want Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and YouTube. You may not use them all, but it’s good to have a username reserved if you end up needing them.

Some social media platforms work better than others for multi-niche blogging. If you’re a single topic blogger, you can use pretty much every social media platform you choose. Of course, your success also depends on your niche(s). Some niches perform better on some social media platforms than others.

A few of the best social media platforms for blogging include:

• Pinterest- This is probably the best social media platform for multi-niche bloggers because it allows you to make multiple boards for your different blog topics. People can follow only the boards that they’re interested in. For example, for this blog, I have around 30 boards that cover different niches including cycling, travel, hiking, camping, etc. Try to post a new pin 1-3 times per day. Pinterest works well for single topic bloggers as well. To make pins, I like Canva.
• Reddit- You can share your content on subreddits that cover the same topic as one of your niches. The traffic is highly targeted. Before posting, make sure you read the subreddit rules. Many ban self-promotion or even posting links.
• Quora- This is a question and answer site. You can answer questions related to your niche and link back to your site in your answer. This targets people asking a particular question. Quora works well for both single and multi-niche blogs.
• YouTube– If you create video content, YouTube is probably the best place to post. It allows you to separate your content into categories or create playlists.
• Medium- Some bloggers find success in re-publishing their content here.
• Twitter- Many bloggers find great success with Twitter. You can bring in some decent traffic by Tweeting one of your articles per day and using hashtags. Twitter is also an excellent place to network with other bloggers.
• Facebook- For multi-niche blogging, sharing your content on related Facebook groups works well. You should also post your new articles to your timeline.
• Instagram- This is great for niches that contain lots of visual content like food blogs and travel blogs, for example.
• Snapchat- Some bloggers find success in sharing live video or creating Snapchat stories.
• Tik Tok- This platform offers a great opportunity to market to a younger audience. This platform works great if you create video content.

Generally, platforms that are set up so all of your followers can see all of the content that you share don’t work as well for multi-niche blogging. Examples include Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Still, you should create profiles and experiment. You never know which social media platform will work best for your blog until you give it a try.

When you’re starting out, I recommend you pick 2-3 of your favorite social media platforms to focus on first. As your blog becomes more successful and you gain more followers, you can expand to more platforms.

Email Marketing

Regardless of which type of blog you run, you should start collecting email addresses as soon as you launch. Some multi-niche bloggers set their email sign up form so subscribers can choose which type of content they’re interested in. Usually with a few checkboxes on the email sign up form. For example, if the blog covers five different niches, your subscribers can check all of the categories they’re interested in receiving emails about.

This method allows you to build multiple email lists that are divided up by niche. The benefit to this is that you won’t send an email about fishing to readers that are interested in cooking. Your email lists are targeted. Of course, the drawback is that it takes more work because you’ll need to create multiple email newsletters.

If you’re a single topic blogger, you can just have one large email list and send everyone the same newsletter.

Ads

The beauty of buying ads is that you can target a particular audience with incredible precision. It doesn’t matter if you’re a single topic blogger or multi-niche blogger. When designing the ad campaign, you can choose the exact age, location, gender, and interests of your desired target audience. For bloggers, Facebook and Instagram are two of the most popular places to purchase ads.

Blog marketing takeaway- It is easier to market a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog because all of your followers are more targeted.

Monetizing Multi Niche Vs Single Topic Blogs

Chances are, the reason you’re starting your blog in the first place is to make money. Regardless of whether you’re running a single topic blog or multi-niche blog, your income depends on the quality of the traffic, the amount of traffic, and your niche.

Generally, a single topic blog will earn more than a multi-niche blog assuming the level of traffic is the same. The reason is that single niche blog traffic is of higher quality and is much more targeted. With highly targeted traffic your visitors are more likely to click on an ad or purchase a product or service because they are already interested in the topic. This means you’ll make more sales and earn more money from each visitor that you bring to your site. In other words, targeted traffic converts better.

For example, imagine you run a mommy blog and you partner with a company that sells strollers. As an affiliate, you advertise and sell their strollers on your site. If a new mom ends up reading your article about strollers, there is a decent chance that you can sell her a stroller because she is your target audience. If a 14-year-old boy ends up on your site, you’re not going to sell him a stroller. He is not your target audience. Non-targeted traffic has very little value.

Multi-niche blog traffic is typically less targeted. This results in a lower conversion rate and lower earnings. For example, imagine you blog about photography and fishing and each niche gets half of your traffic. If you have an ad for a fishing reel on your sidebar, only half of your visitors are potential buyers.

Targeted traffic is so important that you could earn more from a single-topic blog with significantly less traffic than a multi-niche blog. For example, maybe your single topic blog about fishing gets 10,000 visitors per month and makes 100 fishing reel sales earning you $500. Maybe a multi-niche blog about fishing and photography may get 15,000 visitors per month but only make 70 fishing reel sales and earns $350. Even though the multi-niche blog gets 50% more visitors, it makes less money because the traffic is less targeted.

In some cases, it is easier to monetize a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog. The reason is that it can be easier to join affiliate programs and sell ad space. The companies you’re advertising or selling for know that targeted traffic will have a higher return on investment for them. If they have the choice between advertising on a single niche or multi-niche blog, they’ll probably choose to advertise on the more targeted single niche blog if all else is equal. This can make you more competitive with larger blogs.

The amount of traffic you get also plays a big role in your income. Obviously, if there are more people looking at your content, you have a greater chance of making a sale. Between single topic and multi-niche blogs, one does not necessarily get more traffic than the other. Traffic depends more on the quality of your content, your niche(s), SEO, your marketing strategy, etc.

The niche(s) also play a major role in how much you can potentially earn from your blog. With 10,000 views, some niches may only make a few dollars while others may earn thousands. Before settling on a niche, it pays to do some research. Look into ad bids for each potential niche before you begin writing. Some of the most profitable niches include finance, food, making money online, fashion, and travel.

Tracking Blog Income: RPM and Conversion Rate

When it comes to monetizing a blog, there are two main ways to go about it. You can run ads or sell a product or service. You can sell your own product or service or sell for someone else as an affiliate.

Ad income on blogs is often measured in RPM (revenue per mille). This is the amount of money you make per 1000 visitors. The RPM depends on your niche(s), how targeted your traffic is, and which ad network you use. Some niches may only earn pennies per 1000 visitors while others earn hundreds of dollars. More targeted traffic earns a higher RPM because more people will click the ads. Having said this, if you’re running ads through some kind of agency, they are mostly personalized so each visitor sees ads that may appeal to them. If you’re running Adsense ads, a decent RPM would be $3-$4. With some premium ad networks, your RPM may be in the $20-$40 range.

Affiliate income is often measured with a conversion rate. This is the percentage of visitors who make a purchase. You can use this same metric to track how many people buy your product if you sell something directly. The conversion rate also depends on the niche and how targeted the traffic is. For some niches a 1% conversion rate is excellent and for others a 10% conversion rate is achievable. More targeted traffic gets a higher conversion rate. For affiliate marketing, 2-5% is considered an average conversion rate.

Single topic blogs almost always have a higher RPM and conversion rate than multi-niche blogs. This means you can make more money per visitor. For example, if your single topic blog makes 5 cents per visitor and you get 25,000 visitors per month, you’ll earn $1250. If your multi-niche blog makes 2 cents per visitor and you get 25,000 visitors per month you’ll only earn $500.

Takeaway- Single topic blogs are typically easier to monetize and more profitable than multi-niche blogs.

Blogging Burn Out

Blogging is a grind. In order to find success, you’ll spend thousands of hours writing hundreds of thousands of words about your niche. You’ll also need to spend a significant amount of time researching and getting to know your niche deeply. As you can imagine, it would be easy to burn out if you’re not passionate about your topic.

This is a major issue with single topic blogging. You’re stuck writing about the same thing all the time. If you lose interest in your topic, you will get burned out and you will quit. Particularly if you’re not gaining much traffic or making any money. There are millions of abandoned blogs on the internet. The majority of bloggers quit after 3-6 months. The truth is that only around 5% of bloggers find any success. Most never even make $100. Burn out is a real problem that prevents many bloggers from succeeding.

A major benefit of multi-niche blogging is that you’re far less likely to burn out. When you get tired of one subject or if you get writers block, you can write about something else. If you lose interest in one topic, you can abandon it and choose another niche. If you discover a new interest, you can start writing about it. This way, you never get bored or burnt out.

Our interests also change over time. For example, I used to write exclusively travel related articles. When I wasn’t traveling, this got boring. About three years ago, I got into cycling and started to blog about it. This put new life into my blog and inspired me to keep writing.

Your life also changes over the years. For example, maybe you start a blog about college life. After your graduate, your blog will become irrelevant because you’re no longer in college. At that point, you may lose interest in your blog. If you run a multi niche blog, you can just pivot to a new interest.

I feel like this is an important point to make because the vast majority of blogs are failures. Not because they aren’t good enough. Rather because people burn out after realizing that they may not be making any money for years after starting their blog. I can’t imagine I would have kept this blog up if I was stuck writing about one topic. Because I cover a wide range of topics, I never really get bored.

Takeaway- You’re less likely to burn out and give up when you run a multi-niche blog because you can write about a wide range of topics and pivot as your interests change.

Blogging Expenses for Single and Multi Topic Blogs

The only real costs to blogging are registering a domain and paying for hosting. The costs are the same for single topic and multi niche blogs. All in, you’ll spend less than $100 per year when just getting started.

Once you find some success and start making a bit of money, you may choose to buy a premium theme, better hosting, and some paid plugins. You may choose to hire writers, marketers, SEO experts, etc. to help you grow your blog. Costs increase for both single topic and multi-niche blogs.

Single topic blogging becomes more expensive if you decide to run multiple blogs with different topics. In that case, you’ll have to buy multiple domains. These cost $10-$20 per year each depending on where you register them. You’ll also need to buy pay for more premium hosting that allows you to host multiple domains on the same servers. This may cost $200-$300 per year for up to 5 or so websites. With a multi-niche blog, you’re only running one website so costs remain low.

Takeaway- Costs are similar for single topic and multi niche blogs. If you want to run multiple single topic blogs, things get more expensive.

Organization and Navigation

Keeping your blog well organized is important for SEO as well as usability. If you mix different types of content, categories, topics, and subtopics together, you’ll end up with a mess of a website and users will have trouble finding the information they need.

As a rule of thumb, you should organize your site in a way that allows users to reach any page of your site within three clicks or less. To help you organize you posts, you can utilize categories and tags to group your content. To help users navigate your site, you can use a variety of menus or links including:

• drop down menus
• hamburger menus
• buttons on your homepage
• footer links
• sidebar links
• create pages with links
• a list of your categories or tags in the sidebar

Organizing a single topic blog is much easier than a multi-niche blog. You can simply divide your topic into sub-categories and use the menus or links outlined above to keep everything organized. It’s pretty straightforward.

Organizing a multi-niche blog can get complicated. When you have 3-5 niches each with multiple subcategories each, you can end up with a disorganized mess of categories, subcategories, and tags pretty quickly. It’s important to stay organized to maintain usability and practice good SEO. That’s easier said than done.

There are a number of ways to go about organizing a multi-niche blog so that you users can easily find the information they’re interested in. The easiest solution is to make each niche into a category then create sub-categories as needed. You can also utilize tags to further organize your content. This is what I do.

On my home page, I have buttons with the main categories of the blog. I also have a dropdown on the sidebar with my blog’s categories. On the top, I have a menu with links to pages that contain links to a few popular categories. Admittedly, this site isn’t all that well organized. It’s something I’m working on.

Another potential solution is to create sub-domains for your blog. For example, if I were to divide this blog up with sub-domains, I might name one travel.wheretheroadforks.com and another hiking.wheretheroadforks.com.

If you want to blog about multiple topics, the best solution is to simply run multiple blogs on different domains. This way, all of your niches stay separate and organized. This maximizes SEO and useability. Of course, this adds a considerable amount of work. More on that later.

Takeaway- It’s easier to organize a single topic blog because there are fewer categories and subcategories to work with. This makes your site easier and more intuitive to navigate and use.

Adaptability and Longevity

Multi-niche blogs tend to be more agile and adaptable than single-topic blogs. You can pivot your business in the direction that you need to. This leads to a long-lasting blog.

A few examples include:

1. Disaster strikes- Maybe your topic falls out of popularity. This happened to me. During quarantine, traffic to my travel-related content completely died. At the same time, my cycling and hiking articles surged in popularity and became some of my most popular. I began writing almost exclusively about bikes, camping, and hiking. Traffic grew to new highs in just a few months. If I had been stuck with a single topic blog about travel, my only options would be to start a completely new blog or keep grinding away and hoping that traffic would return.
2. You change as a person- People change over time. If you lose interest in your single topic blog niche, you’ll have to start a new blog with a new niche. If you run a multi-niche blog, you can just pivot to one of your other niches and phase out the other. For example, maybe you blog about college life. 4 or so years later, you won’t want to write about that topic anymore because that part of your life will be behind you. Your information will become irrelevant and outdated as well. If you run a multi-niche blog and plan ahead, you can pivot to another niche and maintain the same blog.
3. You chose a bad niche to begin with- Some niches aren’t profitable and some are oversaturated and nearly impossible to rank in. If, after getting started, you find that you chose a bad niche, you can stop writing about it and focus on one of your other niches if you run a multi-niche blog.

With a multi-niche blog, you can also try writing about different topics until you find one that sticks. You may find that one topic gets much more traffic than the others. In this case, you can pivot your blog in that direction. For example, maybe you started a travel/photography/pets blog but found that your photography content drew the most traffic. You could focus your energy on photography related content.

You can’t really achieve this same adaptability with a single topic blog. If your niche falls out of popularity, you grow tired of it, or it simply doesn’t work, you basically have to start over with a new blog.

Of course, you can always run multiple single niche blogs. This is probably even more stable and adaptable than running a multi-niche blog but is much more work.

Takeaway- Multi niche blogs are more adaptable. You can pivot as times change.

Traffic and Growing Your Blog

Growing a blog is a slow process. For the first 3-6 months, you may not see any organic traffic at all due to a ‘sandbox’ effect with Google’s search algorithm.

For example, when I first started this blog, it would often take months before I could find my articles in the SERPs. When they did appear, they would be lost in pages 5-10+ and slowly move up over the course of several months. These days, when I publish a good article, I can usually find it in the rankings within a week or less. Of course, not every post ranks. It’s hit or miss.

It is easier and faster to rank and grow a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog. The main reason is that it’s simply easier to build authority and trust and stay relevant on one topic than multiple topics. When you write about the same topic and have backlinks coming other sites that cover the same topic, the search engine algorithm knows exactly what your blog is about. They’ll know where and how to rank your content faster. You’ll start seeing organic traffic coming in sooner.

Your social media presence also tends to grow faster when you cover a single topic. You’ll get more shares, mentions, and most importantly clicks. This can help improve SEO as well.

With a multi-niche blog, your content is usually more fragmented. One niche might perform well while another could potentially damage your authority or trust and hold you back. Your content may also appear less relevant to the search algorithm. When you write about space travel one day and pottery the next, Google may not know what to do with your content. The search algorithm is good but not perfect. It may take more time to rank your content so you won’t receive as much organic traffic as quickly.

As outlined earlier, it is more difficult to grow social media channels for multi-niche blogs as well. You won’t receive as much traffic from these sources as quickly as a result. Multi-niche blogs just grow slower. It will take more time before you begin ranking, bringing in traffic, and most importantly earning money.

Regardless of which type of blog you start, it will most likely take 1-3 years to get to a point where you’re bringing in 10,000-25,000 visitors per month and regularly making a profit. It takes a great deal of time to create enough content, build a following, and grow your blog. You can speed up the process of ranking on the search engines and growing your traffic by building authority and trust as well as staying relevant. Basically by practicing good SEO.

A Note About Domain Authority

One metric commonly used to determine how likely a particular website is to rank on the SERPs is Domain Authority (DA). This third party metric developed by MOZ scores websites on a logarithmic scale from 1-100. Higher scores indicate a greater likelihood of ranking in search results. Sites that rank highly receive more organic traffic. Several metrics are used to determine Domain Authority including your backlink profile and traffic.

Typically, single-topic blogs grow domain authority much faster than multi-niche blogs because it’s easier to build authority, relevance, and trust. For example, you might find a multi-niche blog that is 3 years old and has 200 posts with a Domain Authority of 20. A one-year-old single topic blog with 50 posts might achieve the same Domain Authority of 20. In this example, the single topic blog will rank just as well as the multi-niche blog with far less time and effort.

It is important to note that Domain Authority is not a metric used by Google to rank websites. Domain Authority is simply a third party metric that can give you a general idea of the authority of your site in relation to others. It may not be all that accurate either. MOZ is limited in what metrics they can get from your site.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of the Domain Authority metric. It relies too heavily on your backlink profile, in my opinion. Backlinks are important but they are just one out of hundreds of different metrics that are used to rank sites. Having said that, DA is a useful tool that you can use to measure the growth of your site over time.

Takeaway- Single topic blogs tend to grow faster than multi niche blogs.

Management Difficulty

Multi-niche blogs are more difficult and time consuming to manage. The main reason is that you have to keep all of your niches updated with new posts. You should post at least one article about each niche per month to stay up to date. Ideally, you would post one new article per topic per week. If you’re focusing on 5 different niches, this can stretch your time thin. You also need to market all of your niches, which takes time and effort. This may mean making multiple social media posts per day about different topics.

If you neglect one of your niches for a few months or a year and don’t post any new content or market it, you may lose relevance and authority in that niche. Readers who follow your blog for that niche may unfollow if you’re not posting any new content. When you run a multi-niche blog, you have to strike a balance between all of your niches.

Another potential problem is keeping on top of updates. If there is a major change in one of your niches, you’ll have to learn about it and update your articles to reflect that change. For example, maybe there is a new technology, law, product release, standard, rule, etc. It can be a challenge to stay up to date on all of your niches if you’re focusing on 5 completely different topics. Researching your topic and updating posts is very time-consuming.

Single topic blogs are far easier to manage. You can get by posting less frequently while still maintaining relevance and authority in your niche. Once your blog is established, you could get away with posing one article per month in many niches. It’s also easier to stay up to date on your topic. If the industry changes, you will notice and adapt. Marketing is also easier because you’re only dealing with one topic. You can get by posting on social media less frequently. It’s just less work. For this reason, a single topic blog is the better choice if you don’t have much time on your hands.

Takeaway- It’s easier and less time consuming to manage a single niche blog than a multi niche blog.

Networking

Networking helps you stay up to date with best practice in the blogging industry and your niche. It can also help you build links and grow your blog. It’s also nice to have some like minded people to talk to. After all, blogging is a lonely job.

It can be easier to network with a single niche blog because your content directly relates to other businesses and blogs in that niche. You can join online groups and attend conventions that are related to your niche. With a multi-niche blog, your options can be a bit more limited. Your blog may not fit into some online group or conventions because your content is mixed.

Selling Your Blog

At some point down the road, you may want to cash in on all of the hard work you put into your blog and sell it for a big chunk of cash. Maybe you lost interest in blogging or maybe you just want to retire. Whatever the case, it’s easier to sell a single topic blog than a multi-niche blog. The reason is that the market is bigger. Whatever niche you blog about, there are plenty of people who share that same interest that you could potentially sell to.

Multi-topic blogs are harder to sell because they are much more personal. After all, they are about your interests. Individually, plenty of people have interest in each topic. The problem is that very few people have interest in all of the same topics that you blog about. This means the market for a multi-niche blog is smaller. Of course, you can still sell your multi-niche blog but you might not get as much money for it. It might also take longer to sell.

Takeaway- Single topic blogs are easier and faster to sell. They are also more valuable than multi-topic blogs, assuming the metrics are the same.

Pros and Cons of Multi Topic Blogging

Pros and Cons of Single Topic Blogging

Choosing your Niche(s)

Whether you’re starting a single topic blog or multi-niche blog, choosing the topic or topics you’re going to cover is the single most important decision you’ll make. Your niche determines your blog’s traffic and earnings potential. Some small niches may limit you to just a few thousand visitors per month while others have the potential to attract millions. Some niches limit you in what you can sell or advertise while others have the potential to make you a millionaire.

You’ll want to spend plenty of time researching before settling on a topic. To help you get started, follow these steps to choose a niche:

1. Brainstorm potential niche ideas- Think about your interests and write them down in a list. Remember, you’ll be writing hundreds of thousands of words about your niche. You need to be passionate about it. You also need to have deep knowledge about your niche. Writing from experience helps you create higher quality content. Your niche should also be something that you can teach people about. Most people are looking to learn about a particular topic when they do a search.
2. Ensure that your niche has traffic potential- After choosing a few potential niches, use a search volume tool or keyword planner to check the average monthly searches for your niche as well as a few keywords related to your niche. Play around with different keywords and their synonyms. Type in some article ideas. If you find that your niche only gets a few hundred searches per month, broaden it. If it gets millions of searches per month, try to narrow it down a bit.
3. Ensure your niche has profit potential- Think about products and services that are related to your niche that you could sell on your blog. To help you out, look at other blogs that cover the same niche to see what they’re selling. Look at their affiliate links and ads. Find the affiliate programs and see what commissions they offer. Some companies give you an average conversion rate. This can help you estimate your earnings for a given amount of traffic. You may also want to research the RPM for running ads in your niche. A few of the most profitable niches include finance, blogging, marketing, travel, and food.
4. Analyze your competitor’s blogs- Search a few keywords related to your niche and look at the kind of content the competition is putting out. Look at the type of content, length, quality, organization, etc. Are there photos, videos, or infographics? Your goal is to make sure that you can create a better, more in-depth, more up to date piece of content that can outrank them. If you can’t, you won’t rank. Some niches are so developed and oversaturated that it is nearly impossible to rank.
5. Determine your target audience- Think about who you’re writing for. This will help you create a more targeted audience. Think about the demographics of your audience including age, sex, location, level of income, profession, race, level of education, nationality, whether or not they have children, personality, etc.
6. Determine your angle (if the niche is saturated)- Some niches are so saturated already that it is almost impossible to rank a new blog. Examples include travel, food, mommy blogging, lifestyle, and more. If you’re set on one of these niches, you’ll need to differentiate yourself from the competition in some way. Try to create an angle for your blog. Identify a void in the niche and fill it. Maybe you have a great personality that you can let shine through. Maybe you have a unique perspective or experience that you can insert into your blog posts.
7. Create a list of article ideas- Try to come up with 20-50 potential article ideas for each niche. This way, you know you won’t run out of ideas any time soon. To help think of article ideas, look through your competitor’s blogs, Google search keywords related to your blog, look for related questions on Quora, read through subreddits related to your blog, and look for books related to your blog on Amazon for inspiration. I find it helpful to make some article formats as well. For example, ‘how to __________’ or ‘the best __________’. Fill in the blank with keywords related to your niche. You could probably come up with dozens of article ideas for pretty much any niche with these two formats alone.

If you’re planning to create a multi-niche blog, repeat the above process for each of your niche ideas to determine which have potential. If one of your ideas doesn’t have enough search volume or earning potential or has too much competition, eliminate it and start over. It’s better to spend a few days researching than spending hundreds of hours creating content for a niche that has no traffic potential. You may also come up with some new ideas during this process. If possible, your niches should be somewhat related.

After going through this process with all of your niche ideas, choose the best one to start blogging about. Of the topics you have left, you’ll want to pick the one that you’re the most passionate about with the most traffic and earning potential and the least competition.

Starting A Multi-Niche Blog

If you’re planning to crate a multi-niche blog, I recommend you stick to a single niche as long as you can before branching out to another niche. Try to write at least 20 articles about one niche. When you run out of things to say or get sick of writing about your first niche, then you can move on to another. In other words, start by creating a single topic blog first.

Try to focus on your best niche idea with the highest traffic and earnings potential and the least competition. This gives you the greatest chance of building up some traffic and seeing some success early on. This way, you’re less likely to quit.

You should start with a single topic blog because it’s easier to build up some authority and build internal links. This helps greatly with SEO. Also, your visitors will have more than a handful of articles to read when they come to your blog.

Avoid covering multiple niches when you’re just starting out. You’ll end up with a confusing mess of random articles. This is bad for both SEO and readability. You’ll confuse the search engine about the topic of your blog and your users won’t have much to read if every article covers a different topic. Covering multiple topics when you’re just starting out will slow your blog’s growth.

After writing your 20+ articles about one niche, you can branch out into another niche if you choose. Alternatively, you can start a second single topic blog. You have the option to go either way at this point. Most bloggers don’t set out to create a multi niche blog. It just ends up that way.

Running Multiple Single Topic Blogs: An Alternative to Multi-Niche Blogging

If you’re absolutely sure that you want to write about multiple topics, the best solution is to run multiple independent blogs. In order to do this, you’ll need to buy a different domain for each blog. You’ll also need to buy hosting that allows you to host multiple domains.

There are a number of benefits to running multiple single topic blogs over creating a single multi-niche blog. SEO is better, marketing is easier, building an audience is easier, and monetization is easier. You can also link between each of your blogs. If you do this right, you can give your new blogs a great boost. Truth be told, you’ll probably get more traffic and make more money in the long run this way as well.

The drawback is that it’s a lot more work. Creating content and managing social media for multiple blogs is a job for multiple people. For this reason, you shouldn’t create multiple blogs when you’re just starting out. Start with a single blog then create a second after the first blog is established, driving traffic, and earning a profit.

A Note About Converting a Multi-Niche Blog to a Single Topic Blog

Maybe you already run a multi-niche blog but you want to take advantage of some of the benefits of single niche blogging like better SEO, easier marketing, faster growth, and greater profitability. One potential solution is to convert your multi-niche blog into a single topic blog.

The easiest way to go about doing this is to divide your different niches into separate single niche blogs. This involves registering a domain name for each one of your niches, arranging hosting for each, and migrating your relevant content from your old blog to the new blogs.

For example, imagine you run a photography/travel/motorcycles multi-niche blog. If you wanted to convert it into a single niche blog, you could divide up your content so you have three completely separate blogs, one photography blog, one travel blog, and one motorcycle blog.

This process can get involved. It’s a big job to create multiple new bogs, move content, create new social media accounts for each, and keep everything organized. You will lose traffic in the short term. In the long run, you may be better off.

If you only want to run one single niche blog, you can sell off the other single niche blogs that you created. Alternatively, you could sell off the content that isn’t related to your niche if you don’t want to bother creating new blogs. Don’t just abandon the content. It probably has value.

Converting a Single Topic Blog to a Multi Topic Blog

If you’re currently running a single topic blog but like the idea of multi niche blogging, you can easily expand. Simply create a new category and start writing about one of your other interests. Before you start, I recommend you evaluate your new niche to make sure it’s viable.

If you run multiple single-topic blogs, you can also consolidate them into one multi-niche blog. This involves migrating all of your content from your other blogs to your new multi-niche blog. When you do this, make sure you have a plan to keep everything organized. You’ll most likely have to create some new categories, tags, and pages so you don’t end up with a mess. Some bloggers do this to save time and simplify their business.

My Experience Growing a Multi-Niche Blog

In 2017, I moved from Southern California to Tijuana to cut my living expenses. I started this blog as a single topic blog about my experience living in Tijuana. After a couple of months, I was only getting 1-2 visitors per day. Some days I got zero. I abandoned the blog.

About 2 months later, I logged into Google Analytics to see if I had gained any traffic. To my surprise, I was getting about 500 hits per month. At the time, I thought that was pretty impressive. I figured, if I can get to 500 visitors per month, I can get to 1000 so I began working on the blog again.

After a couple more months, I ran out of ideas about the living in Tijuana niche. I decided to expand my niche to a general travel blog. In the past, I had traveled pretty extensively so I had quite a bit to write about.

I soon learned that travel content is incredibly difficult to rank for. Probably because the travel niche is so oversaturated. The only subcategory I found any success in was travel in Africa. I began writing extensively in that niche and gained a decent amount of traffic.

At the same time, I was just getting interested in cycling. I decided to write a few cycling-related articles to see if I could rank. At this point, my travel blog became a multi-niche blog.

Traffic continued to grow and I continued to expand my niches. These days, I write about all of my interests including travel, cycling, camping, and hiking. Essentially, the blog is a multi-niche blog that covers travel and outdoor recreation.

I have thrown around the idea of doing a spin-off and moving one niche to its own blog specific to that niche. That may be a project for next year.

Final Thoughts About Multi-Niche Vs Single Topic Blogs

Contrary to what many bloggers claim, you can successfully run a blog that covers multiple niches. This blog alone proves it is possible. There are even benefits to running a multi-niche blog. It’s easier to create content, you’re less likely to burn out, and it can be cheaper as well.

Having said that, the drawbacks really outweigh the benefits in many cases. SEO, marketing, building an audience, organization, growth, and monetization are all easier if you focus on a single topic.

Of course, you also have the option of running multiple separate blogs as well. This may be the best of both worlds. Whichever type of blog you choose, I hope this guide has helped you make your decision.

Do you run a multi niche or single topic blog? Share your tips and experience in the comments below!

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Zachary Friedman

Zachary Friedman is an accomplished travel writer and professional blogger. Since 2011, he has traveled to 66 countries and 6 continents. He founded ‘Where The Road Forks’ in 2017 to provide readers with information and insights based on his travel and outdoor recreation experience and expertise. Zachary is also an avid cyclist and hiker. Living as a digital nomad, Zachary balances his professional life with his passions for hiking, camping, cycling, and worldwide exploration. For a deeper dive into his journey and background, visit the About page. For inquiries and collaborations, please reach out through the Contact page. You can also follow him on Facebook.

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