Follow me on twitter
Facebook
Do you give your blog posts the time to live?
August 25th, 2008It’s hard to find a balance between posting 5 articles a day to fill your blog with content and post an extremely good article once in a while. Both ways will kill your blog/website, so it’s extremely important to keep that balance and give your posts the proper time to live!
The mad blogger
The mad blogger post 5-10 articles a day and while the website looks to be filled with content, that content is usually “filler posts” (Not so unique posts just to fill some space). Why is it bad to do that? Well, I’m not saying it’s totally bad because I guess it might work for some websites. Again, it’s a case of “it depends what your website is about”: if you have a news website, of course you should post 5,10,15 articles a day, it’s your job! But let’s say you own a ‘regular’ blog about a particular subject you have some good knowledge of and that your goal is to spread that knowledge and make some money while you’re doing it. If you write five articles a day about your subject, not only you will run out of ideas eventually, but you are not going to market any article. It’s good to spend 5 hours a day writing tons and tons of articles, but what’s the point if no one’s reading them? You have to spend some of that time marketing these articles. By publishing too much content and not having much traffic, you are killing your ideas.
What’s great about writing a blog is to know people read you and also comment on your blog because they like what you do. When you end up on a blog you don’t know, I’m sure you check the average number of comments on the blog just to estimate the website’s popularity. Popularity is extremely important to a lot of users, they like to be part of something, a community. Posting 5 to 10 articles per day on a website not getting a huge amount of traffic will split your comments into these 5-10 posts, making maybe 10 articles with one comment on each. While you have some readers commenting, it’s not that impressive for a new user.
The lazy blogger
The lazy blogger is the complete opposite. I won’t go into details as I’m sure you get the idea. The main thing to understand is that being lazy and not updating the content is not a better idea. While you may end up with a lot more comments on each of your posts, new users will see you don’t update your website too often and this is usually a turn off. We like fresh content don’t we?
The balance is hard to get
I try to stay on a one post a day routine to keep fresh content coming in but also to maximize the number of comments I get per article. I know sometimes it tends toward a 1 post every two days routine, but that’s simply because I don’t want to write crap: if I don’t have time or ideas to write, I simply don’t write and so far it’s never been a major problem in my blogging experience. I try to write quality, not quantity and I’ve talked about it in a previous post: Don’t write just to write something. I also try to let people know about my new blog posts and I give my them the time to live. This way, the articles get some exposure, you haven’t spent your precious time writing for nothing and you maximize your comments possibility.
I guess the way to go is to write the amount you are able to write every day without feeling like you don’t know what to write about. You also have to keep some time to market your new articles, otherwise you are writing for nothing! If you are filled with ideas and could write 20 articles, spare some ideas and you get yourself almost a month worth of ideas on a one post a day routine.
Bottom line is that the balance is extremely hard to get. The best way is to go with what feels natural for you.
13 Responses to “Do you give your blog posts the time to live?”
What do you think?
Subscribe : A new sketch every morning
Receive this blog in your inbox by entering your email address:
I’ve read recently (on copyblogger or blogherald) that it’s important to write each day – to train your brain for process. Probably you may want to skip some and not post it but daily writing routine is important.
It’s better write something and not post it than think “I am going to be lazy today” and skip a day. Finding exceuses not to write can kill productivity very fast.
I picked out daily post schedule from the start and was bit nervous about running out of topics… But the more I write the more ideas I generate. I can still skip a day but that’s because I didn’t have time to make post good enough for publishing.
Rarsts last blog post..K-Lite Codec Pack – complete solution for video playback
I think once per day is good – quality has to be the most important factor to maintain rhe community – posting rubbish would just put people off.
How long does it take you, on average, to compose your article? I sometimes wonder where people get the time!
Quality of content is more important that the quantity , but if you are a new blogger you may want to have a post every day to ensure stickiness of your blog…
I limit my quality content to two or three a week and short entries if something unusual happened. This I due based on the type of blog I have.
Personally I find too many entries from blogs I subscribe to, information overload, so I work off what appeals to me.
@Rarst: It’s definitely easy to be lazy and skip a day or two once in a while. Even if one post a day is the best thing in my opinion, I’ve found out that one post every two days doesn’t hurt that much, in fact it doesn’t make a big difference. That’s my personal experience…
@olly: To write an article, it can take 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on how deep and complete the article is. It’s usually longer when I write a post that is a “tutorial” because I have to go trough taking screenshots and everything. On average, I would say it’s between 30 mins and an hour.
@zk: Yep, totally true!
@Carole: I think that’s a good approach and if it’s working well, no reasons to change it.
That sort of time is not so bad – but I guess it can quickly add up to more when you have a lot of comments to moderate or several other sites/blogs to work with.
This is what I find most difficult to juggle, especially with a full time job, a young family and a passion for guitar!
I definitely need to post more often. I wouldn’t call it lazy though…self-employment and motherhood will do that to you.
I am interested in learning more about marketing your posts. Do you have some tips that you can share?
Taras last blog post..Greening Your Back-to-School Supplies
I think content is the most important part. But you can’t afford to be lazy in order to be successful. You need to maintain
You definitely need a good balance I beleive. It takes time to get it right.
I think posting three times a week is enough if you are spending time to write your post with original information and are researching every topic. I hate being subscribed to a feed and getting emails every day if the posts aren’t original and quality content. Posting just to fill up space aggravates me so I try not to do it myself.
Blakes last blog post..Editing HTML in Blogger: The Scrolling Box
A really effective way to limit yourself to posts is to use your blog-host’s feature to schedule your posts.
That way, if you have a bunch of ideas, and you want to write them down, you can type it in, and then use your schedule post feature to have that post published on a different day. This can help solve your multiple posts problem, and it make your posts live more.
Why do I post on my real estate websites? Well, I don’t really care if people subscribe to my site. I post because the posts index very quickly in Google and I can usually find my posts on the first page or two within hours.
Kermits last blog post..Affordable New Hope Minnesota Home for sale
During my first month of blogging I wrote every day. I had to. My cupboards were empty – I was afraid visitors would take one cursory glance and take off. I’m now on my second month and I find it more to my pace to post every other day and I intend to keep this schedule for now. You’re right about giving your current post the needed exposure. If one is quick to post one after another you’re not giving your current post the right exposure as they are quickly buried deep in the page where they are less likely to be read.
jans last blog post..The Man Behind The Blog