They say most people who decide to build an online business end up failing. While there is no way to get the exact numbers, some estimate that over 75% of people who start an online business end up failing. Others put the numbers as high as 90%. If you are thinking of starting or expanding an online business, these numbers are not quite encouraging. They just might push you to think that there is no way to have success in the online world. Obviously, this is not true. Just like in any other business, there are some people who will do better than others.

Now the main question remains, WHY did these people actually fail. And did they really “fail” or simply gave up? Don’t believe for a second the “gurus” out there who tell you that people fail in IM because they didn’t know the “top secret success formula” that they are selling. This is simply a marketing tactic and nothing more. In the online world, there is no such thing as “lack of information”. In fact, there is plenty of information available out there, for free, to anyone that wants it. People can find free ebooks, guides, blog posts, videos, discussion forums, etc. where they can find all about online business methods, techniques and strategies. You just have to find the information and apply it.

But you have to ask yourself a question: are you an entrepreneur, or just someone looking for a quick buck. There are some differences between the two. The true entrepreneur will always look for ways to make their business achieve its goals and grow. He is willing to adapt to change and learn new ideas to make money. Someone thinking that internet marketing is about “making money fast from home” simply wants that: to make some money easily. The problem is, once they have made the money they needed this month to pay their bills or go shopping, they are happy. They stop. They don’t think of ways they can reinvest their profits to make even more money. What’s more, they don’t structure their business properly.

In the online world, diversifying your activities and having multiple backup plans available will make or break you. Bad things happen. Affiliate programs fold without paying members. Servers can crash. Products could lose their popularity, etc, etc. Someone who is actually building their online business understands that and will have multiple tools, strategies and income streams at their disposal so that they can continue operating no matter what happens. And if a project they are working on doesn’t give them the results they want, they ask themselves why. Then they apply the necessary corrections and try again, until they found something that actually works and let them achieve their goals with regards to the income they want to generate.

The number of blogs you should own is up for debate in a lot of forums and blogs that I read, so I thought I would weigh in on the topic.

I write for about 4 or 5 blogs as a writer personally, and I make sure that I do not take on more clients than that. I love the writing aspect of blogging, but not the promotion and business end of it. I prefer to write great content that brings visitors back again and again, and leave it up to the site owners to get the readers (you!). There is so much more to running a successful site than writing content and you must be conscience of that before jumping into 10 different niches.

With that being said, I think that the happy number of blogs you should own, at most is 4 or 5.

Why?

It really is simple, if you get stretched to thin trying to write on to many different topics and niches you are going to burn out really bad, really fast. It takes a lot of work to manage a successful blog. You need to write new content every day, do social media and promote the new posts, bookmark, do SEO, comment on other people’s blogs, post on forums related to your niche, and more. You simply can’t do it for more than 5 blogs, you will burn out.

Of course, if you hire out help for writing content, promoting the blog, SEO, and other aspects of your business, you can do more. But as a general rule if you are running the blog yourself no more than 4 or 5 blogs.

The reasoning behind this is because it takes about 1.5 hours per day to write that new content for each blog. Maybe closer to 2.5 hours, depending on your niches and how comfortable you are writing able them. So factoring that in, you have 2 hours per day in sheer writing on average, plush everything else you have going on. One tip, if you have 5 blogs, rotate your promoting every day. On day one promote blog A, day two blog B, etc. That way you can focus your energy on that one blog and not try to do everything at once.

Once you start getting traffic to your first few blogs you can start to expand, at this point you should have some cash-flow and be able to outsource some hired help to manage your blogs and update them for you. Focus your attention on what you are passionate about and write for those niches only at first, then build into other areas.