It's a good idea to have a firm plan for password and security management right from the very beginning. The key is to have systems in place to store and keep passwords and to make sure different jobs have different access privileges to things like blogging software, hosting providers, domain registrars, and so on.
In general you should always create separate accounts for each individual writer, editor, and staffer. Passwords should always be strong, no matter how trivial the account seems to be. Whenever possible, restrict the highest admin privileges to just yourself, and where appropriate the site editor. This is particularly important on blogs where you have many writers contributing, and therefore with access to the blog management system.
It's a good idea to set yourself up with a password manager like LastPass or 1Password so that you can manage the many, many passwords you are going to end up with as a blog business owner. LastPass in particular is good because it allows you to share passwords for use to staff without actually revealing the password itself.
Between email, blog software, social media, and web services such as analytics accounts, you will find yourself swimming in passwords. Without a good password manager, it's all too tempting to use weak or repetitive passwords, which is an invitation for problems.
For positions such as the site editor, you may wish to create a single gmail (or similar) account that gets passed over with complete archives. This means that when one editor finishes and another starts, the new editor still has access to the archive of emails between the editor and writers, sponsors, and so on.
Because you can map a domain email address such as john@blogname.com back to a gmail account, the email address the editor uses can still change, but the archives will stay the same. This practice can help with transitioning when the two people won't ever be in the same place to discuss handovers and potentially emails could be lost in the process.
For more permanent staff, you will need to consider what to do when they take time off. For example, if your editor is ill, you or another editor should be able to step in quickly and take over. In these cases, having a shared email address as detailed above can be very handy.
For planned time off, you can organize with your site editor to prepare a couple of weeks of content ahead of time with timestamps so that they go up over a period of time when the editor is not present. These situations are always best thought of beforehand, so that interruptions to the site are kept to a minimum.
It's important for staff to know how they are doing, where they stand, and what the future holds. For these reasons, whether it's remote or local, freelance or employee, you should always conduct periodic performance reviews. These don't need to be particularly formal; they can take the form of a simple email giving general feedback, praise and well-formed criticism, and in return asking for feedback and comments.
Make sure you find out from your team what their own aspirations are, what they'd like to achieve, how they think they can contribute, and what ideas they have for their work. Not only are staff often a gold mine of great ideas, but working to develop your team is amongst the most rewarding things you can do as a manager and entrepreneur.
If you've never worked with writers before, you may be surprised to know that commissioning content doesn't necessarily mean you own the work. Usually writers are granting a perpetual license to use the content on your blog. Generally speaking, it's a good idea to think about what you want to do with articles published on your site and make sure you've arranged (and compensated) any unusual plans with the writers beforehand.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Articleinput.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
Note: This article was sent to us by: Sharon Reed at 02152011
1. Wordpress SEO and Search Plugins
All articles are property of their respective authors. Please read our Privacy Policy!
© 2009 ArticleInput.com.
Partners: Damenmode