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.
Hey, I am Syed Balkhi, The guy who is behind Balkhis Inc. I entered the industry back in 2002 not knowing a single thing. I barely spoke English at that time. In the past six years, my language barrier has been eliminated. Aside from English, now I also speak html, and php. Along with the languages I have also managed to master a few arts. Art of web-designing started when I first entered. Messing around with photoshop, I learned how to create my first web design. Now I founded a web designing firm Uzzz Productions. After running numerous amount of websites in various niche, I have mastered the art of web-development. Now I am compiling a resource of what I already know, and what I am learning on this blog. This resource is to help me if I ever need a guide to look back to, and it is help my fellow webmasters.
It is not controversial at all. This needed to be said and I am glad that you did so.
I agree with you on the point that, when bloggers wishing for more content compromise on the quality of the post, then it has the readers pissed off. But most of the ‘bloggers’ I have seen, who wait for the ‘perfect’ time to blog, almost always fail to blog. And then they stop posting on their blogs.
I suggest that first it has to become a habit to blog, rather than a chore. For that, there should be frequent posting. After that, ie after the habit has set in, then an appropriate frequency can chosen.
There is a loss of creativity for most people who blog. They are determined to blog, but are at a loss after logging into their dashboards. Blog offline, edit it, have someone to comment upon it and then publish it. Of course there isn’t a rule like “Blog Everyday”, but make sure you post a quality post at least a month!
You spelled “receive” wrong :p
I used to post everyday, but they were short and rushed. Now I post 1-2 a week, but they are long in-depth articles. I was once a strong believer that more is better!
How do you determine quality. One mans rubbish is another mans gold..and for that reason it gets hard to quantify. If you are blogging for traffic, then you have to get content up there regardless of quality, then put out great content in between. I do agree that the issue of regular contnt maybe more applicable to sites needing to get off the ground and gain traction.
I appreciate this article and agree with the points you make. The most successful blogs I’ve seen are those that put obvious thought into their postings and provide much more benefit to the reader via great articles, quality freebies, a way to interact through commenting, etc. Those blogs that are obviously pushing their own product or service is a turn-off and I don’t bother with them. I am re-tweeting this post. Thanks!
You are so right on so many levels. I would take quality over quantity. I have had ideas which are terrific but I tend to spread them across the board. I am a fairly new blogger myself and I feel that if I am consistent with how often I blog then nothing out of the ordinary will happen.
I am trying to write one post per day but have a hard time finding interesting things to write about.
Since my blog is so new, i must write at least 1 post a day.
No You MUST NOT write one article a day. There is no limit. Age of the blog doesn’t give you any right. If you are having a hard time producing interesting content. Don’t do it. Because when a new user come to your site, he will see that you are putting out content just to fill up your blog… Not for the user’s benefit.
The biggest determinant of quality that I have found is uninterrupted time. Posts take up to four hours to write (and you can really tell the ones that didn’t take much time), but it is very rare that I can come back to a draft and complete it.
For the most part, I start a couple of posts each week. Then the phone rings, or the net goes down or it gets too late, so I discard them.
The other thing, though, is that the most popular posts are always surprises. The ones that I think are sure to get attention get a trickle of views. So the best thing is to be passionate, to put your best effort into each post. You may be surprised when you write about something as mundane as file formats and it accounts for half your views years later.
An advice that I once got from Merlin Mann of 43foldres.com was don’t discard those posts. Instead save them becaue each time you are discarding half of your work. I do it very often.
Sometimes when you are writing a really long post it happens. You think its becoming a burden, and you don’t want to write it anymore, but it is a good post.
Stop then take a break come back tommorrow and finish that post.
One more comment:
When you write, find tools that get out of your way. If you spend your time fighting your tools, you will wear yourself out. The drag will affect your motivation and the quality of your content.
From what I’ve seen, the write-too-often idea ensnares new bloggers who feel that their blogs will become their full-time incomes. People fail to realize that supporting oneself through professional writing (online or off) is as difficult and time-consuming as any other full-time job.
– @lnxwalt
Yes. Making money online through a blog is not easy. People think it is easy but really it is not. Alot of hard work goes into it.
[...] days ago, Syed Balkhi published one of his best posts lately: “Consistency & Frequency Are The Ultimate Downfall of Blogging“. While Syed was probably looking – as he stated at the article’s end – for a bit of [...]
Awesome post Syed! I love it man…I try to tell folks this all the time.
Just posting and posting stuff worth reading are two different things.
I know I haven’t been around much, been busy, but I read you stuff via email…I just had to comment on this one man.
thanks.
I am a follower of Neil; I know that is content is meaningful and gets a lot of responses but I still would like to see more content even if it was only once a week post that would be fine.
I don’t think that being consistent should be looked at as being a bad thing, if you are making money off your blog then it is a job/career and if you just stopped going in to work with out warning for a day, week, month, year or whatever do you really think your job will still be there when you came bake?
Great article again Syed. I also used to post everyday and found that my content was less effective. I now post 1-3 times a week and really spending time putting together content that people will use over and over again.
I think it just comes down to doing your best each time you post, and if that is everyday then great, if it is once a week then that is great as well. Just be sure to create quality content that serves your readers.
I am agree with you at this point and I appreciate this article. The popular and successful blog give benefit to visitor via their article, quality freebies, a way to interact through commenting and many more. A blog must content with all these quality by these it will be interesting and visitor will be happy with it.
I loved this post – thanks for writing it. I am a fairly new blogger and I was told that at one point that it was important to post at least once a day. Now I manage a site with a number of guest authors – and we go out of the way to post once a week – so our readers know when to look for the new content. Not sure if that’s the best way to go or not – like I said – still learning….
My blog is new so I am doing 1 post a day,sometimes 2
Consistency is a problem that a lot of people struggle with. I do agree, that with blogging, it’s necessary to show that you care, by posting regularly
Blogging is like an extra job on the side; it can take alot of time, wich you will have to invest day in day out.
I’m trying to post 1-2 posts a day. I can manage it so far. Sometimes I throw a 15 minute post and sometimes I throw in 1-2 hours post (usually on review posts or how-to/guide posts)
This is an interesting view to take Syed, especially from a blogger. I personally never got into blogging as I was never motivated enough to post consistently. If I can take the routine out of it all, then perhaps I could make it work. I guess a lot of it does come down to blogging about something that truly interests you.
It is nice to see a different take on producing content. Most of us, as you said, learn that the “best” way to gain traffic and reader loyalty is to post often. And sometimes this just is not the case. Thanks for the article.
Good post.
Being fresh to blogging has made me realize that I can only write posts of quality only but once a week. Since most of my posts rely on design work that I do in my free time, they tend to get put on the back burner. Like you said, I try and keep it quality over quantity for sure.
[...] Syed Balkhi published one of his best posts lately: “Consistency & Frequency Are The Ultimate Downfall of Blogging“. While Syed was probably looking – as he stated at the article’s end – for [...]
Thanks for showing me the way how to blog. From now on, I’m not going to post, but I’m going to think and upgrade my knowledge.
Thanks againg for the great tips
I also used to post everyday and found that my content was less effective. I now post 1-3 times a week and really spending time putting together content that people will use over and over again.