Chris has written a really useful post at Performancing on Recruiting Blogging Partners to write on your blogs. His tips are well thought out and very practical from someone who has some experience. I particularly like this:
“I have found the best place to look for long-haul bloggers are blogs. People who have maintained a decent blog for a length of time have proved they have that special something.”
I’m quite often approached by people looking for bloggers for different projects and my advice is usually twofold:
1. Look at your blog’s readership – if you’re recruiting a blogger for an established blog the person you’re looking for might be right under your nose commenting in your comments section or lurking in your RSS feed. The beauty of taking on someone like this is that they obviously have an interest in your topic and that they have some level of familiarity with your blog and it’s style. I’d write a post asking if anyone is interested and see what response you get.
2. Look at other blogs – if you can’t find a suitable internal applicant it might be worth looking at other blogs and their bloggers. It might be that there are other blogs on similar topics that have bloggers that might like to take on an extra project. The good thing about this type of recruit is that they not only have an interest in the topic but they also have a demonstrated ability to not only write on it but hopefully to stick to the job of blogging over the longer term (check their archives to see how long they’ve blogged and how good they are at it.
Chris goes on in his post to talk further about the process – well worth the read.
I’ve found bloggerjobs.biz also picks up on blog job postings and I have found writers this way.
Still not sure what you mean about recruiting bloggers.
Are they getting paid for posting? It’s a pretty complex process to “recruit” a writer for your blog. I think we might want to consider a model of either guest blogger or just an idea exchange conducted in the open or via email just to get things started.
I know that it’s not easy to find someone you trust your blog with.
Has anyone tried this before?
I’ve been asked several times to guest-blog. Sometimes I’ll do it, but most of the time I don’t because my own blog takes so much time and they want me to work pro-bono.
*sigh*
me
Although I’ve never been asked to guest write, I’m not sure I could because like with Paul, my own blog takes up a significant amount of my time as it is.
However, sacks of $$$ could make it worth it =p.
I am writing articles on one news-blog. One day a user sent me message, he asked me could I write some articles for his news-blog. He find me on similar blog, so I suggest you to find bloggers on other blogs that are similar to yours.
I’ve never been asked either, but there are a couple things I’d look at before I jumped in. First, I would want to make sure the blog is a good one. It’s not that I’m so great at blogging that I fear my name might besmirched, it’s rather that I’d much rather support a product I believe in.
Second, I’d much prefer spending time building something of my own that I can be proud of. A successful blog that I built would be much more satisfying to me, even if it were less solvent. That said, however, I’m sure that doing a fine job in the process of guest blogging for someone else could gain you a readership on your own blog.
And third? Yeah, fat piles of cash.
I’m building up one of my blogs by inviting other writers. One writer is another member of the Blue Fish Network and has her own blogs; the other is someone who saw my post and applied to write.
They’re getting 100% AdSense (or equivalent) revenue on their own articles.
What a coincidence. I just brought on my first blogger yesterday, and published his first article earlier this morning. I brought on a second blogger yesterday as well, but it’s going to be several days before he writes anything.
I simply put their AdSense publisher ID into the posts they write, and they get whatever money comes forth. (I still worry about optimizing the ads, driving in traffic, etc.)
I’m not sure how well it’s going to work, or if it will work at all, but the very early results are encouraging.
I’m quite happy with the 100% share model – after all I am still writing my own articles on the site in question, and the extra combined content means more searchable pages, more pings, and more juice for things like ‘related posts’ plugin, etc.
Why should I get a cut for the hard work someone else has put in to their post anyway? (My server costs are already well covered)
This model also cuts down on admin as I don’t have to work out the revenue split myself, and then Paypal or send a cheque each month.
I will definitely following the advice to find some guest bloggers. I’m not sure how the adsense sharing works though. I will have to look into that. I was think of allowing people to review products and adding their amazon affiliate links. Has anyone done this before?
100% share model sounds decent.
I am using blogger as my platform and would like to know how to implement adsense code by author.
I think that while Recruiting a blogger 3 things should be taken into consideration:
a. Knowledge of the blog’s subject and writing expeirence and skill
b. familiarity with the blogging style of writing and some experience
3. A bit technical know how about SEO and working with computer.
@Ohad: I think it will be difficult if not impossible to have multiple AdSense accounts on one blogger account. The way I do it is with some PHP script that checks who the author of the article is. You can’t change code this way in Blogger, and it needs to be server side.