Consistency & Frequency Are The Ultimate Downfall of Blogging

Blogging “Experts” always preach that you must be consistent with your blog, and you should post frequently. A minimum number of 1 post a day has become sort a rule among many bloggers. Majority of the bloggers write content daily for the sole reason of producing content. They find a need to produce content daily otherwise they believe they will lose subscribers.

A popular saying is “Don’t Talk Unless You Can Improve the Silence”.

I believe bloggers should take this approach rather than adapting to the rule which was made by Self Proclaimed Experts. In this post I will be explaining my point about how consistency and frequency are the ultimate downfall of blogging.

Compromising the Quality

Blogging should never be a chore. When it becomes a chore then the quality of the content seems to suffer. I am a firm believer of the idea that the best content is written when one has passion to write on the subject. Without passion, your post does not have a voice. Blogging is like an art that is fueled by passion. Without it, it looks dull.

In the quest of producing content for one blog, I am seeing often bloggers are relying on duplicating content from other websites in their niche. While I understand that it is a quick way to produce content, but this act compromises the quality of the content on the web. And at the end of the day you will not gain followers but lose followers.

Consider me as a new webmaster looking to get some information on make money online industry. I head over to a popular blog in the industry, see an article about site flipping. I read it, and then move along. Then I came to your blog, which is less popular. I see a mock up of the same article that was published on another blog 2 days ago, is now on your blog with a little paraphrasing. Now the first thing I will do is quit your site. And the second thing I will do is remember never to come back to you again.

It Gets Annoying

Speaking from a subscribers point of view, who is subscribed to your blog via email, does not want to recieve an email that is pointless and useless. When I subscribe to blogs, the main reason is to recieve useful content. If I recieve an email in my inbox from your site with a new post which is not up to the par, then forget it. I will most likely unsubscribe. Because it gets annoying. I would rather recieve one email per week if thats what it takes you to produce quality content.

Remember it is Quality that subscribers prefer, not quantity.

Being Consistent is Tough and Most Fail

Top blogs like SmashingMagazine, Psdtuts, and others always come up with great articles every day. You must understand that these sites have multiple authors. These authors are either getting paid well, or they are getting insane amount of exposure from that post which motivates them to write well. I can say from experience that some of those articles takes days of work to prepare. If you have a one man blog, then that is something you probably won’t be able to accomplish unless blogging is all what you do (Full Time Job)

On his survey at problogger Darren asked how long on average do you take to write blog posts?

Majority of the bloggers say 1 hour. Some had even less time. If your blog is about your life or some other rambling, you might be able to do it in 15 minutes, but if you are writing for audience like webmasters or other serious industry then you will have to put more effort than that.

That is how your daily blog traffic looks. No seriously, that is how it looks for the most part for most blogs. If you are not serious about your site then this is what will happen. Some bloggers write great content one day because they put alot of effort into their post for that day. Then for the rest of the week, they add more content to their blog, but none matches upto the standards.

Pissed Off Reader

Now I will give you an option of either write great content all the time. Or never write good content. Because if you don’t write great content all the time, you will have a pissed off reader. Lets say you write an extremely good blog post which caused you to get thousands of visitors. Out of those thousands, atleast a hundred subscribed because they thought you always produce good content. Now for the next week, all they recieve were new updates in their mail for your site, but none of the articles were up to the standards. Sadly, you got yourself a pissed off reader who will not subscribe to your site again!

Neil Patel is a Great Example

I hope you have heard of this guy. He is everywhere. Famous for his aggressive marketing strategies. You will see his blog, Quick Sprout listed on popular blogs like techcrunch, smashingmagazine, Fail Blog, CrunchGear and other places. If you head over to his blog, you will see that he does not upgrade as frequently. But the articles that he does write are quality. He still have thousands of subscribers and active readers which you can see by the comments on each of his posts.

Good Tip to Avoid the Downfall

Simple, only post when it is necessary. Don’t be under the mindset that since John Chow is successful. He posts 3.8 posts a day, so if you do it you will achieve the same thing. Now if you read John Chow’s blog, its mostly about his life, less about tips. Its more reviews, more ads, and more of stuff that will make him money rather than teach you anything. Best way to read his site is backwards when he had lots of tips. Now most of his tips and resource articles are guest posts from other bloggers. Once again not a one man site!

Don’t give into the made up rule of blogging atleast once a day. There is no such rule. In order for the quality to prevail, the quantity must be taken out of picture. If you have to cut down your frequency of posts to produce better content, feel free to do so because it is the quality what users want.

To Determine whether your post is worth being posted, it is better to ask other’s opinion. Or simply make yourself a checklist type survey. I wrote a post about 7 Questions to Ask Before Publishing a Blog Post. You can follow that, or make your own.

Note: During a period of time: I did that on Balkhis as well when quality of my posts were suffering due to lack of time. I switched from daily posts to every other day posting frequency. And I still have all my readers and increasing.

I realize that I wrote a very controversial post here which will definitely make you want to put out your opinion. I am eagerly waiting to hear them, so put them down in the comment box.