As most of you know that have followed me over the years, I’ve gone off and on hiring writers to write on one ore many of my multiple blogs. Over the year and a half however, I’ve basically done nothing on my blogs focusing most, if not all of my energy on my 9-5 (I’ll talk about what I’ve been up to in later posts). But recently, I’ve been pulled, dragged, yanked, whatever, back into blogging.
I’ve hopped back in for several reasons. My blogs continue to get traffic, continue to get linked to, and continue to make money. That and it was requested by one of the writers I hired a while ago to start my ideas back up and really give it a go.
This time however, I decided to be smarter than I had in the past. Previously I’ve payed generic writers to generate content for posts I’ve titled. This worked but produced kind of bland posts and didn’t last long. Next I hired bloggers, as freelancers, but had a hard time organizing and managing their writing. [Head over here to read about these and a few other ways to generate content for multiple blogs.
Other than having enough time to manage these writers, I spread their work and over multiple blogs about different subjects. None of the writers could feed off of what the other writer was doing and soon everyone became bored with the blog network.
So this time I needed a different strategy. I decided to put to use what I learned from doing things wrong and also what I learned from listening and reading what others had to say about the matter.
First, I decided I was going to focus on one blog. I wasn’t going to write on all my blogs and continue to spread my resources thin. I live in Hawaii and was told by several people, once from Yaro Starak on a trip through Hawaii, that I should focus on this interesting niche. Done.
Next, I don’t have enough time to manage the site, build links, find advertisers, manage writers, edit, write, and develop a posting schedule. Instead I would need to bring on someone to take some of the day to day tasks off my list. It just so happened that I had someone looking and willing to do some of these task. The person who wanted to get Aloha Update going again wanted to come on as an editor to manage writers, edit, write, and develop a posting schedule. Done.
Next, we would need to find writers interested in the topics and willing to help build a blog as freelance writers and not full-time bloggers. First task of my new editor, find writers. Over the course of a month she was able to find 10 writers wanting to write about the islands on a per post basis. Done.
While it’s only been a few weeks so I can’t say with certainty that this method will work down the road, we’ve been able to generate at least two posts per day, keeping content fresh and building an audience. Aloha Update now has regularly scheduled posts, writers comment on each others posts, and a genuine feel of community.
All this and I haven’t needed to make it a full-time job.