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If you’re the only author on your WordPress blog, it can be very time consuming to continually add new content.  Yet the most effective way to engage your readers and entice them back time and again is to keep your posts fresh and current.  Any website builder knows that this requires a great deal of time, dedication and considerable writing skill. 

Adding multiple authors or using a ghost writer to create your posts is an effective way to expand your blog or create new sites.  This frees you up to manage your online activities, promote your website and develop monetization strategies to make a decent income from your content and traffic.

If you’re ready to take your blog to the next level, you’ll need a website that can manage multiple authors.  This article tells you everything you need to know about creating a multi-author blog, from hiring authors you can trust to essential plug ins you’ll need to manage your authors. 

Finding a Reliable Author

You need to take your time and find authors you can trust.  It’s not just as simple as getting someone to write your content for you.  You need to manage your authors, ensure their writing is of top quality and delivered and posted on time. 

First decide whether you’re going to pay authors or rely on free content.  Whichever you choose, you need to check your author’s credentials, ask for references and see samples of their work.  The last thing you want is to publish someone who is unreliable or has simply copied content from another website.  This could land you in all kinds of legal troubles.   Here are some tips on hiring blog contributors:

• Go to a freelance website: if you want to pay someone to ghost write your blog there are many websites out there, such as Elance and Getafreelancer, with thousands of writers advertising their services.  As a website builder these sites help to protect your investment.  When you choose a writer and pay them upfront for their services, the money is held in a holding account and only released when the articles are delivered to your satisfaction.  Also you can check feedback from previous clients and ask writers for references and writing samples.  All you need to do is advertise the work you need doing and writers then bid on your project.  Don’t be tempted to go for the cheapest. Look for a quality writer with experience in your field and a proven track record for reliability.
• Use an expert in your field:  you may be able to hire an expert in your field, which is the perfect opportunity to generate some publicity for your website.  They could make a guest post once per month, which you can promote on social networking sites and across the web.
• Use fellow bloggers: you may be able to negotiate a deal with a fellow blogger in a relevant field who is not in direct competition with you.  You can link to each other’s content and share posts and new content.
• Exchange publicity for free content:  some writers may be willing to provide you with regular posts in exchange for a link to their own website or a little bit of advertising for their service.  These easy to use plug ins help to create a decent author profile, making them more likely to want to give you free content.  They are all available for free on our resources page:
  • Author Exposed:  this is a really simple plug in that allows your readers to find out more about your authors.  A Gravatar window opens, with a small biography about the author.  
  • User Photo:  this plug in allows you to place authors’ profile photos on their account using the “Your Profile” page.  Simply upload a photo on the “edit user” page, which will then display photos on each post and comment. 
  • List Authors Widget: this allows you to display a list of authors in your sidebar, with links to their posts. 
• Revenue Sharing:  another way to encourage writers to contribute to your blog is revenue sharing.  If you are a website builder with plenty of traffic it may be worth sharing revenue in order to entice multiple authors who can help to expand your blog.  There are some easy to use plug ins which manage this process:  Author Advertising Plug In is compatible with the major advertising programs, including Google, Adsense and Amazon.  Adsense Revenue Sharing 1.2 is another plug in which allows you to split Adsense revenue.

5 Vital Plug ins For Multi Author Blogs

1. Future Posts Calendar Plug In: if you’re using multiple authors on your blog, you’d better get organized and make a note of who’s writing what.  This is the perfect plug in to help you do that, showing you all the months and days you have future posts lined up, and gaps where you need to create content.  This is the perfect plug in to keep yourself up to date of what’s going on with your blog.
2. Draft Notifier: this plug in tells you when a draft post has been saved so that you can go in and check the content before it’s published.  There may come a time when you trust your authors to publish straight to your blog, but at first you absolutely need to check everything that’s going to be published.  Make sure all grammar and spelling are correct, that the post fits with the style of your blog and is an interesting read.
3. Role Scoper: if you have several authors contributing to your blog you may want to give them different access and capabilities.  This plug in allows you to decide who can post, read or edit your content, giving greater authority to more experienced writers who’ve worked with you for longer.
4. ToDo List: really useful for making sure that all bloggers know what they have to do, their deadlines and the status of their posts.  The plug in automatically detects which user has logged in and displays their appropriate to do list.
5. Email Users: this allows blog owners to directly communicate with one or all of the registered authors.  A fast and efficient way to communicate with multiple authors and essential for website builders with more than a couple of authors. 

If you’re planning on adding extra authors to your WordPress blog then you can download all of the plug ins mentioned in this article for free from our resources and plug ins page.  Of course don’t forget that great content is essential for any blog to succeed.  For more ideas on creating top quality posts and articles here are some ideas on how to engage and grow your blog readership.