How to start or create a blogging community for my industry?

[edward-may]

Hi Guys,

I have just established my new site, and I'm wondering if anyone might know how to go about establishing a blogging community for my industry on my site? I'm trying to establish one by asking other bloggers if they would be willing to contribute but Im left asking myself, well "what is the benefits" of a contributor participating in a newly established blog that perhaps doesn't have any exposure at this point in time?

The idea would be to grow it. But my industry lacks this and the quality of information.  Any ideas or tips on how to go about establishing something around this?

All advice, tips would be appreciated!

Thanks

[edward-may]

Thanks so much Patrick! Interesting points you make as well! I'm looking to bring out the quality in the industry and grow it from there.

Can you tell me I had a question from a potential "contributor" who wanted to know interms of copywriting if usually a contributor creates an article for the blog who owns the copy right? I'm not so big around this side of things, but it wasn't something I was actually aware of until she mentioned it.

[EGOL]

my industry lacks this and the quality of information

I could open my site to articles from outside people.   But, the problem with doing that is that many people will not meet my editorial standards.   It's amazing how much total crap people send me for consideration (and I am not asking for article submissions).

A lot of work would be required to bring the typical guest post up to my publication standards.  A better use of my time is just to write the content myself.   So, I write almost all of the content for my site myself (and send my writing out to professional editors who charge more to edit my work than most people pay their writers for content production - I am not complaining about the price of my editors, instead I am just giving my opinion on the quality of typically submitted content).

Keep in mind that "opinion" content is very different from "factual" content.  If your blog is opinion then getting acceptable content might be easier than if you are publishing factual content where accuracy and precision are essential.

There are only a few authors who have passed my content approval for factual content.  If you like quality work, it might be very hard to find and hard to reject after you ask people to submit it.

Just my two cents.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi Justin

This is a great question. This is going to take a little bit of leg work on your end. Here are the steps I would take:

• Create the blog on your site

• Do some research

• What information is missing in your industry?

• What are users actively searching for?

• Where are they currently participating in conversation?

• What language do they use in search and those discussions?

• How do they digest their content?

• Here's a quick resource on content gap analysis from Edge Multimedia

• Take advantage of great tools like Open Site Explorer and SEMRush to get a handle on your competition and what's working / not working for them

• Build out content on the site based on your research

• Mind your obvious onsite SEO fundamentals (titles / meta descriptions / schema / content length and language / etc.)

• Lay your site architecture out in an easy to use / understand fashion

• Repurpose content through video / images / guides / e-books / how-tos / etc

• Take advantage of internal site search functionality

• What are users searching for on your site?

• Distribute that content through social platforms / industry blogs / email marketing

• Participate in the discussions that are happening in your industry

• Social

• You could take advantage of features like Twitter's Advanced Search and start fielding questions

• News sites

• Industry forums

• Q&As

What I am getting at here is to start building a foundation and engaging your audience. Really start diving in on getting your name and website out there. Start building content that is information based about your industry that users will actually have a use for and keep coming back for more.

From there, you can entice writers by showcasing stats about your site, your community presence, what it is that differentiates YOU from your competitors (you did the research, you have great content in different types, you provide people with answers and they value you for it), and why becoming a contributor to their site will ultimately heighten their own presence.

I would also look into some contributor opportunities for yourself to get your name out there as well as your site. If you start engaging people in different areas by contributing, they are going to be interested in who you are and what you have to offer. Also, start engaging the contributors you are interested in (in a natural, friendly way of course - do NOT ask them for anything in your first interaction). What do they write about? Do they have the same passions you do? Comment on their articles, shoot them an email to say hi, etc...Don't be shy!

Hopefully this helps. Again, this is going to take some time, but take the steps listed above and you will find yourself in a position to approach those writers about joining in on contributing to your website. Good luck!

[Alick300]

Hi Justin,

This time your question is very broad so I would like to share an article on this. It is bit longer article but I would like to follow all the steps and it definitely help you & I hope other moz contributors also give some useful suggestion.

http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/tutorials/how-to-start-a-blog-award-winning-blogger-step-step/

Hope this helps

Thanks