Bloggst Forums - Reply to Topic

05-10-2007 05:54 AM
Quirky	I totaly agree with it all! I am fairly new to blogging and just ran across his top 5 project so for kicks I hopped on the band wagon! I'm sure it was thanks to my participation in that project that my blog made it to Wordpress growing blog list for the day! And I have found soooo many other blogs that like you said I'd wished I'd known about sooner! Great top 5!
05-09-2007 12:23 PM
doolols	Webee - I don't understand. Do you mean the group writing project, organised by Darren Rowse at Problogger? More information >> here
05-09-2007 08:12 AM
webee	webee hi can you explain a little more about how this works? hot to get it started? how to promote it? thanks. webee [is a design blog]
05-08-2007 03:45 PM
Douglas	Great article Lars, and nice finds on the recommended articles. I will be following the ProBlogger Group Writing Project closely this time around. By the way, might be far off, but perhaps organizing some sort of Group Writing Project could be suitable for Bloggst? It would seem like the ideal fit to me at least.
05-08-2007 02:25 PM
Lars-Christian	No problem Tyler - As I said on your blog, I thought the article presented an interesting perspective on the matter, and I think our readers will be interested in reading it Thanks for stopping by and saying hi!
05-08-2007 10:04 AM
Tyler Ingram	Thanks for the Visit! I agree with you're top 5! Group writing projects are a great way to network and meet new and interesting people as well as generate some new traffic.
05-08-2007 02:34 AM
Lars-Christian	Five Reasons to Participate in Group Writing Projects One of the phenomenoms of the world wide web that have gained a lot of momentum with the rising popularity of blogging are the so-called "Group Writing Projects". The idea behind these projects is for multiple authors to write articles on a specific subject, and then collect all of these at a central place. While it has become popular for bloggers to participate in these, many are still in the dark about how it can benefit their blogs. This article takes a look at how participating in these projects can benefit not only your blog, but even yourself and your reputation. 1. Bring in new readers! As I mentioned, the idea behind these group writing projects is to collect all the participating entries at a central place where the project is being hosted. Obviously the host will be the main beneficiary of these projects, mainly because normally all participators are required to link back to the hub, but this doesn't mean that you can't attract new readers to your blog by participating. More often than not those who actively participate in these projects pick out their favourites entries and feature them on their own blogs. This means that if you're able to write an entry that stands out, there is a good chance that you can generate a lot of buzz for your blog by participating in group writing projects. 2. Get link love, a lot of link love! Everyone loves links, and as I already mentioned above, by participating in group writing projects you're guaranteed at least one new incoming links, since the host will always post a link back to all the entries in the projects. The real gain though lays within writing an outstanding entry that will attract attention from the other participants, who will feature their favourite entries on their own blogs. Needless to say, this can result in many new incoming links for your blog, and as I outlined in my Introduction to Search Engine Optimization, links are good. 3. Expand your network! Networking is one of the most important factors when promoting your blog, and it is also one of the reasons why Bloggst was conceived in the first place. We want to be a place where bloggers can connect with other bloggers. If you actively participate in group writing projects, they can do the same for you, and help you expand your network of connections. If you're bold, you can even try to get some favours from your newfound friends when trying to succeed with bringing in new visitors through Social Bookmarking. 4. Widen your horizon! Closely related to point number three, participating in group writing projects will also help your widen and expand your own horizon. If you're an active part of the project, you're bound to find new, valuable blogs that you'll wish you've read since they went online, and interesting articles that will enlighten and empower you with new knowledge. I would even go as far as to say that these projects are even better than all the various social bookmarking services to find new and valuable content, mainly because they are less biased, and more focused on quality rather than reputation. 5. Win prizes! This doesn't go for all group writing projects, but many of them even offer prizes to the best submissions. I don't really encourage that you participate just because you have the possibility of winning a prize, but it can be a nice incentive to get you started. All in all though, the degree of positive effects you'll see from participating in group writing projects, as with most other things in life, comes down to how much effort you put into it. If you're an active participant, and actively connect with the other participants, you will see the positive effects. If you hadn't already guessed, this very article is an entry for a group writing project. Currently Darren Rowse is running one over at ProBlogger, and the topic in choice is "Top 5". Other than that, you're completely free to choose what you want to write about, and it can of course be related to the topic of your own blog. Some of the articles that have already been submitted to the project that I think might be of interest to the Bloggst readers: My Top 5 Favourite WordPress Blogging Tools The Top 5 Blogs at the End of 2007 will be… 5 Reasons A Custom Blog Script Is Better Check them out, and see if you like them. Also, be sure to seriously consider participating with your own blogs, because as I've argumented above, you can see a lot of benefits from it.