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WordpressERs: Am I nuts for wanting to do this?

by TopLevelGeek
12 replies
Greetings all you Wordpress experts. I'm a "convert" from Joomla to Wordpress, and I'd like to know if this is possible:

One of the things I strongly believe in on the net is establishing a reputation for yourself. In my opinion one of the best ways to do this is to use your real name whenever possibile, and to have a strong personal website that sort of serves as a the hub of your online activities.

I want to start a blog with broad catagories that I am interested in which are NOT related to eachother i.e social work, disability education, internet marketing, web design. Things that I am interested in. (Things that I wouldn't mind having some expert rep in

Is there any way I can create "sub blogs" based on categories? i.e domain.com shows everything, but domain.com/disability shows ONLY the content in the disability category.

I am feeling the need to do this from a web 2.0 promotion standpoint. i.e. its easier on RSS, creating Squidoo lenses etc that are specific to the category but STILL associated with me.

Am I making any sense?
#blog #nuts #wanting #web 2.0 #wordpress #wordpressers
  • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
    I'm not sure how it would serve your needs... but take a look at wordpress MU

    WordPress MU Home

    Jay
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    • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
      p.s. Nope you're not nuts... but it is hard work to make a domain still have pulling power with conflicting topics across it's reach..it is possible though

      Jay
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      • Profile picture of the author TopLevelGeek
        Thanks for the quick replies. If I were to decide it did not want to directly monetize my category names though then I should be fine?

        I guess the marketer in me is having a fight with the person who just wants to have fun and put up stuff that just has to do with me

        EDIT: How about this idea. Can I publish the one Blog with whatever content I want, then if I want to split or monetize a category in a separate blog later, can't I always populate using the category-specific RSS feed?
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        Tyler Horn, LCSW
        I am a child and family therapist, and internet marketer who specializes in small targeted internet presences for people in the helping professions. If your mission is to enhance the lives of the people around you PM me
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        • Profile picture of the author MizzCindy
          I think building up topic authority is an excellent goal. But, I would be very hesistant to mix business and personal stuff in one blog, or even several separate pursuits - if you intend to monetize any of them.

          Suppose you become involved in some type of conflict in one sphere of your life (it happens, even when people think it couldn't possibly). If everything is all bundled together, the risk of that negativity impacting the other areas of your blog becomes very real.

          That's a chance I personally wouldn't want to take. Simply too much potential for trouble there.

          Others may have a different view on this. So please take my opinion for what it's worth.

          Good luck in your pursuits!
          Cindy
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          • Profile picture of the author grumpyjacksa
            you could use sub-categories and sub-pages, but then the navigation becomes a bit hectic when the content becomes a lot.

            i think u may need plugins for that.

            have you noticed how a lot of wp themes are now adapted for joomla ?

            just thinking..........
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    • Profile picture of the author entrepenerd
      Originally Posted by JayXtreme View Post

      I'm not sure how it would serve your needs... but take a look at wordpress MU

      WordPress MU Home

      Jay
      That was going to be my recommendation Jay, but after re-thinking I think the WPMU might be a little bit of overkill if there are only going to be a few "sub" blogs.

      What you're trying to accomplish is possible with a vanilla installation of Wordpress and some customization to a theme to support a little more separation of categories. You'd end up with subdirectory structure here, but it sounds like that would work OK for you.

      I agree with Jay that the search engines prefer a tightly focused website, and having a large variety of information on a single site can make a little harder to rank well. However, if you do a good job of separation of your content areas, you can still end up with a tightly focused site in the eyes of the search engine. And, keep in mind sites like ezinearticles and squidoo that have loads and loads of topics, and still rank very well across the entire spectrum.

      Hope that helps.
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      • Profile picture of the author JayXtreme
        Originally Posted by entrepenerd View Post

        That was going to be my recommendation Jay, but after re-thinking I think the WPMU might be a little bit of overkill if there are only going to be a few "sub" blogs.

        What you're trying to accomplish is possible with a vanilla installation of Wordpress and some customization to a theme to support a little more separation of categories. You'd end up with subdirectory structure here, but it sounds like that would work OK for you.

        I agree with Jay that the search engines prefer a tightly focused website, and having a large variety of information on a single site can make a little harder to rank well. However, if you do a good job of separation of your content areas, you can still end up with a tightly focused site in the eyes of the search engine. And, keep in mind sites like ezinearticles and squidoo that have loads and loads of topics, and still rank very well across the entire spectrum.

        Hope that helps.
        You know.. I think you're right...

        A segmented WP might suffice... WPMU may just be too much for something like this described above...

        Jay
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        Bare Murkage.........

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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Taking your request quite literally, i.e. you just want the posts to come up as yourblog.com/category/ , it's simple.

        1. Log into your dashboard.

        2. Click on the Settings Tab.

        3. Click on Permalinks.

        4. Click the Custom radio button and enter the string "/%category%/%postname%" (no quotes).

        5. Save the new settings.

        Now, if your category is "Web Design" and your post is titled "Custom Permalinks", your url would be yourblog.com/web-design/custom-permalinks.

        If you put in just yourblog.com/web-design, you'd get an archive page listing the posts in that category.

        Is that what you were asking?
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  • Profile picture of the author TopLevelGeek
    I appreciate all of the replies, you all have been very helpful.

    @John McCabe - I think that IS what I want to do. I will test it a little and see if it works the way I need. *Thanks

    @MizzCindy - I agree with you, it would not be the ideal way to monetize anything. I THINK I just want somewhat of a personal website at this point, and set myself up at some point with the OPTION of monetizing my interests in the future.

    Maybe I just want to have my cake and eat it too.
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    Tyler Horn, LCSW
    I am a child and family therapist, and internet marketer who specializes in small targeted internet presences for people in the helping professions. If your mission is to enhance the lives of the people around you PM me
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    • Profile picture of the author Brian Tayler
      Tyler,
      Yup... you're nuts... but what true marketer isn't? Sounds like a lot of work and upkeep... but you have passion and interest in those topics and if done right it'll show. That will come across and resonate with your readers better than worrying about keeping stuff separate for monetizing reasons. Keeping them in categories is good enough from that standpoint anyway.

      Good luck,
      Brian
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      • Profile picture of the author jjpmarketing
        Tyler... you can also get All In One SEO, or Platinum SEO, and modify your permalinks to something easy to remember. For example if you had a post titled "This really awesome blogpost about something" in the category "web-design". Then by default (depending on how you setup your permalink structure), the url would be:

        "domain.com/web-desing/this-really-awesome-blogpost-about-something/"

        You could modify the permalink manually and change it to something like:

        "domain.com/web-design/awesome-blogpost"
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      • Profile picture of the author Quentin
        Why not just create your first blog on your main site and once you have customized it save all the files in your wp-content and then set up your other blogs in the different directories and then simply upload the wp-content files to each one and link them all together. They will all look the same but you can change anything you want.

        Alternatively just set up a categories for each topic and then have child categories.

        I sort of did this with pages on Home | Blogging Empires Wordpress Training and Coaching

        Quentin
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