The age old question, “How often should I post on my blog?” I’ve seen this same question asked way too many times on forums, I always tell them the same thing. “It varies from blog to blog.” Some blogs just naturally need more posts than others to make their readers happy.
What your posting frequency depends on.
1. Your niche.
The topic of your blog is the biggest deciding factor of how often you should post. Typically a blog with a wide niche or a niche that has a lot of breaking news each day, such as a gadget blog or pop culture blog, will need a lot more posts than a blog that’s nuclear engineering.
2. Your writing style.
If your like me you like to write longer, quality, in depth posts so you can get away with posting once every 2 or 3 days. Where as some people like to write short and to the point posts, they can do an easy 4 posts a day.
3. Your readers preferences.
It’s a fact that your readers will unsubscribe from your blog or out right stop visiting because of your posting frequency. Some people like 4 or 5 posts a day while others may not like more than 3 or 4 a week. It’s up to you to find a fair medium that will make all your readers happy.
4. Where your traffic is coming from.
A huge part of posting frequency has to do with where the bulk of your traffic is coming from. If you have mostly search engine traffic you want a lot of posts daily, as this means you will have more pages in search engines, which will translate to more visitors. But if you’re like me and you get the majority of your visitors from other sites (forums, blogs) and rss feeds, you don’t have to necessarily post as much.
Pros of Posting More.
1. Posting more means you have more pages search engines.
Every new post is like another landing page to your blog, the more landing pages you have the more search engine traffic your likely to get.
2. Your subscribers see you more.
Weather your subscribers are seeing you in their inbox or their RSS readers your getting them to se you more and more with each and every post.
Cons of posting More.
1. Your readers unsubscribe.
In a survey done by ProBlogger.net, blog readers voted on the top reasons they unsubscribed from a blog, the #1 reason they unsubscribed was because posting frequency was too high.
2. Running out of ideas.
Unless you have a team of bloggers or your just great at pulling posts out of thin air, your going to get writers fatigue. When you start posting 2 to 5 times a day on some blogs your gonna run out of ideas/content pretty quick. If you have a niche with a ton of daily news and you post a lot each day, you will slowly lose passion for the topic and end up with a dead blog.
Pros of Posting Less.
1. More reader engagement.
I have noticed that when you post less frequently you get more reader engagement, more comments and more conversation with each post.
Cons of Posting Less.
1. Less traffic
This may not always hold true but most of the time you will see a decrease of traffic if you decrease your posting frequency. Posting less was actually number 2 on the top reasons people unsubscribe from blogs.
To Sum it all up.
I’s not as simple as posting more and getting more traffic, readers and subscriber.
- Your frequency depends on the niche of the blog, your writing style, your readers and your traffic sources.
- Posting more can get you more search engine traffic and gets you seen more by subscribers.
- Posting more may turn your readers away and cause writers block.
- While posting less can get more reader engagement, it can lessen your traffic.
What do you think of posting frequency? Is quality better than quantity?
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I have no fixed posting schedule, i just post when i feel like and
I have damn good traffic stats and decent no. of rss subscribers.
Farrhad A’s last blog post..Time Management
I think people will feel that less posts is great because I know I have a lot of rss feeds in Google Reader. It’s hard to keep up!
Rowell Dionicio’s last blog post..Overcome the Challenges of Blogging While Working Full-Time
lol, you do enough marketing to get the constant traffic even though you may not constantly post.
How many subscribers do you have?
Nice comprehensive article…
As for posting, it really can only be determined on a case by case basis. However, what ever you do, it is necessary to keep it consistent. If you’re subscribers are used to daily posts, they will grow to expect it. So if you slow down, they’ll think the blog has grown stagnant. On the flip side, if your readers are used to digesting one post a week, they might get overwhelmed when you up your frequency… So I’d just say: Keep It Consistent.
Shirley’s last blog post..Don’t Get Hacked: 6 Ways to Secure Your WordPress Blog
Thanks Shirley
I wanted to touch on that a little bit here but I saved it for another day, maybe when I learn more about it, because I am pretty bad when it comes to consistency as of right now.
This subject has no definitive answer. People will always have arguments and difference in opinion on when and how much to post.
So what is the true and most acceptable solution?
Experiment and do what is best for your blog (and not what other proclaim as the best solution). Don’t start posting useless stuffs everyday just because someone is doing so with his/her blog. Or don’t ease off to 1 post per week either by listening to someone else. Experiment by analyzing what posting frequency your readers would appreciate. And this analysis is a never ending job.
Regularity ain’t hurting, (you would be seen as a organized blogger
)but there isn’t a hard and fast rule that only regularity will bring you success.
I agree with you Forsaken, I gave a basis for people to work with, it is up to them to see what would work best for their individual blogs.
And, I would be seen as an organized blogger? Thanks
I agree with whatever you have written.
Especially, the pro of Posting less – Readers participation is more.
I was once talking to Rajaie, and he told me some ways to get more exposure to each and every post, so every post gets good amount of readers participation.
Whilst Techcruch, or similar blogs “need” to post as frequently as they do, newbie bloggers shouldn’t. That would only lead to burnout, unless they have hundreds of topics sorted out.
I loved when TheUniversityKid was posting once a day, I loved the atmospher, I loved the content and I expected a post a day. So, one more thing you might add is readers expect a post that day, if you are regular, say post every two days or something. They will come and check if you have a new post.. and thus more exposure at the earliest.
Of course, as one grows, a blogging style establishes, and readers become acquainted with the style & nature of the blogger.
Swastik’s last blog post..Quality product vs Marketing – Who wins?
Thanks Swas.
I think Im gonna have to add a part about being regular with your posting.
These are very well laid-out straight forward tips. Personally speaking I do not believe in posting three times a day like John Chow does as it will only degrade the quality of post. I forgot the last time John came up with a good post than displaying the eateries (Of course his guest posts are good)
If blogging is your only job or career then there’s nothing wrong in posting every day. But you are right, some subscribers get offended by seeing too many updates from you on their feed readers or email
Ajith Edassery | DollarShower’s last blog post..BackType.com – The ‘twitter’ for comments
Hey Ajith, I have to agree with your John Chow comment, and that if blogging is your job its ok for you to post daily.
Im not a full time blogger, I have a job + school so for me to post daily like some people would be nearly impossible.
When I started out I thought I had to try and post at least once a day, or no-one would come visit – however doing that really ate up my time, as I would have to try and advertise each post I did to get people to visit, as well as be thinking of new posts that weren’t just ‘filler’ nonsense. Now I post every 2-3 days, and from that I get a lot more comments, and a lot more time to think up quality informative posts! Of course, if I worked from home, it would be a lot easier to do
Dan’s last blog post..The Magic Of Finding Blogs To Comment On
Hey Dan, I know what you mean. I like posting only 2-3 times, it gives me time to think about the next post and promote my current one.
Great post.
I like to post 1 post in 2 days. Yeah, sometimes I just fall out of this schedule, which is pretty bad. But for me the perfect schedule is a post in 2 days. One day I make the post, and promote my blog, the other day I promote my blog even more !
Cheers,
The Moneyac
The Moneyac’s last blog post..Finding New Niches – Part 4 – Milking the Niche
@Ardit, low three digits.
Farrhad A’s last blog post..Time Management
@ The Moneyac: I do the same thing except I like to post once every 3 days.
Hey Ardit!
Came here referred by one of Forsaken’s comment on my blog about this topic (thing is he forgot to mention your link, so I had to put on my Research hat to find you
).
Back on topic:
Establishing a posting schedule can be difficult during the early stages of your blog. These are many reasons why people find hard setting a posting rate for their blogs – these are two of them:
# Don’t have enough traffic, so you can’t tell how often your readers check on your site for fresh contents.
# Haven’t build a solid readership yet, so you still need to work on your writing skills in order to make it attractive enough to entice people to come back to your blog more often.
P.S.: last friday I wrote a post (scheduled to be published today) about things people should know before blogging, and since this is related to what I covered there I just liked back to you so my readers can find this post.
Ikki @ Blogging blog’s last blog post..7 Things You Should Know Before Blogging
Ikki, first off I want to say thanks for the comment. Secondly, I want to say thanks for the plug, and lastly your right, with a new blog it’s harder to come up with an effective posting schedule for all the reasons you stated but it can be done.
I am currently in a schedule of daily posting. Buffering helps a lot, because I don’t feel like writing a new blog post every day. Not all the posts I write under the pressure of a daily schedule are equally good.
I have no fixed posting schedule really, however i try to post atleast 3 times a week (this include sunday link love post)
The holidays notwithstanding, I usually try to post at least one article a day on average. It’s not easy, but in the first year of my blog I ended up with 301 posts. Of course, I could easily back down to a post every two days, especially now that I have three blogs to populate, and could probably keep everyone happy. However, I feel overall that it’s up to me to decide what my posting progress will go, as long as I don’t go more than a week between new posts.
Mitch’s last blog post..Number 301, A Year To Remember
@ Luke: Yeah when you post daily your not going to have all amazing posts.
@ Salwa: I would say 3 times a week is a fair amount for your blog, but I personally wouldn’t do a link love each week.
@ Mitch: Posting daliy really isn’t easy, and your readers should forgive you for a little slip. Anyway, three blogs? do you post on each of them daily?
Well, no one can write daily and still maintaining the quality of the articles. Not even the master copywriter himself, Bryan Clark.
That said, I’m in the opinion that posting frequency is over-rated. It’s better to write one solid article than produce 10 sub-standard articles. It all comes down to quality vs quantity.
Fact is the less I write, the more I get in terms of comments, traffic and subscribers.
Yan
Blogging Tips’s last blog post..101 Blogging Tips I’ve Learned in 2008
I believe that quality is better than quantity, but you can’t post a really good article every other week.
Thanks for the comment yan
I find it weird that people would unsubscribe simply because the blog doesn’t post alot. Why would that matter if the post quality is high?
Wesley’s last blog post..My Internet Goals For 2009
I can never answer that. My subscribers fluctuate soo much and I can tell its because I don’t post alot.
One thing I’ve found it that it very much depends on where the traffic is coming from.
I have a blog that I haven’t posted anything on in over a year but, because it’s well placed in Google for certain keywords, it will get between 800-1000 unique visitors a day. On my OpTempo blog, the same is true. I can go without posting for a week or more with very little drop off and it will sometimes even increase.
But, with some newer niche blogs and my new ‘make money online’ flagship blog, traffic drops off dramatically when I don’t post.
Frank C’s last blog post..Power Screwdriver Buying Guide
Yeah, just like I said in the post the source of traffic has a huge impact. If you want to go deep, where your traffic comes from depends heavily on your niche.
My blog is still a baby but my blog frequency has been around 2-3 blog posts per week. I’m starting to see more comments on my blog but would like to see more interaction.
I surf other blogs like yours to get more tips and suggestions. I find your posts very helpful.
Rowell Dionicio’s last blog post..Blogging Success – Measuring Success With Goals
I took a look at your blog, its really a nice place. How many comments do you average per a post?
Great post, I like the way you’ve organized your thoughts.
I disagree with your last “con”… you won’t necessarily be getting less traffic by posting less often. If anything, you lose repeat visitors and subscribers if you post TOO often. But if you post long, insightful, quality posts, your content is more likely to go viral (via bookmarking, twitter twits, WOM, etc), thus getting you more traffic even though you have fewer entries.
I wrote a post about this here: http://snipurl.com/7s0w7.
Happy new year!
Diana Freedman’s last blog post..Brand Your Site With a FavIcon
Thanks for your comment Diana.
That last con was from my personal experience, it happened to me and I have seen it happen to others.
It depends on the blog niche and also depends on whether you are blogging for the search engines or blogging for your subscribers. Because if you’re blogging for the SEs and to get content out there that brings in new readers then you can simply never produce enough content.
But if you’re blogging for your readership most people simply cannot digest an article per day as well as an article per day from the other 30 blogs they are subscribed to. If bloggers think they have to blog every day to keep their readership happy they are completely insane. If every blog I subscribed to gave me one super quality post per week I would get so much more out of the blogosphere.
@ Laurence: Who your blogging for is one of the biggest on the list. cause your its the complete opposite for the two. For Search Engines = More posts/week, for people = less posts/week.
Thanks for the comment, and you should subscribe, I do only quality posts 2 times a week.
I found your email subscription link hiding up there in the top right. Sorted.
Thanks, I’m having trouble setting up a subscription box in the side bar, until then it’s a little hard to find.
It definately depends on the blog. I post 2-3 times a week on my main blog, but daily on another and multiple times on another. It all has to do with your goals and your target market.
Tom – StandOutBlogger.com’s last blog post..Opportunities: 3 Keys To Make Every Opportunity Count!
I have been wondering about this myself. I keep reading to post everyday but, I just can’t do it.
I also have changed my reading habits. I normally visit a blog 1 time a week, so if they have posted several times that week, I usually only read 1 maybe 2 post out of the new list. Visiting a fav blog less often has given me more time to find other blogs with different opinions and in site.
Thanks for not pushing the post 3x a day stuff. It would make me feel so slow. LOL!
Hope you don’t mind me commenting so late.
Sheryl Loch’s last blog post..Sig Line and Mini Article Post on Forums
@ Tom: Yeah the blog “niche” and target audience is huge part of it. Thanks for sharing.
@ Sheryl: lol, I could NEVER post daily and would be a total hypocrite to push others to it. On a blog like yours I wouldn’t post daily. But that’s just me
Oh and I love comments, no matter how late they are.