Almost everyday I come up with 5 new market niches I’d like to start blogging about.  I’m not purposely brainstorming for new sites to launch, however I can’t help but apply my blog business model to everyday life. As an example,  I’ll be taking the kids to school and I’ll notice something that would make for a great blog topic; be it a funny license plate or a random person wearing a ridiculous outfit.  I’ll think to myself, hey that would make for a fun topic to write about.  The next thing you know, I’ve got a list 100 ideas long and all of them are screaming “Launch Me”!  Despite all of my enthusiasm, I resist and put them on hold.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when starting a new blog venture or any start-up business is spreading yourself to thin.  It’s extremely important to give your blog 100% of your time especially in the early years.  Pick a topic you enjoy and run with it.  Don’t try to juggle 10 new sites at once, especially if you’re the only person running the blog business.  Right now I run and manage 3 blogs and it’s a handful.  Between marketing, posting, and updating I’m running pretty hard.  It’s a good thing I love it!

For now I’m going to have to let the list of potential new blogs sit ideal.  I’m more then certain that if I try and juggle more then 3 blogs, my content quality will suffer and as a result all the blogs will fall short of my expectations for success.
Do you juggle more then 1 blog right now?  If so how many and what’s your opinion of focusing your time?
FYI: If you have a guest post you’d like to share about a blog mistake, please email me: rachel @ averagegal dot com.

35 Creative Ways to Market Your Blog – Abundance Blog at Marelisa Online
I recently heard Ted Turner say that if he could offer one piece of advice it would be “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise!”.  I’m not big follower of Ted, but after I heard that on the radio I thought how fitting for blogging.  This article offers 35 goods tips on the advertise piece.

Link Building Is Like Losing Weight – Are You a Linkless Fatty?
By Winning The Web -  Talk about a grabbing headline!  I opened this article immediately when I saw it in my RSS reader.  That in itself is a testament to writing “clever” blog titles.  This article is very creative and draws some very interesting parallels between building links and losing weight!

Your Audience, Your Content, Your Sucess – Blogussion
It never hurts to sharpen up your writing skills and this article provides some valuable insight on focusing your content.  If you want to learn a little more about blog writing tips this is a good article.

101 Blogging Tips I’ve Learned in 2008 – Thou Shall Blog
This is a great list of tips that will help propel your blog to new heights in 2009.  Yan has shared some very valuable content on how to become successful in a short amount of time and what it takes to grow a strong blogging community.   I’m pretty confident you can find a couple of items on this list that apply to your site.

69 Questions to Ask to Review Your Blog – Problogger.net
Now that 2009 has officially started, it’s probably a good idea to reflect back on 2008 and form a plan for the new year.  Darren Rowse is veteran of blogging and has a ton of experience.  This article offers a great list of things you can immediately implement into your strategy for 09!

Hope you enjoy the articles this week and have a great weekend!

Each month AverageGal is going to be running a contest to reward our dedicated readers and visitors for frequenting our site.  The contest and prizes will vary from month to month so check back often to get the latest details. Prize Breakdown and Criteria To Win are below this Months Sponsor.

This month, December, we are going to give away $50 in cold hard cash and 3 monthly premium advertising spots on our website to the “Top Commentator”.  The sponsor of this months contest is FullGlassLiving.  Full Glass Living is a blog dedicated to living life to the fullest and sharing these experiences with their readers.  If you like reading how to take some stress out of your life and enjoy the finer things in life then you should head over to Full Glass Living.

This Months Prizes:

1st Prize: $50 Cold Hard Cash, 1 mo. 125×125 Sponsorship on AverageGal, 1 mo. “Feature Site” Text Link
2nd Prize: 1 month 125×125 Sponsorship Ad on AverageGal
3rd-5th Prize: 1 month “Feature Site” Text Link on AverageGal

Criteria To Win:

Entry Method #1: Worth 1 Ticket Per Comment

It’s as easy as commenting!  Each and every comment that you have on this blog will count as 1 ticket into the drawing at the end of the month.   In order for your comments to count and receive a ticket, you need to find yourself in the Top Commentators section on the right side menu of this blog at the end of the month. If you aren’t in the 10 Top Commentators, you will not be entered into the drawing.

Entry Method #2: Worth 50 Tickets – Give a Shout Out To AverageGal

Simple write a full post on your blog about AverageGal, this contest, and link to this Page.  Please don’t link to the homepage, this will void the entry into the contest.  Write about the give away, about the blog, and give an honest review.  After you’ve posted the article simply leave a comment below letting us know that you have entered and you will be given 50 tickets in the drawing.  It’s that easy!

The winners will be chosen by Random.org and will be notified via email on the 1st day of the month.  Good Luck Everyone!

Recently I’ve been looking to add some spice to my blog in the form of photos. We’ve all heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” and this especially holds true when posting blog articles. I’ve been struggling for the past couple of weeks to find a good website that offers free stock photos for blogs. There’s multiple stock photo site out on the web, but I’ve narrowed it down to 1 that I really like.

After spending countless hours surfing and getting some input from my friends over at Unique Blog Designs, the final free photo site that made the cut is Stock.Xchng. This site offers blog owners a quick and easy way to bring their blog to life with stock photos. Using the easy search function you have access to a database with over 350,000 pictures to choose from. The best part is you don’t have to pay any royalty or usage fees to add the photos to you blog. Another neat function that you’ll find over at Stock.Xchng is the premium search results that are displayed next to the free results; while the premium photos aren’t free, they do offer a good alternative of choices and prices start at $1. Adding either the free or premium photos to your next post will give your article more credibility and give your blog professional look.

Stock.Xchng probably isn’t the only free stock photo site that bloggers are using, but it’s been the most user friendly one that I’ve come across. Hopefully you’re able to utilize this tool when posting your next article. If you have a favorite free stock photo site to recommend, we’d love to hear about it. Please share the site with us in our comments section below.