I gave this presentation at Wordcamp Pune 2015 #WCPune. The deck gives you a blueprint as to how can you grow from a single author blog to a multi-author blog. The presentation will be immensely useful to people who are looking at expanding their site...

1. By
Arun Prabhudesai

2. Who ?
He is a Entrepreneur, Blogger
and Internet Resident.
He is founder of Armoks
Interactive Labs and founder-
editor at Trak.in, one of the
most popular Indian
Technology News and Views
Destination where he and his
team of passionate writers
present Insightful and
Analytical stories on
Technology, Telecom and
Startup world.

3. Is it Money?
Is it Popularity?
Is it Some Cause?
Is it Growth?
Citizen Journalism?
Something Else?
Finding out the reason will set you course on the right direction…

4. Create S M A R T Goals…
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Timely
The most important factor to creating a successful multi-author blog is to have clear SMART goals

5. Remember…It’s Just Not You Anymore…
Timing
Categories
Attribution
Frequency
Linking Freshness
Length
Structure
Keywords
Tone
Language
Type
PicturesProcess
You need to ensure that all your Authors are in sync with your goals and vision
Money

6. Assigning User Access
Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber etc (plugin)
Never try to do everything manually by yourself, let your process do the work, so you can think about
growing your blog!
Creating A Scheduling Calendar
Which Blog Posts are Going to Appear When (plugin)
Scheduling & Publishing Content
Who Will Post, What Will Get Posted, How Will it Get
Posted (plugin)

7. THIS IS BY FAR THE MOST DIFFICULT THING …
You can put a call for writers on your blog, and wait for people to approach – it hardly happens unless
you are Huffington Post or likewise…
The best thing is look for writers on Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter etc. Find out
people who can express their views in your niche and approach them. You have much better chances
of finding a good writer.
Or Read other blogs in your niche, and contact writers based on the details in their Author Bio!
Be ready invest lot of time and effort in getting the right authors and writers for your blog. Without them, multi-
author blog will not go anywhere.

8. Use Facebook Group (Secret), Slack or other Collaboration
Tools
You need to keep all blog authors up to date on topics and other issues.
You need to create a platform where authors / writers can share topic ideas with each other, notify
the editor when the draft is complete, offer praise and encouragement, and give valuable feedback
to each other.
Authors need constant encouragement and feedback on how they’re doing with their blog posts. The
editor (you?) should be sending an occasional e-mail of thanks, as well as useful feedback.

9. This is key to success and growth of Multi-authored blog
Never cut corners with Author payments – pay them to the best of your ability…
Offer incentive based payments (on traffic, shares etc)
Infact, make them partners. Meaning, if you are making money from advertising, share profits directly
proportional to the earnings from their blog post (Plugin)
Always keep your writers motivated and happy!

10. Study the Opportunity (Google Search Trends etc)
Give importance to SEO, but don’t go overboard with it.
Content still remains THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR of your blog growth
Social Sharing is important – Always as your writers to share on their timelines.
Keep analysing author performance (traffic, Social Sharing etc)
Always credit writers with Author Bio and link backs
Track Blog performance and Analytics

11. Plugin Description
Edit Flow Edit Flow is a complete editorial workflow management system for WordPress powered websites
Capability Manager
Enhanced
The Capability Manager plugin provides a simple way to manage role capabilities. Using it, you
will be able to change the capabilities of any role, add new roles, copy existing roles into new
ones, and add new capabilities to existing roles.
Revisionary Revisionary allows you to have permissions to edit an already published post.
Co-Author Plus Allows multiple authors to show on single article (When they have all contributed to it)
Post Forking Instead of copying posts to create a new draft, this plugin allows authors to fork an existing post
and then edit it.
Adminimize Adminimize gives admins full control on what users can or cannot see inside the admin area.
Admins of a multi-author blog can use it to disable user access to unnecessary sections in admin
area
Multi-Author AdSense Multi-Author AdSense is a WordPress plugin which allows website owners who run multi-author
blogs complete control over their authors AdSense ad output.
WP User Frontend WP User Frontend makes it possible for users to submit their posts directly from the frontend of
your website. (useful for guest blogging)

12. Get in touch:
arun@trak.in / FB:arun.p / Twitter: @8ap @Trakin / 91.9822575676
Floor is open for questions…