A fellow Christian author asked me how she could help her website visitors navigate the different topics on her blog. That’s a great question, and it’s one I have grappled with for years. I too have a multi-topic blog.
What Is a Multi-Topic Blog?
What I’m referring to here is a blog that has one overarching and unifying theme, but with distinct topics. For example, my overall blog is about growing in relationship with God. But I cover distinct topics such as Inner Healing, Christian Writing, and Biblical Hebrew. Those topics are connected in one way, but different in many others. That’s what I mean by a multi-topic blog.
I’m not referring to two separate subject areas which should have two separate blogs. For example, if I were interested in trail hiking and do-it-yourself plumbing repair, I wouldn’t combine those into one blog. They are two different subject areas. However, if I were interested in do-it-yourself kitchen repair, plumbing, carpet repair, fencing and siding, those could potentially go into a multi-topic blog, unified by the larger subject of “do-it-yourself home repair.”
Disadvantage? Or Advantage?
Now that I’ve clarified what I do (and don’t) mean by a multi-topic blog, let’s look at a key disadvantage and a major advantage of a multi-topic blog.
The disadvantage is that readers interested in just one topic might not want to subscribe to the blog. Someone interested in Biblical Hebrew might not be interested in Christian writing, and vice versa.
The advantage is that readers who are interested in all the topics I cover can find everything in one place. Previously (and much to the chagrin of my writing coaches, I might add), I had different blogs for different topics. It was hard for readers to find me and keep up with new posts, and it was exhausting to manage all those blogs.
How to Help Readers Navigate Your Multi-Topic Blog
As I told my author friend, here are some ways to combine all your (subject-related) topics on one blog and help readers navigate:
- Make good use of categories, so it is easy for readers to search your blog by topic and sub-topic.
- Create a page on your website for each topic. Do a category search of your own blog and copy the link of that category page. Place that link on the relevant topic page and call it “[Topic] Articles.” (Look at my pages on this website, and you will see where I have done that.)
- If you have an email newsletter that you send out to readers, consider creating a separate newsletter for each main topic. That requires extra work, but not as much work as running separate topical blogs.
Those are a few simple ways you can write a multi-topic blog and help readers find the topics that interest them.
If you are not sure how to start out, talk to a few of your friends who are interested in the topics you write about. Ask how they would feel if all those topics are combined in one place. Also, look for examples of blogs that combine different topics. See how they help their readers navigate the different topics.
While it may take some time for you to decide what to do, don’t let that be a barrier to starting your blog. The important thing is to write and share. You can make adjustments as you go along – which is exactly what I have done for years. Happy blogging!
Adventures with God 