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A perennial debate in Blogistan is whether or not to publish a blog post daily.*
Some say “always daily,” others say “never daily.” I could do a big survey to get some numbers, but it’s not necessary. Some big time bloggers publish every day, others don’t. Same with not-so-big-timers.
In truth, the answer depends on you. If you think you can handle daily publishing, consider trying it out for a month or two.
Here’s 3 benefits I’ve found from daily publishing:
- Daily publishing builds traffic. You are practically forced to write in more depth and breadth to keep yourself invested and your reader’s interest high.
- Daily publishing maintains momentum. This momentum is both your momentum and reader’s momentum. It’s easy once you get going. For me, cranking out an article is often (though not always) the high point of my day.
- Daily publishing provides focus. Since it’s non-negotiable, you don’t have to worry or be anxious about publishing. Just sit down and write something, then worry about what else you need to get done.
I’ve been threatening to cut back on posting daily since at least before Thanksgiving 2009, but I have so much material yet to cover, and little announcements like Facebook’s a couple of days ago (April, 2010) ensures I’ll have even more material to cover. So, maybe I’ll cut back in the future, maybe I won’t.
Now on a semi-weekly schedule
It’s now January 27, 2012, and Website In A Weekend is publishing about three times per month. This is a sustainable schedule for the amount of traffic which is visiting. Traffic isn’t growing, but the traffic plateau has been stable over the last 16 months.
That’s pretty cool if you think about it: free eyeballs for work long since completed.
We’re going forward with a new plan: daily monitoring of traffic statistics, and updating articles which are getting relevant, targeted traffic. It’s the content audit part of a content strategy.
Are you publishing a blog post daily? Why or why not?
I wrote a blog today.
or
I’m going to write a blog about it.
I’m not sure you can imagine how much this creeps me out.
I just don’t have time, and I’m a firm believer in writing only when you have something valuable to say.
I think it’s a disservice to my readers to push content on them that is less than my best.
Some can do it well, but it doesn’t work for me.
If you read the recent problogger survey, you’ll see that one of the biggest reasons people unsub is because of too frequent posting…interesting.
.-= Nathan Hangen – Digital Emperor´s last blog ..How to JV Your Way to Success =-.
Nathan, always glad to have you stop by.
Your comment interests me for several reasons, but primarily because you imply that daily publishing indicates sub-par material, regardless of who’s of writing… and that daily publishing (by implication) is a disservice to readers.
Since I publish daily, should I take this as criticism? And if so, why, when my numbers show it’s working for me?
No one should publish daily if it doesn’t work for them.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Hostest With the Mostest – Being a good neighbor on shared hosting =-.
I’m right in the middle of you two.
*happy sigh*
When I post daily, my numbers get really big and really happy. I think my people do, too – I get more e-mail, more comments, more RTs on Twitter (for each post, and cumulatively).
At the same time, I don’t want to post drivel – and Dave, you KNOW I am NOT talking about your pieces – or burn myself out or sacrifice my income-generating client time.
One thing I value about posting daily is the practice and craft of it. I improve rapidly because I write a lot, every day.
So I’m torn. I want to post daily but I think creative, provocative, daily posting (for me) is unsustainable until I’m independently wealthy and have minions to vacuum and send invoices for me.
FYI: I am currently accepting volunteer applications for these positions. I think in the corporate world this is called an “internship”.
(In The Real World aka my head it is called exploitation.)
Hahha! “Writing is hard.” Don’t I know it.
You (and Nathan) have good reasons to NOT post daily.
I have good reason to post daily.
All good.
(It’s the vacuuming that kills me. And the grocery shopping. Lesser Mortal Sh^Htuff.)
Kelly… I like your blog, great stuff! ;)
I am sorry to say I won’t apply for the voluntary post you offer…
I live alone… and this housework crap among other life stuff that needs dealing with is a real timesuck!
Need a mrs I do lol… once I sorted that… we can share the load then! :)
I digress…
This is the main reason for me not posting daily on my main two, (I do have other blogs too, so I am trimming all the rest down) and hope to put more effort into less, so I can post daily and better stuff too. :D
Oh to be rich enough to hire though…
.-= rob sellen´s last blog ..Money can’t buy happiness =-.
Dave,
You’ve been a bit fired up lately…is everything alright?
.-= Nathan Hangen – Digital Emperor´s last blog ..How to JV Your Way to Success =-.
“People don’t like weakness as a general rule, so don’t show it in your marketing, or in anything you do. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling your brains, your skills, your services or your product – you need to walk the talk of your A-game, or they’ll smell your self-doubts and walk away.”
Stiff upper lip, bud, stiff upper lip. =)
Downshift. Accelerate.
For the record, no one in this community has seen me really fired up… all things in their own time.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..On Literary Pranks & Other Forms of Gentle Mischief =-.
Nice quote…really like that :)
It’s cool man, just making sure.
For the record, I wasn’t critiquing your approach, because honestly, I don’t read blogs all that often anymore (lots goes into that decision).
That’s just what works for me. On the other hand, about half of my content goes elsewhere, including my own “satellites,” and guest posts.
.-= Nathan Hangen – Digital Emperor´s last blog ..How to JV Your Way to Success =-.
And I guess I should add that the reason I don’t post daily to boost traffic is because traffic doesn’t matter to me as much as sales do…and the ROI from creating and marketing products is much higher than blogging…at least in my case.
.-= Nathan Hangen – Digital Emperor´s last blog ..How to JV Your Way to Success =-.
My goal is to be in your situation sooner than later. I have a few more axes to grind between now and then.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Road Ahead – David Risley got me to spill the beans =-.
Language evolves. Even the French can’t stop it The only thing worse than misuse of language is language police.
.-= Ralph´s last blog ..The Opinion of Others – John Wooden =-.
Heh… yep. And now I know how the language police feel!
I’m not going to harp on it, probably won’t ever mention it again. But it is something worth noticing. I’m curious whether it will catch on.
even worse than the language police are the girl police. Trust me.
I share your dislike of the misuse of the word blog. But I think it’s a very American thing to turn nouns into verbs. I always remember Stormin’ Norman telling us his guys were “recreating” for a few days during the Gulf war!
I would love to post daily. I would love to have the time to post daily. I would love to have the time to do enough stuff so that I have something to write a good post about daily.
Hopefully, these people mean that they wrote an entire collection of dozens of blog posts, which they set up and scheduled to be published on a blog. Hence, “writing a blog” would be the perfectly acceptable way to discuss this.
.-= Sean *Deacon* Neprud´s last blog ..Dispatch: The Living Deadline and The Sea Of Lonely =-.
Sean, if you had the blessing of management, you could easily write quality articles as part of your design process!
Shifting gears as you do is much more difficult.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..On Literary Pranks & Other Forms of Gentle Mischief =-.
“I wrote a blog today.” That phrase makes me sad.
Anyway, you already know I don’t post daily. This is largely to do with my own time constraints, but I think that even if I did have the time I wouldn’t want to be publishing that often.
Quick reasons:
- It takes me quite a while to write most of my blog posts anyway due to their nature.
- I have to research for reviews and tutorials, sometimes this can take a day in and of itself.
- My focus is on creating 3D and artwork (at least in theory, still working on getting the balance right here)
- Not entirely sure what I’d say in additional posts; I like my blog to have some structure in its days.
- There’s plenty of other things I could be doing to help my business (like, say, creating products).
That said, if I’m ever in the position where people are regularly contributing to my site I’d be perfectly happy to post daily. Would see it as a good thing, its just not something I’m able/prepared to do at this stage.
When I started writing seriously in Feb. 2009, the notion of publishing daily would have struck me as absurd. I didn’t have enough material, didn’t know enough.
By the first of June 2009, I had read in a number of places that daily posting was how a lot of very successful bloggers achieved success. By that time I had a considerable backlog of ideas, and I committed to publishing something daily.
It was hard at first. It would take me hours to write something worth publishing. 300 articles later, I can write an article of comparable quality in 1/4 to 1/3 that time.
And it’s getting easier. Long, research heavy articles still require time to gather the data, but the writing goes fast afterwards.
I can assure, Heather, from 15 years of banging code, if you simply jot down a few notes as you go, on a regular basis, you will collect a stupendous amount of material worthy of publication.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Warping WordPress into a “pretty website” =-.
In that case I’ll have to start taking notes regularly – thanks for that one :)
Who knows, somewhere down the line I may end up posting daily; until then I’m just learning really (actually, I’ll continue to learn even then, but you know what I mean). Could see how it’d happen for definite though, already starting to have days where I’m just dying to post something.
Punch your notes into gmail, then send them to post@posterous.com (Or private@posterous.com).
Sending to Posterous will allow you to build a very large pool of material you can dip into in the future, and it takes no more time that taking notes on paper.
Put your URL in your signature, erase the “–” and you will get a link back as well. Not good for page rank, but Posterous is indexed, and it will lead people back to your site.
Sounds like a good idea, I’ll check it out. Never really looked at Posterous before though I’ve heard of it. :)
Heather I agree with Dave on the posterous, I use it too, ( http://robsellen.posterous.com ), simply put I use it like a half way thing between a blog and twitter, if that makes sense, email direct from feed reader too, ~ but for what Dave said here for you would be spot on… you can even have a private one for your future reference and rearranging,, stuff you need to research etc, feeds, whatever, all for a better polished thing later or something. ;)
Easy to start… just send an email to posterous@posterous.com and away ya go, then claim it, that really has to the easier ever blog set up!
I couldn’t believe it when I first saw it, more so when I saw all the “autoposting” to vaious places.
.-= rob sellen´s last blog ..The Portland Bill site and what’s next =-.
Your last thought cracked me up. You are correct, I cannot imagine how much it creeps you out. Of course, I mostly tend to use it as a verb, “I blogged today”.
Whack!
“Thanks for the headslap, Boss”.
.-= Trece´s last blog ..Minimalism? Um, not so much =-.
That’s not so bad.
If anyone were to accuse me of having an agenda with respect to “publishing” blog posts, I’d have to say, “Of course.” =)
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Building Outposts: Amplify Your Blog Post in Seconds =-.
My wife started using “blog” to mean comment. Very irritating. As for posting, I ahve read 3 different opinions of this in the past half hour. I like posting every day (but Sunday) myself. There may be a point where that is too much, but one of my main goals at my site is to practice writing every day. I want to say that I am a professional writer so I have to put out content without excuses. Plus readers are going up, comments are coming slowly, SEO is taking shape. all of this from daily posting for nearly 4 months. If anything, I would say you need to post daily (except Sunday) for the first few months of your blog to get established. But that is how I feel.
.-= Justin Matthews´s last blog ..An Icthyologist or a Sportsman? =-.
Justin, it gets so much easier the more you practice. When you’re building specific skills, say, developing inciting incidents, or titles or whatnot, you can deliberately practice that skill.
Check this out: http://www.littleboxofideas.com/blog/365-vector-characters-project/project-365-vector-characters-101-to-107
Now that’s deliberate practice!
One of my favorite artists, Rex Ray, did the same sort of thing: daily work with collages for a couple of years. He credits this practice as crucial for developing his fluency.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..On Literary Pranks & Other Forms of Gentle Mischief =-.
Until I am perfect, I must practice…thanks Dave
Dave –
I think that daily blogging is very important during the early stages. My experience tells me that whenever I publish a post the traffic goes up.
Having said that, I do not post daily. Time constraints. However, understanding the value of daily posts I am constantly looking at ways to be more efficient in other areas with a view to posting daily …
.-= Valentina´s last blog ..Wonder Wheel – Great Tool for Cluster Blog Posting =-.
Valentina, you could cut most of your articles in half and post them in two parts.
Not that there is anything wrong with long articles, far from it. But there’s many ways to skin this cat.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..hRecipe – Semantic Recipes for WordPress (Google loves these) =-.
I would think with a pre-writing discipline coupled with some spur of the moment shorter [maybe more current] posts one should be able to maintain a daily posting schedule. Especially if they have a steady guest post stream to add to the mix. You seem to do a good job of all of the above [I am making some assumptions here]. For someone not so disciplines {did you see my hand go up?} this is not going to happen. Then again, I like non-regularity of some people. It makes me more interested in what they have to say since they don’t post every single day.
As far as the casual interchanging of blog for blog post, I find it a bit irritating. It bugs the literal part of me that knows there is a difference between a blog and a blog post and don’t believe one should be substituted for the other. Then again, I still have trouble with the single space after a period and have taught all of my children to correct grammar as a matter of reflex. ;)
.-= Anne Bender´s last blog ..Scherzettino, Performed by Megan Bender & Nitza Kats =-.
Anne, you pretty much nailed it. I use a combination of a lot of techniques to keep it flowing.
Here’s more:
* I do my absolute best every time, even when my absolute best isn’t so good. It happens. But there’s that “quality in quantity” effect at work.
* I’m also writing a lot of content that doesn’t appear here on the website. When you write a lot, it’s easier.
* Everything else I do as part of building out this platform can be rolled in, including plugins, design, writing, everything.
* I don’t write every article to “get comments.” Some of what I write is pointed square at search engines.
It’s working well for me.
The daily momentum is strong. Or the other way around, not posting daily (or on any set schedule, e.g. 5 times a week) makes you lose the momentum, I’ve noticed this first-hand couple of times during the last year. When things are moving, it’s a lot less effort to keep it that way than kick-start the standstill.
.-= Antti Kokkonen´s last blog ..Do less =-.
Momentum is a Big Deal for me.
It lets me get stuff done that would otherwise not happen.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..The Fear – And Consequences – Of Failure =-.
Yeah, posting daily is a good thing, but sometimes you just can’t. I think if a person is not in the mood to write then he/she shouldn’t. Quality content is what people are looking for, and posting for th sake of posting is just wrong. But, publishing frequently is very important, it just don’t have to be daily.
.-= Elena´s last blog ..Submit And Share Your Russianized Images =-.
Strangely, I have found my quality – overall – has improved considerably with my commitment to post daily.
I suspect it has to do with amount of writing. The more writing I do, the better I get at writing.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..On Literary Pranks & Other Forms of Gentle Mischief =-.
I’ve had some results that might shock you and your readers. I experimented over several months with posting twice a day, then with posting once a day.
The more often I posted, the more traffic I got and the better I did in Alexa etc.
BUT, the more I posted, the less I sold.
How weird is that? When I upped my frequency I got lots of general traffic, but traffic to my sales pages actually went down. When I dropped the frequency, the reverse happened.
I have a theory, but I can’t prove it. I think when people are too busy consuming the content on your site, they don’t spend time visiting the other parts of it, like sales pages.
But I’d be interested in anyone else’s thoughts.
Not shocking at all.
The key, I think, is that everyone’s experience is going to differ.
This time last year, I had very little traffic, and was posting about twice a week. Once I made the commitment to post daily, my traffic started to increase. More importantly, my newsletter signups increased right along with traffic.
Once I started promoting, traffic went way up. However, I would much rather write than promote.
Here’s my plan starting June 1: No more daily articles from me. After June 1, it will be a mix of guest posts, staff writers and maybe 2 or 3 from me weekly, one of which will likely be in the 2000-3000 word range. Glenn Allsop, Yaro Starak, Steve Pavlina and others have done well with long articles, I believe I can do well also. And I like writing long articles as well.
Slight digression… Speaking of length Ryan, Diess’s latest promotion “long sales letters are dead” is silly. He just reads his long sales letter right of his powerpoint slides. That’s a little over the line in my book.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..hRecipe – Semantic Recipes for WordPress (Google loves these) =-.
You two, with these comments have just me me think, and something sparked an idea for me, thanks for that… :)
.-= rob sellen´s last blog ..Blogging is endless improvement =-.
Daily posting would kill most of the time I’d normally actually devote to the hobby I write about on my blog. I put building experiences to write about ahead of setting a quota of how much I need to write about them.
.-= K. Praslowicz´s last blog ..Tammy The Tanning Extraordinaire =-.
That makes sense. Your product is photographs.
I bet posting daily on IUTBS would improve traffic there though. Maybe you are, haven’t checked lately.
Heh… never mind… you are posting more or less daily on IUTBS!
I’ll put it back in my feed, rebuilding that.
I’d love to post daily on IUTBS, but the content model requiring me to collect posts from the readers can make the frequency ebb & flow. My little promo has given me a decent amount to work with for the time being, but I’ll probably have to shift down to every other day until I get more coming in.
I really need to ask a bunch of sites for a spot on their blogroll to help get that traffic going better, which in turn should lead to more content being submitted.
.-= K. Praslowicz´s last blog ..Tammy The Tanning Extraordinaire =-.
Promotion is really hard work for me.
I get the feeling it’s hard work for you as well.
I normally publish blog posts daily- 1, 2, or even 3 short articles. I’m doing that way since it’s the main objective of the my blog. To provide something what’s new on the web… But if I really don’t have time to blog for a particular day, I just schedule at least 1 pre-written article to be published automatically. I think blog posting frequency really depends on your niche and target readers.
.-= Bert Padilla´s last blog ..Free Zemana AntiLogger Download (3 Year License) =-.
Bert, you really put the finger on it: it does depend on what you’re after.
Pete Cashmore built Mashable by posting 3-5 times per, for years. Worked for him.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..The Fear – And Consequences – Of Failure =-.
I don’t write everyday yet I completely agree with what you are saying. I wish that I could, but then I would be neglecting my clients, which is the main reason I’m blogging! :)
Sprinkling in some guest posts can take the pressure off, though. That’s how all of the monster bloggers are doing it.
.-= Tia´s last blog ..Featured: What to do When No One is Commenting: 10 Tips =-.
monsterbloggers.com and monsterblogger.com are both taken.
Grrr…
I’ve been doing well with the guest post sprinkling. Every Monday is guest post day here.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..hRecipe – Semantic Recipes for WordPress (Google loves these) =-.
Oh really? Hmm. Good to know.
I meant to add in my last comment that nothing irks me more than see “blog” as a verb or as a synonym for “post,” either. It kinda makes me gag. :)
In fact… CommentLuv’s little intro does that. Irritating but can’t toss the baby out with the bathwater (who tosses bathwater?)
Cheers,
Tia
I just noticed that.
I am sure that blurb can be changed, and I am going to bug Andy Bailey (CommentLuv) to change the default text.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..On Literary Pranks & Other Forms of Gentle Mischief =-.
Seems like you hit on a nerve button here Davo. As I recently wrote in my post on social outposts, I find it’s the same point here too.
I have to limit myself to what I believe is achievable with my schedule. If I commit to posting every day then I’m likely to look inspiration and start dredging up useless crapola.
If I post when I feel inspired, it’s not as predicable yes, and my traffic suffers, but I think it’s good for longevity – traffic wise, and sanity wise ;). It just takes a lot longer to get to where I could be if I posted daily. Double edged sword really.
.-= Josh Kohlbach´s last blog ..The Top 5 Social Outposts I Use And Recommend =-.
Double-edged sword for sure.
It’s taking time out of coding… but coding is invisible whereas writing is visible.
I’m going with visibility for now.
I have my own reasons for posting (virtually) daily.
My blog style has recently had a shift, but began as a simple email sent to people who wanted a photo to start their day on a good note. Early on, this evolved into a quote sent with the photo, and posted on my blog site and Flickr.
Recently, at the encouragement of some fabulous blogesses (and IRL friends), I have started adding my own words.
A few have called it poetry. I don’t know what exactly to call it, but it comes from a deep place that requires a quiet spirit to access, so maybe that’s what it is.
Always I have taken the day off of sending/posting whenever I have taken a day off work. So an even more recent shift is to post daily, regardless of my work schedule. In fact, it’s the next thing I’m going to do.
As for reading blogs, well, I have to admit I’m overwhelmed. I have found so much amazing information and so many truly inspiring people, that I’m honoured to call friends.
I want to read everything they have to say, and I don’t have enough hours in the day. That said, I wish my most favourite bloggers blogged every day because I simply can not get enough of them (you know exactly who you are).
And, yes, I have seen an increase in traffic and comments, but I’m still little league. Within a few months I’ll reveal an all new self-hosted WordPress blog in a co-ordinated multi social network launch, with prizes. I can hardly wait!
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
.-= PicsieChick´s last blog ..One simple demand =-.
I’m looking forward to your launch.
I won’t be posting here every day once summer rolls around, but I will still be writing every day.
It’s a practice I’ve come to enjoy.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..The Fear – And Consequences – Of Failure =-.
As a professional communicator, I’m inwardly – if only marginally – stung by what I’m about to say.
Because it symbolises, at least in my mind, a laziness I’ve never seen in myself before.
But it carries gravitas that I hope will in the end reward, rather than distend, my aspirations.
As of this weekend, I’m shifting down on the frequency of blog posting. Since January 9 I’ve kept a pact with myself to post daily.
I’ve just spent a week reformatting my mind drive. Cleansing of habits and rituals that don’t work for me, starting again.
And I realised that the blog posts just aren’t making me joyful. Not me, not anyone.
They aren’t paying the bills, and they don’t go anywhere. They’re just a vanity project that somehow became something I figured might vaguely become something ever-so-slightly commercially-focused.
And I think I speak for many people here. We all want to become the next monster blogger; if not outwardly, subconsciously.
But blogging is just a sport. It’s a pastime that gets us awareness, raises our profile. What ultimately pays our cerebral spirits wages is in making connections, and from this perspective, blogging is very one-sided and mono-dimensional.
From here on in I’m focusing on community. On helping people directly. On building a business that works, bestows and pays.
It’s been one hell of a ride to here, but I’m concluding, based on the verdict of a jury of one, that it’s connections and relationships that will take us forward from here.
I’m hoping that having won a couple of tickets to the Social Media Success Summit from Chris Garrett recently, that I’ll be able to put my ideas into practice soon, too!
.-= Dave´s last blog ..Reboot: the end, the beginning. =-.
I’ll definitely want to hear all about the Social Media Summit.
I’m still a fan of posting daily even though I don’t personally do that for Free Blog Help anymore. I agree that there’s just so much to cover but quite frankly efficiency is critical to me right now.
I still have daily posts for one of my other sites and it works well for that niche.
I’m going to stop posting daily myself around the first of June (if not sooner). I’ll be writing every day, but posting longer articles a little less frequently, 3 times per week.
I do plan on stepping up my promotional effort, among other things.
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Doing It By The Numbers – Blog Post Engineering =-.
I fully intend to publish daily when I can make it all come together. I even wrote announced it (see the post in CommentLuv) but other priorities are in the way of making it happen right now.
I DO have a plan and I will get there. That will require writing less posts that could be ebooks and more shorter posts instead.
I have no doubt that posting daily is best for those who can find a way to do it.
.-= Gail from GrowMap´s last blog ..New Weekly SMM, WOMM, Affiliate Columns =-.
I’m sneaking this comment in after all the brouhaha has died down.
Everyone assumes I meant posting daily on the same blog. That’s not necessarily the case…
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How To Unlaunch Your Ebook =-.
You’re right – I did assume that. And in that case, you’re also right about daily posting!
That’s a point; definitely something to consider.
.-= Heather´s last blog ..Review: Heroes of Might and Magic V =-.