The weekend is here and I’m looking forward to some fun. You see today is my Son’s first birthday party (his actual birthday is next Friday) and we’re getting together with family and friends to celebrate his first year as well as doing a dedication ceremony (sort of like a Christening). It’s going to be a great day.
Weekends present bloggers with an interesting challenge when it comes to thinking about what to do with their blogs.
‘What do I do with my blog on the weekend?’ is a question I’m often asked.
- Do I post less because people are not online as much?
- Should I post more to try to keep traffic levels up?
- Should I just take a couple of days off for my own well-being (ie get a life)?
- Should I write posts in advance and set them to go off automatically?
- Should I use the weekend to write posts for the next week because I’ve got extra time on my hands?
All of the above strategies are ones that I’ve seen different bloggers use (and most of them I’ve tried myself). There’s no real right or wrong answer I guess – but I’d be interested to know what others do with their blogs on the weekend? Is it blogging as usual or do you change your strategy?
What do you do with your blog on the weekend?
Like you, I have a young child, so weekends are not when I have ‘extra time’ on my hands! In fact, I find I do most of my writing in the lunch hour at work, so weekends are actually a bit harder for me. My blog (www.drawanyway.com) is all about fitting art into the small amounts of time I do have, which is not much.
At the moment, I have a weekly drawing task for my readers – we all have the whole weekend to draw something on the same theme. And on a Sunday I link to an inspirational art site. Readership does drop at the weekend, you’re right, but my readers seem to check in, even if it’s a few days later, to see the weekend task and the link.
On weekend I normally write something brief or I post something funny…
I also try to find the “weekend material” during the week to save some time… I also give advice that, on Monday, I’ll try to post something bold :-)
Everybody has its methods… That’s mine! :-)
Regards from Spain…
I blog at least 6 times a week, write series and articles in advance for periods when I’m busy training or with no inspiration.
I star interesting stuf in my Google reader during workdays and on days off (I often train on weekends) I take the time to read and decide if I want to use it.
I time stamp some articles.
I don’t post less yet because I’m still building the basics for my educational blog on NLP for marketing my business and not for making money on ads.
But who knows, I’m preparing another blog on which I intend tot put ads …
I find when I post on the weekend, my hits for that weekend, plus the following week are much higher. Therefore I write at least one post on Saturday, often two, although they’re usually more news-orientated or linking to other blogs.
I always take Sundays off. I write in the area of health, of which work-life balance is an important component. Posting every day does not fit into my personal ethos, or the message I’m trying to get across to readers.
I catch up on marketing technology! Since I spend all my time posting and reading I have very little time to play with some of the new widgets and websites that are coming out. Lately I have been playing around with spicy page!
I suppose I take a few days off, thought it varies weekly. I do try and write a few posts for the week after, or work on something on my blog, just to get it ready :)
I post 2 or more posts per day on my house blog so Im usually very busy. I notice Sunday my traffic drops to nil, so any free time I do have I usually plan for the week ahead, write up some posts beforehand and fire them off during the next week. Seems to help and give me more time for everything else in life. Great site… I finally got around to RSS’ing it. Duh.
Dave & Anna over at 1916home.net
One more thing I forgot to mention. And I read this someplace DEEP in your blog archives about a blog folder you made. You talked about doing this on monday, that on tuesday, so and so for wednesday, but you trailed off and said yada yada yada etc, etc, etc.
My question to you is: what is your workflow for blogging? I think this would tremendously help all of us bloggers out there. Im so disorganized (says my wife) yet I somehow put it all together. I admit, I could do much better, and a workflow of how you do things would help us out. Id really love both a #1 daily workflow and also #2 a weekly workflow. Thanks if you can deliver!!!
Dave & Anna over at 1916home.net
I usually catch up on weekends and try to do most of my writing for the rest of the week. It is easier for me to do it this way since I can´t guarantee I wll have time to write during the week.
http://www.inmosfera.com
Well, this is only my fourth weekend blogging so my experience is limited. But so far I do work on the blog on weekends (posting as well as tweaking) because I can get some nice stretches of time to focus. It’s just my personality to love having time to get totally absorbed in a project outside the usual routine. But I balance that with offline time outdoors (after all, my blog is about gardening), social time and other R&R. Last weekend I prepared my Sunday entry on Saturday and time-posted it, and I liked that. Since I’m in the early development stage I’m trying to build content, so I don’t really want to take a day off altogether. Plus, I’m having a lot of fun!
For my own blog, I have a guest blogger write up a “weekend discussion.” Some weekends the discussions are really popular and other they get only a couple of comments. I do get more visitors however, than if I just left it for the weekend.
For the blogs I write for others, it depends on whether or not I fulfilled my requirements. Gernally I write at least one post for all my blogs.
For me, I will blog as many as I can on my weekend free time, as sometimes I do go out to have fun with friend. Because I have school on weekdays so I can’t write much, that’s why weekend is like working day for me as a blogger. Cheer!
I get myself busy to do my research, write articles for my blog and get busy with networking! Hi, if you have time, I’ll really appreciate it if you take 30 seconds to visit my blog and drop me a line of your advice. It will mean a lot to me. Thank you!
http://www.bloggingmix.com
I wish your son more blessings and a healthy life. Cheers.
I take weekends off, unless something especially interesting and time-sensitive happens. I put up a graphic every Friday saying I won’t be around and it tends to become an open thread. I often think I’ll write my next week’s posts over the weekend, but I seldom do.
My traffic bottoms out every weekend anyway, so why not? I squeeze one out every weekday. I think predictability helps return visitors.
Since my blog is mainly Track and Field (Athletics) related, most of my traffic comes on Sun or Mon, because that’s the majority of competitions, at least in the USA. In Europe, it doesn’t matter what day of the week the meets are held, but Friday night is the big one. The funny thing is my blog doesn’t cover news or results, but Track fans love information, stats, and gossip! So I write whenever I’m insprired to write.
Sadly, I prepare the outlines for eleven posts on my two blogs!
It is time to get a life.
Jonathan
On one of my blogs, I do a speedlinking-style (with a twist) post. It’s called the Weekly WTH on Tuesdays (example: http://redwallhp.ntugo.com/2007/06/12/weekly-wth-june-12-2007/).
On my other blogs, I don’t do anything special yet, but I’ve been thinking of doing something similar on Webmaster-Source.com on Saturdays.
From September-March, I tend to get less posting done because I’m not around my computer much.
It must really depend on the type of blog – though I find traffic levels plummet over the weekend on all the different sites I am involved in. So it just seems a waste to write “something for the weekend” when very few people are potentially going to read it…
My blog traffic dips considerably on the weekends and I’m of no mind to fight it. Instead, as it’s usually a catchup time for me, I’ll compose a few posts to go up Monday or even later in the week if they’re more fun and not as time sensitive.
I usually spend the weekends reading other peoples blogs, then after hours of reading and admiring some fantastic blogs so many wonderful people have created I sit back and just stare at my own blog and realize my blog sucks :(
Oh my, I am not pleased about being comment number 66, sorry I had comment again for know other reason than to be number 67.
I never take a day off. I work, work and work. Because I’ve school and I get only the evening to blog. And, for me, blogging is the “weekend” activity. :)
Because I work full time through the week, the weekends are when I can take the time to write longer, more involved stories. I do take time off from the sponsored posts on weekends, simply because there aren’t as many to choose from.
I’ll post just one post on Saturday, and one post of Sunday. If I have addicted readers, they’ll get their fix (not to say that my blog is all that hot… well, it is. It’s blazin’), we’ll start a discussion, and those who’ve taken a break during those days will come back on Monday ready to see what they’ve missed, and catch up.
Ultimately, I believe if you’re a new blogger your ass needs to be blogging, and building as much content as possible. But if you are a PROBLOGGER, and you have the readership, comments, and Google [profits], you can relax a little on the weekend. You deserve it, damnit!
– Ask Trew Life
On the weekends , I go the “get a life” route. While I put up two posts each day as I normally would, one of those on Saturday is just a link roundup of interesting reads, and on Sunday there’s a music video pick. Not too much work.
I usually post once on Saturday like I normally would, and don’t post anything on Sunday. Since I have a lot of free time, I usually try to come up with a few blog posts to post later during the week.
My site is about NYC with kids and in June I’ve been doing week-long themes–five posts , one each week day. On Saturdays I’ve been doing something either with humor or an off-theme day trip. Sunday’s I’ve just been posting about the next week’s upcoming theme. I also try to use extra weekend time to do some blog maintenance or marketing and plan the upcoming week’s posts.
That said, I don’t know if I will stick to that structure. My readership definitely drops over the weekends. When I first started the site I would do a “social networking post” on Saturdays. That was the only time I got good hit numbers on the weekends. I hadn’t thought of that. Thanks for this post, maybe I should go back to that.
Darren, it nice to see that you have managed keep a successful blog and still not jeopardize your family time. Happy birthday to your son, enjoy the time because it will fly by. I remember like it was just the other day my son was starting kindergarten….now he’s entering high school. wow.
As my time during the week is busy with a full time job and graduate school, I use my weekends to write some future posts. I may not set the date to post, as I usually like to re-read a couple times. Having a few “canned” posts help on those long days, when you come home from work and don’t want to think.
The weekend is when I have time to get creative with my blog. I usually take Sundays to plan out the subject matter for the next week, and write all week long as time allows.
Interestingly, I am discussing with a couple of blogging buddies on this topic – today is Sat and I haven’t wrote a single post – I guess I just enjoy taking a little break with my boy and doing things outside the blogosphere :)
When I started writing for a network I was posting on the weekends, usually writing in advance and scheduling them. But the traffic was always terrible so I stopped doing that and instead used the time to write longer, more focussed posts for the rest of the week.
It’s been interesting reading the comments here and so I’ve decided to launch a couple of weekly features to go up at the weekend. Even if the traffic is lower, it seems ad clicks can sometimes be higher.
“Should I just take a couple of days off for my own well-being (ie get a life)?”
Thats what I do. Then again, I don’t have a real income fro my blog. Just penny. Or øre if you will, I’m Norwegian. :)
And Happy Birthday to your son! Hope you have a great time!
It’s pretty much the same for me but that will change soon (I hope.) I’m a business owner at times it seems as though I never have a day off. Eventually, I would like to see that as my time to catch up with web maintenance, visit other blogs, and maybe work on articles that I want to publish later.
I’ll be on vacation next week and I’ve already taken full advantage of the advance posting. I’ll still be working just not as much, and most of my light work will be completed after my daughter goes to sleep in the evening.
I hope your son has a fabulous birthday.
I personally take ‘off’ on weekends, it is the time to spend time with my husband, get some much needed cleaning done, and sometimes, like today, catch up on reading my favorite blogs that I don’t get time to fully read up on during the week.
Personally, taking off on weekends for me is like a fresh start on Mondays, I avoid getting burnt out and even when I do work a little on the weekend it is only for a bit and usually because I want to not because I need to.
being number 76 in the response to this question, it shows that you hit once again a ‘jackpot’ question darren.
weekends are not any different re blogging, maybe even a lit busier with catching up with blog posts but i would love to get to the point that i can take weekends totally off from blogging and just enjoy life and family. pua
I had been posting on weekends, but as I wasn’t getting much traffic, I stopped doing so. If I work on my site at all on the weekends, it’s to tweak the design, add features, or promote my blog, not to write new posts.
I generally try to post on Saturdays. I work at home, so weekends make little difference to me. Sundays and Mondays are generally my husband’s day off, so I try to take Sunday as a family day as much as possible.
Happy birthday to your son!
I usually tend to post more during weekends, since I have more spare time to do so. I also spend some extra time trying to improve my blog design and layout and rearrange my adsense blocks.
Anyway I spend most of my time trying to understand the best way to earn money here in italy (i’m an italian blogger) since we don’t have all the earning possiblities you english speaker are given (i can say we just have Adsense, sigh)
Really, it depends on the weekend. If there are things to do, I do them and save the bulk of the blog work for the upcoming week, but if I have time to kill, like now, I will go “visiting” or networking – read what’s been happening on my favorite blogs !
Really it depends on the weekend. I do try to keep my life alive on the weekends and do things out of the house. But if I have time, like right now, I will go visiting and do some networking. Catch up on all my favorite blogs!
It’s business as usual. When I need a break, I take most of a day off, regardless of when that is. I feel disconnected from the workday rhythms, maybe not such a good thing. If I’m inspired to do an item, any day is a good time to sit down and crank!
Happy birthday wishes to the young one. My baby boy is 14 and 6’1. It goes so fast. Best advice I ever got was to pay as much attention as you can to this magic time of having a baby.
I have tried several of those techniques. I went away for a long weekend a few weeks ago and wrote about 10 articles in advance but they didn’t do that well as there was actually alot of technology news going on. On normal weekends i try to do business as usual but find maybe an extra post or so to help the traffic.
Ollie
I also just realised that asking for comments actually works! I just had a complusion to add my thoughts!
Hi,
I write posts, of course.
What abiut Brazilian Business? See Brazilian Business Blogger Cris Zimermann Refuses $30,000 To Go Naked For Men’s Magazine at http://www.reporternet.jor.br/?page_id=371
My traffic drops over the weekend, plus I need to spend time with family, so I rarely blog on the weekends unless I’m truly inspired. I do, however, look at comments and stats.
If I have time to post on weekends (which happens to be pretty often) the hardest part of it to stay motivated since there are almost no comments, trackbacks or other sites picking up on my stories. Can get upseting but Monday is right around the corner. :)
For my sanity, I don’t often blog on weekends. On my blog I have a note on top of the page that tells readers I post Mon.-Fri. and on weekends only when I feel like it.
I’ve conducted a poll about the same topic over at my blog recently
http://www.sabahan.com/2007/06/26/reader-poll-do-you-blog-on-the-weekends/
I take a break from blogging on Saturdays. It helps me keep my focus plus gives me time to think of what topics I want to write about next week. On Sundays I post a link roundup of interesting articles I’ve seen throughout the week.