There's a simple reason we see big bloggers posting every single day, or even three times a day.
It's not because that's the best way to grow your blog's audience. It's because posting all the time is the best way to make money when your blog is already popular. Most health blogs are paid based on pageviews, and in the short run, you can get more of those by writing more posts.
But that first part is so important.
Posting every day is not the best way to grow your blog's readership.
I know from experience. My blog became way more popular when I made the decision to start posting only two to four times a week. My rule was this: If you don't have something good to post, don't post at all.
But I realize now that even that rule allowed too much subpar content to make it to the front page of my blog.
Recently, I've been reading and listening to a lot from Jon Morrow, associate editor of Copyblogger and frickin' inspiring dude, and his advice is more strict:
If you don't expect a post to get tons of links and traffic, why bother writing it?
Jon grew a blog from nothing to over a thousand subscribers in a couple of months with this strategy. His advice has inspired me to reduce the number of posts I write on each of my blogs to one post per week.
One. Less than one-twentieth the number of posts of a three-times-daily blogger. Here's why.
1. You get more links.
As Jon Morrow wrote in a recent Copyblogger post, "One well-written, well-thought-out blog post can get you more links and traffic than hundreds of hurried ones."
Even if you have enough truly good ideas to write a post every day or three times a day, I highly doubt you have the time required to produce something awesome with that frequency. Nothing against you, of course—I don't think anybody can produce great content so quickly.
And that's why so many big blogs rely on help from guest posters. Speaking of which…
2. You have more time to write guest posts.
Writing a guest post on a popular blog takes the same amount of time as writing one for your own blog, and it reaches hundreds or thousands of readers who don't already know about you.
But most bloggers are so busy trying to fulfill some perceived need for a new post on their blog every day that they wait around for guest post offers rather than going after them. I suspect that many even view writing a guest post as a favor, not the huge opportunity that it is.
More on guest posting and Jon Morrow's new site at the end of the post.
3. Your great posts have more time on the homepage and you have more time promote them.
Lots of people promote their blog homepages. But the fact is, individual posts stand a far greater chance of going viral than your blog homepage does.
Next time you write a great post, take a day or two off from posting, and spend whatever time you would have spent writing other posts on promoting your great one instead. Not your blog, but the post.
Leave comments on similar blogs that politely mention your post, if it's relevant. Email a blog friend and ask for a link or a retweet.
Chances are, they'll ask the same thing of you one day. Then you'll have a little partnership, and everyone wins.
4. Fewer readers unsubscribe from your blog.
People don't unsubscribe from blogs because there aren't enough posts. They unsubscribe because there are too many posts.
If I don't get a chance to open my RSS reader for two days because I'm at a race or on a weekend trip or life just gets in the way, I don't want to see that I missed five posts from you. To think otherwise of your readers is pretty darn egotistical, isn't it? It's too much to get caught up on, and nobody likes being behind.
Readers unsubscribe because they can't keep up. A blog that doesn't update all that often doesn't set off any red flags demanding attention in a reader or inbox. One that updates too much most certainly does, and the result is readers who unsubscribe.
5. You have more time to nurture your business.
Running is a successful blog is about so much more than producing quality posts.
What can you do with the extra time you have as a result of posting less?
How about these: Setup an email newsletter, work on your ebook, pay special attention to a reader by emailing him or her, write thoughtful responses to your comments, read your readers' blogs, read blogs you'd like to guest post on to get a feel for what type of content they like, network on Twitter, tweak your design, brainstorm ways to do something remarkable, study search engine optimization.
Or get out of the house and live a little. Then you'll have something great to write about.
Jon Morrow's new Guest Blogging program
I mentioned Jon Morrow and how much I've learned from him. Well, good news. He has a brand new site called guestblogging.com, where right now you can access a series of videos about the mechanics of making guest blogging work for you. (Jon has said he's going to take them down soon, though, so don't wait.)
He's also just launched his Guest Blogging Apprenticeship program, where he'll be teaching bloggers how to land big guest posts and make the most of the opportunity. I joined yesterday, and I figured maybe you'd like to know about it. It's not cheap, but Jon has so much good stuff to teach that I'm sure his program will eventually pay for itself.
No affiliate relationship, just a recommendation. He's only letting 250 people in. Hope to see you there.
Post less this week, and enjoy all that extra time!
This is an awesome post, and a great site. I thought posting a ton of little things would engage my readers, but boy was I wrong. It's true, one really good post will get you a lot farther than 20 crappy ones that no one cares about.
I used to post twice a day. It didn't matter if I had anything good, I just thought that I needed to post that magical twice a day.
I took a short (aka 2 day) break from blogging and came back with a better attitude: to only post when I had something good. I post about once a day to every other day now. Not only are my posts better, but I am more relaxed about blogging now.
[...] Blog Helper gives 5 reasons why you should consider posting less to grow your readership. I always like Matt's posts, and I am definitely considering signing up for his Blog [...]
Maybe it's only a problem in the blog community I read mostly in (raw vegan for the most part) but it is way to easy to slip from one post a week to one a month. Then the blog kind of dies. I think regular posting is important. Three times a day is way too much for the average person. Better to save up the material and have one daily post in my opinion.
I used to post 3 times a day on one of my popular blog and it was good, but the same idea did not quite worked out on a new blog that i was starting. Too many posts on a new blog does lose subscribers and readers, one important reason for this is that the blog is new and so is the readers, take time to make loyal readers that reads everything that you throw at them..
Later i had thought about it and lowered the posting frequency on my popular blog and where i used to get 40 comments, i started getting like 60 to 80. Also the amount of linking back increased, because more people were reading the post and as you pointed out, the quality of posts also improved.
But i did not wanted to post less on my bigger blogs, so i started to make sticky posts on the frontpage that stayed on the frontpage for longer time to get more visibility and only removed them when i had an equally better post to stick there. But on the newer blogs where am working hard to establish the community, i still post a lot less, like one post in 3 to 5 days.
Very interesting. I post daily (even if it is not great stuff) b/c I noticed that I was losing readers if I didn't.
Thoughts?
Many useful points, Thanks!
I am fairly new at blogging and still trying to become a consistent blogger. Have had this idea that it is important to blog as often as possible. Thanks for reminding me it's quality before quantity.