How To Create Multi-Author WordPress Blog For Guest Posting

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You might have heard that guest posting is dying. Well, that’s a little bit true. But it’s also one of the best and most profitable ways to get high-quality backlinks from high-quality sites.

Here at ShoutMeLoud, I’ve been running a multi-author WordPress blog for 8 years, and more than 700 bloggers have guest posted here.

I have definitely lowered down the number of guest posts that get published in recent days, but I still accept guest posts from users who have a good reputation, or people who can submit something which adds value to the community.

Anyway, this article is about helping you set up your blog for accepting guest posts.

So let’s jump in!

Many bloggers have enabled guest posting on their blog via email, but when you are using WordPress, you can automate the process in a much simpler way. To make the most out of guest posting opportunities, you should enable guest post submission via the WordPress dashboard.

In this article, I will be sharing some of the plugins and settings that I have used to create my multi-author WordPress blog, and you can follow this guide to enable guest post submissions from your WordPress dashboard.

For an overview on guest posting, take a look at:

• What Is Guest Posting?
• Benefits Of Guest Posting
• A Complete Guide To Guest Posting

How To Enable Guest Post Submissions in WordPress from the Dashboard

The very first thing you need to do is enable registration in WordPress.

Most of the blogs that allow guest posting are using default permissions. This means that subscribers and guest bloggers have to email the admin to upgrade their account. From my perspective, this is time-consuming, and when you are in the mood to do a guest post, it acts as a road block.

So, it’s better if you give default permissions as a “Contributor”. (If you’re worried about spam, keep reading…)

Enable WordPress Registration

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Log in to your WordPress dashboard:

• Go to Settings > General > Enable user registration > Membership and click the box “Anyone can register”.
• Set the “New User Default Role” as “Contributor”.

So now that we have taken care of the basics, let’s move on…

AccessPress Anonymous Post Pro Plugin

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I discovered this plugin a couple of years ago, and while I haven’t used it extensively myself, it looks to be a complete solution for bloggers to accept paid and/or free guest posts.

With this plugin, you can let others submit guest posts directly from the dashboard or from a front-end submission form. I haven’t gotten a chance to explore this plugin in detail, but looking at sales and reviews from existing buyers, this plugin looks pretty solid and you should definitely try it out.

Let me know if you have used this plugin in the comments section. I’d love to hear your review!

Check out the AccessPress Anonymous Post Pro demo here

WangGuard: Stop Guest Post Spam

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The major reason most bloggers don’t allow the default registration level as “Contributor” is because they are trying to stop guest post spam.

Spammers use automated software to register on WordPress and send out submissions. On any particular day, I used to see 100+ spam submissions, and it was a headache to delete all of those posts and users one by one.

Now, deleting a user doesn’t help here, as they can always register again and repeat the process, but I can prevent these kinds of submissions from getting to me in the first place.

WordPress Notification Plugin: Enable “Submit for review”

Now, here is a very useful plugin.

It’s called Peter’s Collaboration E-mails.

It notifies the admin whenever a post is submitted for review. Users with contributor rights get a “Submit for review” option, and once they are done drafting their guest post, users can submit their posts for an editorial review.

If an admin accepts or rejects a post, the user will get a notification. This helps a lot in automating the process of notifying the admin and the contributing author about the status of the guest post.

It’s an extremely useful plugin that I heavily rely upon.

Check out Peter’s Collaboration E-mails

WordPress Interaction Plugin: Enable Post Notes

Here is another useful plugin from the same author, “Peter”.

The Peter’s Post Notes plugin adds a “Notes” column in the post editor sidebar.

This is useful if an author wants to add a sidenote about their submission for the editor or admin. As an admin, if you are rejecting a post, you can quickly add the reason why it’s being rejected, or you can request a modification to be made to the author.

Simply add your note and change the status of the article to “Draft” and update it. The guest poster will get an email along with the notes you’ve added.

It’s a simple, but very useful plugin.

Check out Peter’s Post Notes

Other Things

These are a few of the plugins which I use all the time, and they work like a charm.

There are many more things which you can do to make it nicer for your guest posters like offering a custom WordPress login page or login box on your blog’s sidebar.

You can also:

• Create a landing page for contributor information- like this one.
• Add an author’s box below the post to make sure users know who the author of the post is.
• Add an author’s archive page so that readers can see all posts by any author.

And finally, avoid turning your guest blog into an article directory.

Create a Multi-Author WordPress Blog

These are some simple tips which you can follow to create a multi-author WordPress blog.

Now it’s up to you what extra incentives you want to offer your readers which will make them want to guest post on your website.

If you run a multi-authored WordPress blog where people can submit posts from the WordPress dashboard, I would love to learn a new tip from you. Do share it via the comments.

Like this post? Don’t forget to share it!

Also read:

• Best WordPress Plugins – For Blogs & Business Websites
• How To Change WordPress Admin Login URL For Improved Security

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