One of the things that going away and not checking your RSS feeds for a month can do for you is help identify who is blogging how much.
I generally clear my bloglines account every day. As a result I don’t notice from day to day which of my 350 or so feeds are updating frequently.
Being away for four weeks has left me confronting 7000+ unread items (many of which I won’t read). However in scanning through them I’m surprised to see how little some of my favorite bloggers are posting. In 30 days some of them posted less than 5 times.
I won’t embarrass anyone by naming names – however some of them are pretty prominent and in my ‘must read’ list.
On the other hand I also observed that some of the bloggers that I follow are even more prolific at posting than I am – with literally hundreds of posts over the 30 or so days.
I don’t really have a point to make – just an observation that I’ll file away to think through later on.
How often have you posted in the past 30 days?
Overall my blogs or just on a singular blog? ;o))
As we are in an age of information overload, I think less posting regarding to more content is better. Also, I have unsubscribed from feeds posting too much – even if the content was interesting.
The beauty of feeds is, that you don’t need to keep up with everyday expectations which you would have to when you just had a website.
Nicole
I made 60 posts in June. I wasn’t exactly trying, it just sort of worked out that way. I’ve had one recent month where I made all of nine posts. July is shaping up to be around or above that 60 mark as well.
In the past month, I have been posting quite a lot over my 4 sites (much to the disdain of an agreived partner). A quick tally of the past 30 days gives a total of… 95(!) posts. Of course, there are all the comments I have left on various blogs in the last month on top of that. When you factor in that I have only been blogging for 2 months, I think I am doing pretty well!
My fiction site requires a post for each character every day and that has been going for almost a month, in fact, today will see post 50 (25 each). I try to do at least one entry on site per day, but some days there is just more to talk about!
Heh, I took a week off too and I reckon the most valuable thing I got out of the 1000 or so feeds was an overview of who I really couldn’t be arsed to read anymore.
Probloggre, even guest blogged, was naturally a pleasure though ;)
I posted every single day since my blog started, sometimes even twice a day :)
Heat
I agree with Nicole that quality beats quantity every time. I blog for two professional blogs and one personal blog. On average, I post about 60 entries per month.
First off, I recently discovered your blog and I think it is great!
Second off I have recently moved my blog that was just more or less an inconsistent hobby from Blogger to TypePad and I am now making scheduled posts three times a week (M/W/F). Is this a good approach? I feel the time is enough to create relevent posts while balancing my other priorities. Should I move more towards posting daily? My goal is to build a significant traffic base and then look into different ways to monitize that traffic.
I dont see anything wrong with that. I think the main thing you have to do to keep an audience is to post with reqularity. If its once a week, then make sure you post once a week. If your viewers are used to seeing a new post every day, then they will get disappointed and disgruntled if you start to fall away and miss days. 3 times a week (especially during week days, as weekends tend to see a slight drop in viewing figures, well mine do anyway) is a good number, espcially if you can comfortably keep that schedule. It is much better to increase your posts to daily (as far as readership is concerned) than it is to start off daily and then after a while post more infrequently. I’m sure others will have more advice on this matter, but best of luck.
Damien
I post on average 24-28 times in a month- I post once, everyday but saturday, since that is a slow day for my blog.
I try to cram as much info into my posts, but keep them short enough to keep the interest of readers, yet enough info that they come back for more later.
Dan – I think 3 times a week is a good start to get you into the rhythm of posting. I find that new bloggers can bite off more than they can chew early on.
Having said that I’d recommend that you slowly increase your blogging targets.
I guess the question I’d ask is ‘to what level do you want your blog to grow?’
If you’re interested in supplementing your income with it (a small part time income) post accordingly. If you want it to be a full time wage then you’ll need to either find a very lucrative topic or work very hard on writing not only quality but quantities of content.
Once you consistently achieve 3 posts a week (156 posts per year) ramp it up a bit and go for 4 (208 posts per year) and then 5 (260 a year) and then 6….
Oops, I guess my brain cells are fried from posting so much. I actually average about 90-100 entries per month spread between my three blogs.
Dan, I think as a new blogger, you should not set too many goals for yourself. Go with how you feel for a while and see if you can find your natural rhythm. I know if I had started off with high expectations of myself, I would have burned out too soon and blogging would not have been as much fun.
While I’ve been blogging for 1 1/2 years, I’ve only been a problogger for about 2 1/2 months now and it still feels fun mostly because I haven’t given myself too much pressure. Good luck!
Thank you for all the great advice. I will probably stick with 3 posts a week (with a few additional posts each week whenever i feel the need) and then ramp that up to atleast once a day once I have a decent amount of consistent traffic. Ideally I am trying to discover if what I am posting is providing value and then branch out with additional niche blogs that are closely related with Start-Up Guide being the centerpiece of them all.
P.S. On a side note Typepad is incredibly slow today…is that normal?
Welcome back Darren : )
This is a good question…I started posting to my newest blog on June 1st, and today is July 5th, so according to ecto, in just over a month I’ve made 69 posts to this blog, plus 30 to one of my side projects. I had no idea I’d been that prolific. It’s nice to see!
Bloglines changed the way I read blogs. Used to be, I had to click through and hope for the best.
Now, if the site’s good, I can keep it on my list. Drew’s Blog-O-Rama has been away for several months before returning, and Maddox’s “Best page in the universe” is a very infrequent poster.