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Joining a bloggers’ group writing project has important benefits for writers.

• it’s an exchange of information and knowledge;
• it brings authors together enhancing communication;
• it challenges the writing skills of the participants;
• it ads value to the community through high quality articles and essays;
• it increases the readership for the participant authors;
• it helps make an author known;
• it’s a valuable networking channel;
• it brings new ideas to light;
• and the list could go on.

When you start such a project, you probably have, aside the networking and exchange of knowledge, some other purposes too:

• increasing traffic by boosting up blog popularity within your community and communities related to your niche;
• getting fresh links from other blogs (thus increasing your technorati rankings and Google PR);
• getting related links with related anchor texts (keyword targeting) – to maximize your rankings in the SERPs;

No matter why you start such a project, never forget that with it you get some responsibilities. It’s your project, so it’s your face that will get scrambled if you don’t conduct it right.

• come up with a good title: something that will trigger emotions and determine many writers to join;
• advertise the project in the right places (networks);
• avoid too general themes – too general projects lack focus. Professional writers tend to avoid projects that lack focus;
• if you promise a prize make sure you do give it away;
• link back to all the participants with respect. Liz at Successful Blog has a very good entry about SEO and Relationships;
• avoid the “meme” approach. Don’t ask people to link back to you, ask them to send you their links instead – again, go to Liz’s blog to learn more about this topic. As a general advice: you can always say that a link back is appreciated, but not mandatory.
• put effort in tracking all the entries and acknowledging all the participants. Make a roundup at the end of the project and to win popularity, you could always transform the project into a free ebook for all the authors to display on their sites (if they want to) or into a printed book – www.lulu.com is a great place for self-publishers.
• ask for feedback at the end of the project: was there enough time to complete the task, what should you change next time and so on;
• if you associate the project with a logo or a badge, make sure you have high quality, professional graphics or people will avoid displaying it on their sites/ blogs.

One last piece of advice: innovate. Don’t go around the blogosphere copying ideas and imitating other bloggers. Reveal your heart, show your identity and you will win.