Most successful blogs post new content every weekday. People looking to start successful blogs look at this and think, “I guess I need to write something every day.” The problem is that inspiration isn’t evenly distributed. One day you may have ideas for 10 posts and the next two weeks–nothing.
To be a productive blogger, you need to learn to use the mountain tops of inspiration to help fill in the valleys where you can’t think of anything to write. This can be as simple as keeping a word processor document of future posts. If your blogging platform supports it, I suggest using the scheduled post feature. Write your post when inspiration strikes but set it to go live when you know you will need a post. You can sit down and write posts for the rest of the week or the rest of the year.
For example, if you take one Saturday each month and write one short post per week for the next month, you’ll have a huge head start. Even if you get busy with other things or can’t think of anything to write about, your blog will remain active.
It takes discipline to schedule a post for later. Once you finish a masterpiece, your first instinct is to put it up so the whole world can see it. This tendency causes many blogs to be sporadic. They will be silent for two weeks and suddenly have a dozen posts go live a 2am Saturday morning. If all your readers are using RSS, this might not be that big of problem, but running a successful blog means getting people to integrate it into part of their daily pattern. Your blog needs to become a habit. Your reader is more likely to return if they know you will have new content every week or every day than if they think it is just random.
Also keep in mind that one of the things people like about blogs is the “bite sized” content. Publishing the equivalent of 50 pages spread out over a bunch of posts all at once is probably going to get less brain share than a single post each week or each day, just because people can’t take all the information in at once.
To summarize: Write your posts when you have the time and inspiration. Post them when it is most convenient to your reader.
I completly agree. Now, whenever I finish a post earlier and I feel satisified with it, I publish it for the next empty day in the future. Also with the help of six great posts by others, I’ve been able to have one post a day since I started my blog.
I’m one of those sporadic bloggers and I think that your post hits the nail right on my head. I’ll check out if I can schedule posts using my blog, but even if I can’t, writing posts in a text file and posting with some sort of consistent frequency should be do-able.
Thanks.
@Percy – If you are using WordPress, you should be able to schedule the post in the future. Look for the “post timestamp” on the right hand side of the page.
I know when I’m blogging that I get to have one day off a week because I’ve asked my friend to write a weekly music post for my blog. Get your friends involved in your blog. You’d be amazed at the amount people who simply want to contribute their thoughts and ideas to a blog but don’t want to deal with the technical aspects of keeping a blog up and running.
Great post and something I need to take on board. But here’s a question: I have some spare time at the moment and can post 4 – 5 times a day. Is that ‘wrong’? Should I keep it to one per day and post date the rest? Is posting too many times per day a bad idea?
By the way, happy 6th wedding anniversary for last Saturday!
@Bill — If you post 4 to 5 times per day for a month and then drop of to once or twice per week, then yes, I’d say it is a problem. If you have a lot to say that isn’t time sensitive, I would work on getting two posts per week all set to go for the rest of the year. That way you present a consistently updated blog even if you are too busy to post for a week or so.
If you still have time, go back and fill in with other posts or time sensitive stuff as it comes up. Also keep in mind that if your blog is growing, you’ll have more readers next month than this month. You don’t want to work yourself to death this month and be burned out when you have more readers next month. You are better off spreading things out at a reasonable rate to make the most of future readers.
Mark – thanks for replying. good advice. I’ve written a couple of posts that are now out to a week and a fortnight away and, while I’d like to publish them straight away, I’ll hold off and thank myself (and you) in a couple of weeks. :)
I agree, Mark. When the inspiration comes and I produce more posts than what I need, I often feel the urge to post more frequently. But I’ve learned from experience that, just as you said, “the valleys will come”.
In recent months I’ve learned to resist the urge and keep posting with my normal schedule. I’ll save the other posts as my “backup posts”. This way, when the valleys come, I will always have something to post and my blog is regularly updated as a result. In my case, I try to maintain at least a week worth of backup post.
I think the key is finding the right rhythm for us
One thing I’ve learned to do is when I first load up the WordPress page I am sure to change the timestamp right away for a couple of days later. That way I don’t “forget.”
But great advice Mark on resisting that natural urge.
Whenever I have lots of ideas to write about, I would create a draft post immediately and stuff it with keywords on what the post is all about.
When a time comes when I can’t think of what to write about, revisiting these drafts definitely helps. With these drafts, it’s all about creating sentences and joining all keywords together to come out with one blog post.
Those inspiration time frame just don’t open all the time and when it does, it’s good to jot down immediately.