Monkey Box

Blog updating frequency should be a major consideration for any blogger. If you’re one of the many webmasters wondering how often you should add new content, ask yourself some of the following questions:

Do you want to maintain your blog traffic or do you want to consistently build the traffic? Do you have an established blog or website and want to change the frequency of your updates? Is it possible to post to frequently? How long should my posts be? I’ll try to answer some of these very common questions.

If you want to build traffic to your blog I suggest posting one new article per day. Posting two to four articles a week will maintain your traffic. Anything less than that and you will see traffic fall and your blog will be a ghost town. Search engines such a Google like to index sites that are frequently updated with fresh, original content. Also, on blog search engines like Technorati the most recent articles will show up at the top of the search results, so it’s necessary to post frequently so your articles are indexed at the top.

There’s always a flip side. What about too many posts? Don’t burn out your readers by posting too frequently. I realize most people don’t have this problem, but I wanted to point out the fact that it’s possible to post too often. I subscribe to many blogs and it seems lately that some of the bigger tech sites are posting as many as 40-50 new articles a day. I don’t know about you, but I can’t process that much information. I might even unsubscribe from an RSS feed if they have a machine gun posting style.

With this said, you are still asking, “How long should my articles be”? Obviously if you write shorter posts you can write more posts. But if your articles are thin or you are posting just to post, your readers will know. To give you an idea about the length of post; I would consider most of posts on monkey-box.com to be of medium length. Stay away from super long posts because you will burn out your readers. I try to avoid one paragraph posts, because if I don’t have more to say, I will wait another day or find something else to write about.

What is your blog about. If you have a tech blog and talk about the latest gadget you will have to update your blog more frequently. Maybe as many as 3-5 times a day. There are lots of new gadget coming out everyday, not to mention that your readers will be ferocious information junkies. On the other hand, if your running a celebrity gossip blog, for example, you could probably get away with one juicy scandal a day.

Finally, consider your readers. If you’ve been posting 5 blogs a week for months and suddenly triple your output, you may burn out your subscribers. Also, if your an inconsistent blogger or suddenly go from 10 posts a week down to 4 a week, you’ll lose readers. If you want your traffic to be consistent, you must be consistent. After you’ve been blogging for a few months, it’ll get easier to measure your traffic. When I first began blogging, I would actually check my AWStats for unique ips and compared the info. to the number of blog posts I made. After a few months of posting 1-3 post per day, I was able to see exactly how my posts were affecting traffic. Just like the stock market, you can’t always get a good idea of how things are going on a day to day basis, but if you look at a 90 day period and have detailed notes about your traffic and posts, you’ll get a better idea of what works best for your blog.

How often do you blog?

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Blog updating frequency should be a major consideration for any blogger. If you’re one of the many webmasters wondering how often you should add new content, ask yourself some of the following questions:

Do you want to maintain your blog traffic or do you want to consistently build the traffic? Do you have an established blog or website and want to change the frequency of your updates? Is it possible to post to frequently? How long should my posts be? I’ll try to answer some of these very common questions.

If you want to build traffic to your blog I suggest posting one new article per day. Posting two to four articles a week will maintain your traffic. Anything less than that and you will see traffic fall and your blog will be a ghost town. Search engines such a Google like to index sites that are frequently updated with fresh, original content. Also, on blog search engines like Technorati the most recent articles will show up at the top of the search results, so it’s necessary to post frequently so your articles are indexed at the top.

There’s always a flip side. What about too many posts? Don’t burn out your readers by posting too frequently. I realize most people don’t have this problem, but I wanted to point out the fact that it’s possible to post too often. I subscribe to many blogs and it seems lately that some of the bigger tech sites are posting as many as 40-50 new articles a day. I don’t know about you, but I can’t process that much information. I might even unsubscribe from an RSS feed if they have a machine gun posting style.

With this said, you are still asking, “How long should my articles be”? Obviously if you write shorter posts you can write more posts. But if your articles are thin or you are posting just to post, your readers will know. To give you an idea about the length of post; I would consider most of posts on monkey-box.com to be of medium length. Stay away from super long posts because you will burn out your readers. I try to avoid one paragraph posts, because if I don’t have more to say, I will wait another day or find something else to write about.

What is your blog about. If you have a tech blog and talk about the latest gadget you will have to update your blog more frequently. Maybe as many as 3-5 times a day. There are lots of new gadget coming out everyday, not to mention that your readers will be ferocious information junkies. On the other hand, if your running a celebrity gossip blog, for example, you could probably get away with one juicy scandal a day.

Finally, consider your readers. If you’ve been posting 5 blogs a week for months and suddenly triple your output, you may burn out your subscribers. Also, if your an inconsistent blogger or suddenly go from 10 posts a week down to 4 a week, you’ll lose readers. If you want your traffic to be consistent, you must be consistent. After you’ve been blogging for a few months, it’ll get easier to measure your traffic. When I first began blogging, I would actually check my AWStats for unique ips and compared the info. to the number of blog posts I made. After a few months of posting 1-3 post per day, I was able to see exactly how my posts were affecting traffic. Just like the stock market, you can’t always get a good idea of how things are going on a day to day basis, but if you look at a 90 day period and have detailed notes about your traffic and posts, you’ll get a better idea of what works best for your blog.

How often do you blog?

Trackback URI | Comments RSS