Before I started my blog, I did a lot of reading and research on blogging. I wanted to be prepared, to avoid beginner’s mistakes (I made my share of those anyway by the way).
One of the advices I constantly came across on all big blogging blogs was this one:
If you want to build traffic, you have to post every day.
Being stubborn, I decided right away that every weekday would work just fine for me, because the weekend is family time for me.
And in all honesty it has worked well.
For the first year of my blog, I did post almost every single workday and my stats were constantly improving. But then I started a second blog and I got a book contract and life in general happened, so I started to post less. The last few months I’ve averaged about three posts a week.
The amazing thing was that it didn’t affect my stats, my page views were still going up. I was really wondering how that could be, when I saw Michael Hyatt announcing he would be posting less as well. His reason was that he’d done a survey asking his readers about their ideal blogging frequency and they voted with for three times a week or less, with an overwhelming majority.
And he’s not the only one.
There seems to be a trend for posting less and to be honest, it’s one that doesn’t come as a surprise to me. As a blog reader, I am overwhelmed by what shows up in my RSS Reader. Of course I could cancel a few subscriptions, but then I’d also miss out on the good stuff that’s hidden in the avalanche of blog posts. I for one wouldn’t mind when some of my favorite blogs posted a little less, so I could keep up better and actually have the time to implement their advice.
As a blog writer, having to post less frees up my time for other things, like writing books. Also, it helps me to keep the quality of my posts up, because I don’t have the constant pressure of having to come up with topics to blog about. A third reason for me to blog less than five times a week is that I tend to write longer posts. Five of those a week would be too much for anyone to read, so my actual influence would only go down. And last but not least: posting less gives me a little more time to promote these posts well on social media. If you post daily, you only get to tweet once or twice about a post before it becomes annoying.
This doesn’t mean blogging less is the solution for everyone or will work for everyone though. You may wonder about the frequency of posts here on ChurchMag, for instance as, we post several posts a day. I think that is different though because ChurchMag is a very diverse blog, which covers many topics, posts many different types of posts, has a lot of short posts or stuff that’s purely visual and has an equally diverse readership. People can pick which posts to read, not all of them will be interesting to everyone.
[Editor’s Note: About three months ago, we decreased the number of posts on ChurchMag we posted each day for reasons. It is certainly a trend that’s effecting the entire web.]
I think the blogging frequency is something to be experimented with to see what works. If you have a strong content-driven blog, posting less may actually work very well for you, but with a more diverse blog, you may have to post even more than five times a week. Just try to see what works best, and remember, quality wins over quantity every time.
As for me and my blog, I’m quite happy with posting less and I’m very curious to see if this becomes the new norm in the blogging world.
What do you think, would blogging less work for your blog?
[Editor’s Note: Be sure to read more awesome tips and tactics in the Focused Blogging series!]
Karen Rainwater says
I “blog” very randomly. When I have something I really want to say, I post on Twitter, using “Twitlonger”. “KarenJewel’s Thoughts” are very short, but longer than 140 characters, bursts of my views on things. There is no schedule. I am not at all concerned with popularity, or having a “successful” blog with lots of attention. I know some of them are read by both people that follow me and some that don’t. If even one person reads, with interest, what I write, I consider that a success. Given that as my approach, perhaps I am not one to give advice on blogging. I have two or three other blogs that I neglect. I much prefer the simplicity of blogging with “Twitlonger”.
Rachel Blom says
You’re reflecting a trend we see as well and that’s that people turn to microblogging, for instance on Twitter, Tumblr and in Facebook updates. May be the new trend, who knows, but it would be hard to convey a lot of content that way. My blog is very how to-oriented for instance and there’s no way I could do that in such a short format (though I admit I could make my posts shorter). But with more reflective posts, I see how that could work!
Karen Rainwater says
I should point out that I blog through “Twitlonger” and therefore have a longer character limit, or no limit, I’m not sure. But, I cannot add images, etc. I can add links, so through that I could add images. So, while it is limiting in one sense, it is not limiting in the most basic sense, that is, the act of writing, or as I like to think of it… talking. 🙂
Warren Kelly says
Wow — I guess I was ahead of the curve — I started blogging infrequently way back in 2008 or so! I blog so infrequently that my main blog hasn’t been updated in over a year — maybe I should write a book about this …
(And yes, that was all sarcasm – I still blog semi-regularly, but about different topics than when I started)
Eric Dye says
LOL!
Jonathan says
I’m an expert at blogging less. Seriously, rarely a day goes by that I don’t blog. =)
Rachel Blom says
🙂
Eric Dye says
ROTFL!
Eric Dye says
Even ChurchMag decreased the number of daily posts, and we may do it, again!
ThatGuyKC says
I’m in the same boat. Read all the advice from the pros to post every day and couldn’t keep up. Switched to 3x a week recently and like the results.
I subscribe to a number of blogs as well and not being able to keep up with the torrent of content is frustrating. I’ve unfollowed the RSS for a few because I got tired of feeling guilty for missing their stuff.
Rachel Blom says
I know that frustration of not being able to keep up with your RSS feed and at the same time not wanting to unsubscribe for fear of missing something good…Haven’t found the perfect balance yet, but I keep trying!
Eric Dye says
THIS!