Saturday, February 26, 2005

Blog posting frequency: How often?

Blog posting frequency is one of the most frequently asked blog questions.

How often should a blogger post to a blog is a question that has an ambiguous answer.

It all depends.

My personal preference, in the form of the obligatory disclaimer, is to write one longer post per day. Sometimes, I post twice and very occasionally, three times per day.

On the whole, however, I like to post one fairly long (some say too lengthy) column or article per day. One thousand or more word Gleemanesque length essays are even named in some quarters after baseball, poker, and journalism blogger Aaron Gleeman.

Despite that rather interesting coined term, it's not uncommon to find more indepth (some would say long winded) blog writers almost everywhere in the blogosphere.

Many bloggers prefer to use multiple short posts, or even collect a series of relevant and interesting links, several times per day.

Those are very good, and highly effective blogging systems, as well.

Note that there are many ways to post successfully. They include one longer post, a regular interesting post with links and commentary, a series of shorter posts, or simple one liners with attached links. These are, of course, only a few posting styles.

There are many more, and most bloggers employ several post writing techniques, either individually, or in new combinations.

I have used most of them myself, especially when my fingers feel like less key tapping than usual.

Anyway.

My rule of thumb, or keyboard, or tempting of carpal tunnel syndrome, is to post one major written piece per day.

That daily frequency is not always necessary.

Being reliable to post at least three posts per week is more important.

What a blogger is attempting to do, by posting fairly often, is develop a regular readership base. Those usual visitors might not be large in number, or ever intended to be all that many. What is more important is to have your blog updated fairly often, so there is something new for the visitors to read.

There are few things that cause your regular visitors to drift away more than not updating your blog.

Nothing new to read means nothing in terms of visitor traffic.

Keep in mind that a week in blog time is almost an eternity.

Most blogs are set to scroll all of the posts off in one week's time. That's not very long, before archives are the home of all of your best posts.

Most readers read the first few posts, if that.

The archives are not explored all that often.

So, after all that preamble, digression, and generally avoiding the issue, the question of posting frequency remains.

Okay, I'll take a stand.

Sort of.

Post to your blog at least three times per week, meaning a post every other day.

Time can usually be found for at least that amount of writing.

Think three posts minimum per week, and you'll be just fine.

Oh, and note that this was a not a long winded post.

Okay, don't believe me!

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