If you’ve ever read a book on blogging or followed one of the “big bloggers” you have probably heard that you should be publishing a new blog post every single day. I strongly suggest against blogging 7 times a week for most people and here is why.
You should be consistent with your blog posting. Your readers get used to your posting schedule and start expecting new content from you at specific intervals. Posting 7 times a week is simply overkill for most blogs. Your readers have other things to do than read your blog every single day. If people subscribe to your RSS feed they will also get fed up of receiving an e-mail from your blog every single day.
Of course there are exceptions. If your blog is called “Daily Jokes” – your visitors DO except to read new stuff every day. If you are running a news blog or a popular tech blog like Mashable – people expect to see new content at least once a day. If you are running a small niche blog, do yourself a favor and post less often.
Posting once a month or even once a week could be not enough and your readers will lose interest in your blog. If you do not post often enough your readers will simply forget the name of your blog and will not come back. I have found that posting 3-4 times a week is the best way to go for most blogs.
Being consistent sounds great however it’s easier said than done. We all have “writer’s blocks”, we all lose motivation, we all get lazy and we’re all human. When I started Extra Paycheck Blog my posting was completely erratic. Sometimes I would get super creative and come up with 5 posts a week, then I would lose motivation and ignore my blog for 2 months. This is how your blog dies.
Every 1st of the month I sit down and come up with 15+ blog post ideas. This task might take hours but it’s totally worth it. One of my biggest issues is sitting in front of the screen for 2 hours trying to come up with a post idea. When I already have 15-20 post ideas in advance, I am set for at least a month of posting.
Once I have a list of potential posts, I write them down in my “posting calendar”. It’s incredible how much we can achieve when we have a deadline and a schedule full of tasks. Wasting time and not knowing what you should do is one of the cons of working from home, a posting schedule eliminates this issue.
I am jumping back to my first point here (don’t post every single day). Producing quality content every single day is really hard. If you have decided to post daily you will find yourself posting low quality content rather often. You might think that daily content will bring more readers and get you better rankings – think again. Quality content brings readers, creates likes and shares as well as better Search Engine Rankings. Once again, think quality over quantity.
Remember, quality content doesn’t mean “2,000 words post”. Great content can also be packaged in a 500-word article, so don’t worry if your posts seem short.
How often do you post? Have anything to add? Comment below!
– Alex
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When I get that sudden need and inspiration to write I just write and schedule them to go out every two or three days.
Basically I found that two to three posts a week is sufficient enough for me.
Having said that, I was having a conversation on Google+ about this and one fellow blogger says that since he started posting every day, his traffic went up !
I don't know what to make of that.
Thanks for a great read Alex! :)
Much appreciated!
Chris, I think that's a great way to schedule your content ;)
I also started a similar conversation on Google+ and someone also commented that their traffic exploded once they started posting daily. Ryan (who commented on this post) has 3 posts per day added to his blog...
Maybe posting daily is a good idea but I simply can't produce good enough content every single day for this blog (because I also spend time posting content to my other blogs and sites).
Alex, you are dead on.. when you say be consistent.. I killed my blog when I was really creative for a few days and then took a little vacation.. I do like the idea of the content calender. This activity has helped me significantly over the past year.. thanks for sharing.. keep smiling
Always smiling, Shalonda ;)
I know that I always told people to stay consistent but I failed to do so for years. "Practice what you preach"? Well, I set-up my calendar and I love it :)
Agreed on consistency Alex! Writing more develops your writing skills which makes you a better blogger.
Keep writing, keep publishing and only good things will happen for you.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your comment, Ryan.
I have noticed that my writing is getting better as I write more and more. I guess practice is what we all really need, regardless of what we're doing ;)
I try to post as often as there's something to write about. I never really had a schedule but it's more because I don't blog with readers (in terms of a community) in mind but more for readers that come from the search engine which is where I get most of my traffic.
So for me blogging every day would make sense to increase traffic but it would cause major burnout if I was to have to post something everyday. I focus on producing high quality content and that takes time. Add to the fact that I have other websites that would get neglected if I was to post everyday.
What I do is when I get ideas through research or brainstorming, I pull up notepad and create a file. I add the title and the article breakdown (what's going to be covered) then I save it in a folder. I then create a new post on my blog and save it to drafts. I can then go through my drafts when I need to post something.
Every night before I sign off, I have another file on my desktop called "six things". I'll list six things that I need to do the next day and do them. I can look at the last time I updated one of my sites and do a post for that site.
I like your idea of coming up with 15 or so ideas at the beginning of the month. This way if you feel really creative, you can always work on new posts and use the scheduling setting in Wordpress to free up some time.
Jay, I also write down my ideas whenever I get one. So I have an "ideas" file on the desktop, in my iPhone and I have an old school journal where I write with a pen! Yes yes, a real pen.
Now, I used to produce content thinking that it would get me readers from search engines. This is all good, however, many of these readers will be one time readers. This is why I try to blog consistently - so I turn these one-time visitors into returning customers ;)