I’ll be writing a few posts sharing some of my ideas on how to create a strong multi-author blog like this one. First – a bit about myself. I have created a few multi-author blogs that are doing well. One being a hockey news site that has over 70 writers on it and attracts about 300K monthly visitors. I’ve also developed The Golf Writers and of course this site, The Bookshop Blog, has always been a team effort with typically between 2 and 6 regular contributors.
Why go with a muli-author site when you can just write your own? Two reasons: more content and differing perspectives. After writing constantly for a few months a blogger can become tired of constantly pumping out new information all while he only sees trickle traffic. You really do need a Lot of content before you start to see gains in traffic – unless you are very experienced in targeting keywords. If you have 10 writers instead of one, well you can do the easy math. Not only will 10 writers be providing much more, and varied, content but they will also be aiding with publicizing the site – sharing links on Twitter and Google plus for example.
To start with we need to talk about speed. Having good speed helps on two fronts. First when working on multiple websites you want to have good home internet speed. You will not be efficient if your browser is taking too long to load pages. You may want to consider upping your home connection. To know where you stand try out a broadband speed test.
The second half of strong speed is the delivery of web pages to your visitors. Lately this has become more and more important. Google has come out and stated that page loading time directly affects search rankings. A slower site will be ranked below a fast site – all other things being equal. Now there are many things we can do to help your pages load quickly. If you are serious about building a strong site you should consider not only using WordPress as your content management system but take it a step further and have it hosted with a WordPress specialist. Page.ly and WPEngine both do a great job and are well priced for what they offer.
OK – hopefully you’ve made some good decisions before starting your new killer site. You’ve upped your home internet speed and are going into the project knowing that a fast loading site is critical. You’ve also decided to use WordPress and have it hosted with WordPress Pros. Next topic – we’ll talk about how to attract writers that will want to help you build a great site.