Why Most Successful Weblogs are Tightly Focused
Dave Aiello wrote, "Everyday I find more evidence that a single weblog cannot serve multiple purposes well. The latest indication of this is the huge traffic spikes that CTDATA.com has experienced around its stories that mention Lance Armstrong during the running of this year's Tour de France."
"At the time I started talking about Lance Armstrong on this web site, I had no idea how relentlessly people would seek information about him. I began to realize the strength of this phenomenon at the beginning of this year's pro cycling season, but, I kept posting information that I found interesting. This past week, the article Lance and Kristin Armstrong Working at Marriage Reconcilliation passed my resume and became the most requested article in the history of our website."
"The popularity of our Lance Armstrong articles actually has no bearing on the accessibility of other articles on this web site. It's still easy to find my resume via Google. The problem is that potential customers who access a site like CTDATA via a search engine might be confused as to the nature of this site."
"Is CTDATA.com a personal weblog? Is it a site about cycling, or the War on Terror, or politics? Not really. CTDATA.com is actually a corporate site, and CTDATA builds database-driven web sites and weblogs."
"This is the reason that I announced that CTDATA.com would be refocused on business topics and later said that I would start a new weblog called DaveAiello.com. I intend to put the postings of personal interest on my personal site, and reserve CTDATA.com for business purposes."
"There is little point in deleting the articles that already exist on CTDATA.com. One of the most valuable parts of running a weblog, after all, is its archived content. But, we can always refocus and fine tune the content mix of the site as our business focus changes. This is critically important in order to maintain the relevance of this site to its audience, and something I would strongly recommend to anyone who is running a weblog for business purposes."