A few days ago my senior blogger tutor Brian Gardner sent me again an email about important tutorial on blogging that I have quoted below.
When most people decide to start a blog, they write all of the content themselves – it’s their site, and they invest all the time and effort into making it work. While single-author content sites can become very successful, there are many benefits to the multi-author approach. A prefect example of this is our blog over at Copyblogger. What started out as a single-author blog created by Brian Clark years ago, is now a thriving multi-author content marketing blog. Here are 5 of those benefits that you may want to consider as you plan and execute on your future as a digital publisher …
1. Free Thyself
As a single content producer, it can be difficult to keep your site fresh with frequent, high-quality posts and content. If you have multiple writers, you can populate your site with more good content, instead of having to write everything yourself. Of course, the quality of content counts infinitely more than the quantity of content, especially if you want your blog to continue to be an authority in your particular community online. Make sure all of your authors are able to produce well-written, quality articles, and that standards don’t fall by the wayside just because you’re struggling to manage multiple authors.
Takeaway: A multi-author blog can produce content more frequently, freeing you up to work on other important tasks such as editorial focus, social distribution, product development, and building crucial relationships in your niche.
2. Gather Intelligence With multiple authors, you’re likely to have many differences of opinion and varied viewpoints within your “writer’s room”. This can be an invaluable asset to a content site, as it allows the reader to experience the topic in different ways depending on which author they’re reading. Allowing different viewpoints can also help a reader expand their knowledge of the topic, which can lend itself to interesting editorial discussions and further blog post ideas.
Takeaway: While keeping very clear editorial standards among all authors, allowing them to showcase their own unique viewpoint on your subject matter makes for a far more interesting and comprehensive site overall.
3. Attract Traffic
If you’re the only author of your site, you are solely responsible for marketing and promoting it. As anyone who’s attempted to create a successful content site knows, these things take time and effort, especially when you also need to focus on posting frequent, quality content. When working with multiple authors, the work can be shared among the group instead of it always falling to just one person. It’s also likely that your authors will want to publicize their work for your blog, so they’re going to help with distribution by linking to their posts on their social networking pages. This will — of course — help draw more traffic to your blog, as you’re not the only one doing all the marketing and promotion.
Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to encourage your authors to market the blog; it’s a win-win-win. You get more distribution, your authors get their names out there, and your audience gets a great read.
4. Engage the Network We all know how important networking is when it comes to making your site a success. With multi-author blogging, you are opening yourself up to even further networking opportunities by interacting with other bloggers who share the same interests and goals as you do. Take the time to get to know your multiple authors, including their skills, interests and work experience. Read their sites and engage with their audience. Help your guest writers achieve their goals. You never know when you’ll receive a valuable referral because one of your authors knew you were experienced in a topic and passed a potential job opportunity your way.
Takeaway: Take advantage of the networking opportunities multi-author blogging presents, and don’t hesitate to refer jobs to your other bloggers as well when they are a good fit. As they say, what goes around, comes around.
5. Share and Share Alike With a multi-author blog, the workload can be shared among all of the writers, leaving you with a easier workload and more time to focus on other projects. Instead of being responsible for everything — from posting content, to monitoring comments to marketing your blog — you can share those responsibilities between all involved in the success of your site.
Takeaway: A multi-author site instantly creates a division of labor that becomes one of the greatest benefits of the five. Take the time to think about the strengths of your other writers, and how those strengths can be used to create a successful blog that benefits everyone.
The Conclusion
There are many benefits to having a multi-author blog, but the 5 mentioned here are some of the more compelling reasons you should consider going down that path. Not only will your workload be divided among multiple bloggers, but you’ll open yourself up to amazing networking opportunities, more and better content, increased traffic, and multiple viewpoints for a dynamic, interesting site that people will want to read and talk about.
Should you have any comment, don’t hesitate to leave it here. Really appreciate your comments.
When most people decide to start a blog, they write all of the content themselves – it’s their site, and they invest all the time and effort into making it work. While single-author content sites can become very successful, there are many benefits to the multi-author approach. A prefect example of this is our blog over at Copyblogger. What started out as a single-author blog created by Brian Clark years ago, is now a thriving multi-author content marketing blog. Here are 5 of those benefits that you may want to consider as you plan and execute on your future as a digital publisher …
1. Free Thyself
As a single content producer, it can be difficult to keep your site fresh with frequent, high-quality posts and content. If you have multiple writers, you can populate your site with more good content, instead of having to write everything yourself. Of course, the quality of content counts infinitely more than the quantity of content, especially if you want your blog to continue to be an authority in your particular community online. Make sure all of your authors are able to produce well-written, quality articles, and that standards don’t fall by the wayside just because you’re struggling to manage multiple authors.
Takeaway: A multi-author blog can produce content more frequently, freeing you up to work on other important tasks such as editorial focus, social distribution, product development, and building crucial relationships in your niche.
2. Gather Intelligence With multiple authors, you’re likely to have many differences of opinion and varied viewpoints within your “writer’s room”. This can be an invaluable asset to a content site, as it allows the reader to experience the topic in different ways depending on which author they’re reading. Allowing different viewpoints can also help a reader expand their knowledge of the topic, which can lend itself to interesting editorial discussions and further blog post ideas.
Takeaway: While keeping very clear editorial standards among all authors, allowing them to showcase their own unique viewpoint on your subject matter makes for a far more interesting and comprehensive site overall.
3. Attract Traffic
If you’re the only author of your site, you are solely responsible for marketing and promoting it. As anyone who’s attempted to create a successful content site knows, these things take time and effort, especially when you also need to focus on posting frequent, quality content. When working with multiple authors, the work can be shared among the group instead of it always falling to just one person. It’s also likely that your authors will want to publicize their work for your blog, so they’re going to help with distribution by linking to their posts on their social networking pages. This will — of course — help draw more traffic to your blog, as you’re not the only one doing all the marketing and promotion.
Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to encourage your authors to market the blog; it’s a win-win-win. You get more distribution, your authors get their names out there, and your audience gets a great read.
4. Engage the Network We all know how important networking is when it comes to making your site a success. With multi-author blogging, you are opening yourself up to even further networking opportunities by interacting with other bloggers who share the same interests and goals as you do. Take the time to get to know your multiple authors, including their skills, interests and work experience. Read their sites and engage with their audience. Help your guest writers achieve their goals. You never know when you’ll receive a valuable referral because one of your authors knew you were experienced in a topic and passed a potential job opportunity your way.
Takeaway: Take advantage of the networking opportunities multi-author blogging presents, and don’t hesitate to refer jobs to your other bloggers as well when they are a good fit. As they say, what goes around, comes around.
5. Share and Share Alike With a multi-author blog, the workload can be shared among all of the writers, leaving you with a easier workload and more time to focus on other projects. Instead of being responsible for everything — from posting content, to monitoring comments to marketing your blog — you can share those responsibilities between all involved in the success of your site.
Takeaway: A multi-author site instantly creates a division of labor that becomes one of the greatest benefits of the five. Take the time to think about the strengths of your other writers, and how those strengths can be used to create a successful blog that benefits everyone.
The Conclusion
There are many benefits to having a multi-author blog, but the 5 mentioned here are some of the more compelling reasons you should consider going down that path. Not only will your workload be divided among multiple bloggers, but you’ll open yourself up to amazing networking opportunities, more and better content, increased traffic, and multiple viewpoints for a dynamic, interesting site that people will want to read and talk about.
Should you have any comment, don’t hesitate to leave it here. Really appreciate your comments.
2 comments:
Here's an issue of principle choice; do you want to turn your in an impact making instrument (I think it would be nice to host a Huffington Post blog) or is your primary goal to find a way of expressing yourself?
A Huffington Post kind of site calls for a multi-author organization. The problem is the word organization. My own blog Pelopor ( which in practice is a single author site though in theory it has three contributors) copes with publishing with sufficient frequency.
Interesting. Worthwhile thinking it over.
@colson:I think you are right, Jerry.
It's much easier to manage contributors than members of a real organization. Thanks for your comments.
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