How Often Should You Blog?
Have you made the effort, worked through the hassle and put up the money to finally get that fancy website where publishing blog posts is a reality for your business or personal needs? Is it shiny, fancy and complete with bells and whistles? If so, now what?
Creating content and becoming an authority might be a worthwhile goal. But how do you go about doing that in light of all the other pressing, important tasks required? Questions are often asked of Internet experts and online marketers related to how often blog posts should be written and posted to your blog.
Simply put, there is no one correct answer. At least not a one-size-fits-all solution that, if followed, would guarantee one’s online success. If hard pressed for a definitive answer, one might lean towards blogging with consistency. Readers are going to hopefully become accustomed to whatever publishing schedule you choose to implement. Providing the quality of content is acceptable, readers will notice when the posting is too infrequent.
Your readers will become trained to expect new content on the basis you set. If that means 3 posts per week, do the best to produce quality content and publish every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Or whenever is right for your readers. Habit forming can be tough, but once set in, breaking recurrent behavior is even harder.
Nine Points To Help Determine Your Best Posting Frequency
Writer Burnout
Know your limits. If even one blog post per week is too much for your schedule and energy, consider posting every other week. Whatever keeps your content fresh, focused and valuable to your readers.
Reader Burnout
Are your site visitors slowing down as your posting speeds up? This may be a sign they just do not want that much volume.
Reader Participation
How important is it to your success for readers to interact with the site and each other via the comments section? An increase in the number of posts tends to decrease the number of comments.
Increased Site Traffic
Many readers consume content solely through their RSS readers and may never visit the actual destination website. By truncating the content with a “read more” link, it is possible to drive traffic to the site in order to finish reading a post. As posting frequency increases, both the number of visitors from the feeds as well as search engine referrals will go up. Keep this in mind if increased site traffic is a primary goal.
Topics Can Drive Frequency
News and reviews sites generally require more posts simply to cover the events of the day. Other topics may only require a post once per week. Some even less. Research the intervals others in your field are posting to help determine what is right for you and your site.
What the Readers Want
Don’t be afraid to ask readers what they want from the website. More? Shorter? Published at certain times or on particular days? If you ask them, they will tell you!
Speaking of Post Length
Consider how long the posts are which you enjoy reading. If you’re a fan of 3,000 word reads, maybe your fans are as well. Generally speaking, however, shorter, quicker, and easier to consume posts tend to be more popular.
Find Your Voice and Get Consistent
Once you’ve gotten settled into the groove of what you’ll write, be sure to stick to that style of writing. Regardless of whether its fun and snarky, professional and clean cut, or something in between, readers will either love your work and clamor for more, or move on to other blogs. The ones who stay will want more, so be sure to give them more of the same.
And give it to them with the consistency that works for your topic and your ability to produce quality posts. Consider how many feeds you have unsubscribed from because they were just too infrequent or you were unable to come to grips with the site’s personality du jour.
Defining Your Blog Posting Plan
Armed with the eight points above, determine what works best for you and your online aspirations. Remember that original content is going to take longer to produce, therefore it may be harder to publish every day. Conversely, news and gadget or review sites tend to be expected to post multiple times per day.
Very infrequent posting can be successful, however it is rare. The occasional blog post makes it hard to remain in people’s thoughts. In order to be success on the most infrequent of publishing schedules, one must be an excellent writer. Independently published eBook author John Locke has found a way to be quite successful producing a single post every 2 to 3 months. The possibility does exist.
Set a goal. Once per week, five posts per week. Whatever you choose. Having the goal is more important than meeting it regularly. Of course, just doing lip service won’t win friends and influence people. Be as realistic as possible. If you have done quality research into your topic and potential readers, you will have a feel for what should work best for your particular scenario.
Make the goal attainable, but not out of reach. Missing one’s numbers too often can create a habit of continuing to miss one’s numbers. And that is not the consistency and rhythm your looking to produce with your new, shiny blog’s bells and whistles, is it?
