Adding multiple blogs on a website

[Sven]

Hey folks,

I would like to offer users of my product a blog on my website.
I found that there are quite a lot of open source options available.

Do you have any tips on what to use?

free of ads exept for some kind of link to my website
easy to set up for the user, by me
easy to use
"Unlimited" number of users
Content preferably "editable" by me in case of abuse.

Are there any other conciderations?

Thanks for any advice!

Sven

[Peter Bowen]

Word press

[intrepidtraveler]

I'd advise thinking twice about starting a blog.

Every situation is different, of course, but . . .

I started a blog for my most successful product last summer. It is getting an average of just 18 visitors a day, and at least some of them are coming from my main site. The original idea was to have another means of capturing people searching for what my product offers, but there seems to be zero correlation between the blog and increased sales.

I have come to the conclusion that, in this case at least, blogging is another example of the 80/20 rule. It's part of the 80% of effort that produces nothing much.

I may keep the blog to "blog a book" that I'm working on, but if the purpose of doing that is to get helpful comments on a work in progress and build an audience for the book when it comes out, I am not sure that 18 visitors a day cuts it.

I have blogged in other contexts and started one very successful non-commercial blog that I have since passed off to others. I have read and sampled numerous blogs. My conclusion is that successful blogs combine a unique authorial voice, passion, and disregard for the outcome. In other words, the blogger writes to write, not to attract a wide audience or sell something. If he/she winds up doing those things that's gravy.

It also strikes me that blogging, which is almost by definition a daily task (maybe obsession is a better word) is counter to the 4HWW philosophy. How can you go off the grid for three months and have a successful blog?

[Sven]

Good point.

I'd allready decided that running a blog myself isn't a good idea. But there are quite a lot of sailors that run websites about their boat and their sailing. I think that quite a few would like to have one without the fuss of ftp and such.

To me the benefit would be that I get content in languages I can not manage. I do believe that it would be a great contributor to traffic to my website.

[dsharpe]

Sven,

I looked at putting together a similar project last year--Wordpress is definitely a great platform, but I believe that you would need to do a new install for each user. I can set up a new WP blog in about 15 minutes including plugins and customizations, but only because I've done so many and have a checklist to follow. I don't know how many users you're planning on, but that could get time consuming!

Another option is to look at a CMS like Drupal. It's designed for creating communities, and there is a module that lets each user create their own blog. It's not quite as easy to learn, but can be more "hands-off" when it's set up properly.

Hope this helps,

Dave

[Sven]

Thanks Dave I'll look in to it!

Sven

[Sven]

You are right Dave, A multiple install would be needed... There is a script available to run a multiple install but this is probably over my head. I'm sure my web builder can deal with it.

Does anyone know of a system that supports multiple bloggers?

Sven

[dsharpe]

Sven,
You may have already seen this page: http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_Multiple_Blogs --but I'll pass it along just in case. There are several options listed, plus you can use the same system that Worpress uses for their free blogs on Wordpress.com.

Also, Drupal supports multiple bloggers.

Dave

[kamakiri]

Sven - What is your product?

Does it really lend itself to people spontaneously starting up blogs that you can use as free PR to drive sales? It sounds like a real stretch to get that much of a commitment from people.

A few testimonials might be a much more effective tool in selling and promoting your products.

[Sven]

Thanks Dave, I'd missed your previous remark on drupal, I'll check it out. I have seen the multiple install stuff about wordpress.

@ Kamakiri: The product is windvane self steering for sailboats. I've seen quite a lot of sailors that run some form of website about their boat and their sailing. It also seems that people spend a lot of time reading about self steering before they buy It is not in impuls buy. So I think it would be good if there was a bigger growth in content than I can provide so that return visits to the website are interesting each time.

I also should get a few testimonials, thanks for reminding me!

Oh, Almost forgot: It allows the generation of content other languages!

[kamakiri]

D'OH! I have been posting on your other thread all along. I wish this forum had signatures or icons at least, so I could keep people straight.

With that in mind, I would say don't bother with the blogs. People who blog about their boating will be doing it on their own site with their own 'cute' blog name. Boat owners are a different breed: something along the lines of who in their right mind would buy a hole in the water into which you continuously throw money?

I am not sure if there is a product out there, but a RSS reader integrated into your web site would probably work a lot better than trying to attract customers, and then getting them to blog on your site. Greece-yacht.mistervee.com just doesn't have the pulling power of greece-yacht.blogspot.com, and I am sure that it will have even further placement on google.

You could just add some kind of aggregator to the left hand side, or make a 'blog headlines' page, and have much better results.

I am mainly going from my personal experience with a web site called http://www.iwantsixpackabs.com/ I have nothing to do with them, except for doing the exercises. (I didn't even buy the exercise set they advertise, it was cheaper at the local store). Where this guy could help you is in the way he does his site. He did a 12 or 16 week challenge, got a google group going, and 10-16 people actually made blogs for the competition. I think by the end of the first 3 weeks, only 4 were still posting. So the numbers are as follows:

10-16k hits a month (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/www.iwantsixpackabs.com/?metric=uv)

120 or so people signed up for the challenge

16 blogs for the first month

4 or so for the rest of the challenge

Using those numbers, I would say that you aren't going to get near that many hits, and then considerably less customers than the 120, and of those 2 at the most would blog on your site? Those numbers don't look good.

Anyone else? Do you have some real world numbers that paint a better picture?

ps that guy at iwantsixpackabs.com has probably read 4 hour work week, and is using it to keep his muse running from Bermuda. It is a good resource to study, because the guy is doing something right.