Tuning Your Posting Frequencies

October 2, 2010 - Last Modified: October 2, 2010 by Caleb

It is a widely held belief within the blogoshere that a blogger should publish a post every single day – if not multiple times per every single day. But it is difficult enough trying to find the right writing voice with just one post let alone several a day. Because of this many feel blogging is just too much work…who in their right mind actually wants to think up all that content?

Well, it all depends on you doing what you like and if you don’t like producing content then find a new game to play because this is serious business. The production of quality content are the waves that guide internet surfers to their desired destination.

How else are they going to get there?

And although I strongly believe this, I do not necessarily subscribe to the “post every single day” theory for three main reasons:

People need time for your post to fully soak in. Stop making your readers play catch up and let your content marinate in their minds for a while…but not for too long though because the people are hungry and need to be continuously fed. Just make sure they chew that food first
If you are not getting at least 100 to 200 unique visitors every day consistently, then I would venture to say you’re on the borderline of wasting content. If no one saw your post yesterday, what difference is your post today going to make? It is wiser to promote the posts you already do have because of reason #1.

SECRET TIP: Fully market and advertise your post URLs just as you would do for your main URL!
Most novice bloggers who subscribe to the “post every day” theory do so mainly for SEO benefits. But as Google’s unspoken Golden Rule says: Build your site for real live human users, NOT for search engine robots! Once real users become engaged in your content the robots will surely come. Besides, most of those extra posts tend to be merely miscellaneous ramblings so…

…here’s another SECRET TIP: use Twitter for all your miscellaneous ramblings

One good thing -for WordPress users at least- is that you can still write several posts at a time without the pressure of publishing them all at once by simply using the post scheduler within your WP admin Add New post page. All you have to do is click the edit link where it says “Publish immediately” and select the date and time you want that particular post to go live on your site then hit “Schedule”. This way makes it easier for you to follow the three principles listed above.

FINAL SECRET TIP: This may be a bit controversial for some, but delete the coding within your single posts and comments.php pages that displays the date and time your posts were made…don’t worry, your WP Archives scripting will still know the correct dates & times just not the readers!

The overall idea is to maximize the full potential if every single post and give the reader a reason to check out the next upcoming post(s). Now tell us what your posting frequencies are and why

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{ 92 Responses }

Adam says:

Hi Caleb, I am not a fan of everyday posting. It is simply because I am not capable to create quality content on daily base, I want more time to promote my articles and I think there are many other blog related activities that need to be done. Blogging is not just about new content anymore. Thanks for sharing
- Caleb says:
  
  Blogging is not just about new content anymore..
  You're right and besides that blogging was originally used to help promote your main site instead just being the main site itself...but of course since theme designs have become so sophisticated, blogs are nowadays being used as main sites!
Blazing Minds says:

I usually post everyday and if I haven't got anything to post then it works out to be every other day, I think if you can do it great, but if that dreaded BloggersBlock comes along, it's always best to have some posts in draft for those blank moments. But after reading your post I may consider posting at a minimum of one every two days, just to give readers a chance to "soak" everything in ;)
- Caleb says:
  
  Just keep in my mind one of the secrets to that is deleting the code which displays the date and time of the post ;)
  - Blazing Minds says:
    
    Thanks Caleb, never thought of that ;)
Isabel Rodrigues - Pro Blogger Journey says:

Nice Post. As bloggers we can target to write around 7 blogs per week. Likewise we can have posts on our blogs 4 times while use the other 3 blogs for guest blogging in other blogs to gain some traffic. What say..?
- Caleb says:
  
  Excellent as this is basically what I suggested to Karan below! Try your best to get some of those guest posts on blogs with high PR too ;)
Stacy says:

My goal is three posts a week, I am still a pretty new blogger so I spend a good amount of time promoting my posts in various ways. I agree that at this point with my readership it would probably be a waste to post every day, because there is no way that I could adequately promote that many posts each week. For that reason I do like the option on WP to schedule posts ahead of time. It is very convenient when I get on a roll and write a bunch of posts. I can space them out or even just save them for later if I don't want to post in the near future for some reason.
- Caleb says:
  
  Scheduling in advance is the way to working smarter, NOT harder :!:
John says:

These are great tips. I have not got quite up to the mark you recommend. But it is gaining popularity slowly but surely.
Karan says:

Well I try to update my blog atleast twice a day as it is young and I am glad to claim that I'm pretty successful in doing that.
- Caleb says:
  
  Consider spreading some of that content out and even using certain ones for guest posts only ;)
elayne says:

If there are too many posts people will also switch off. It really depends on your audience and what you are writing about.
Stephanie Graham says:

Great advice here Caleb! As soon as you suggested turning the posting date and time feature off from the blog I immediately did that. DUH!! LOL I just had a client tell me , wow you need to update your ish! I was so embarrassed now that is all gone. My goal is to get to 2-4 times a month posting on my blog and post events in the community and my own events that would be ideal Thanks for the great post Steph
- Caleb says:
  
  @ Stephanie, Glad you found this useful :) Some ppl actually think turning off the date and time is unethical but I see it as just being strategic (depending on the type of blog of course).. btw, Your site design is nice, I didn't know Blogger had themes like :!:
Stephanie Graham says:

As soon as I read turn off the posting dates and times for your blog I did it immediately and just like that I dont feel so pressured for people to tell me, WOW STEF You haven't updated in a while LOL GENIUS and so "DUH!!!" I haven't gotten to this yet but my goal is to try to post between 2-4 times a month and also post events that I have coming up both personally and in the photography community.
TJ McDowell says:

So your post got me thinking - do you think that the frequency of posts should be based on the number of readers? ie if you have thousands of readers, then you should consider a frequent post schedule.
- Caleb says:
  
  Absolutely! But some marketers like ZK (click here to see his reason) for example believe the opposite. However once you have tons of visitors then to me that means more updates..
Richard says:

Most of the time, I write on the weekend. Mainly because I hold a full time job. But I do think about and plan out my topics over the course of the week. Then I will write several posts and schedule them a day or two apart. if one of my posts is shorter, then I will schedule another post the next day. The longer ones I'll space out more.
- Caleb says:
  
  That's a nice, simple, and intelligent process you got there. Sometimes we just make things too complicated for no reason when the best things in life do tend to work out in simpler fashions :)
Senthil Ramesh says:

My Posting freq is becoming almost nil day by day. I am getting less thoghts of what to write. This make less visitors to come. But as you said I have less than 200 visitors per day. May be should I market the prev articles first before trying to write new posts frequently. ** In this situation, I am holding a contest too. Lets see how it turns out ;)
- Caleb says:
  
  The thing about that is visitors may perceive your blog is too old -like BadBlogger commented- which is one of the reasons why I advocate deleting the date and time ;)
Dave says:

Very nice article. I think I want to take a break now...Geeze. I have been updating 2 blog's daily with posts over 200 words long. I'm starting to get burnout. I was thinking if I just kept posting the traffic would increase. I had read to "post everyday" from many places... But I think I'll slow it down just a little bit and do more promotion. Also tweak old posts that have gotten lost in the shuffle. Also, twitter is fun but for as simple of an idea it is rather complex. I could use some practice there :) Thanks for a fresh perspective...And a "go-ahead" to take a break :) Gee, I'd like to relax and watch some TV once in awhile.
Tixy says:

Interesting viewpoint. I think that minimum is 3 articles per week (if one has more then 30 visitors per day – in my case it works :)). And this sentence is just GREAT : “Stop making your readers play catch up and let your content marinate in their minds for a while..” :) - I will put it on my desktop...
- Caleb says:
  
  Nobody likes playing catch up contrary to the poplular notion which says it gives ppl the feeling that they have missed out on something :roll: If anything they'll go to a place where their comments are more appreciated!
bryan says:

Hi Caleb, well written post there. I think posting frequencies is quite a widely debated topic across the blogosphere. I firmly believe that you don't have to produce article everyday. You're right if you post content daily and if no one reads, it will be like lost content missed. For me quality still trumps quantity. And a well written article gives a good impression to your readers and they will want to come back for more :)
- Caleb says:
  
  @Bryan, Now thats a rule worthy of remembering: "quality still trumps quantity.."
Pritam says:

Well Said. Blogger used to believe that they need to post every day at least 1 if not more. But this is really not the case. If you are a blogger with no team, then its really difficult to manage to produce content every single day and doing other stuff as well.
- ZK says:
  
  Yes some blogger simply add one post on every week and they add quality ... Neil is the best example of it ... read his blog here - http://www.quicksprout.com/
Dave Lucas says:

Great tips here! You can also turn off the date and time in blog*spot! You are absolutely correct that bloggers should spend more time promoting their blogs rather than trying to upload posts. i myself try to get a MINIMUM of one post perday, as my posts are auto-tweeted, which helps feed my twitter account as well! Gabriele does make a good point in that regular readers will usually come to know when to expect a new post on your blog, still, it's always good to liven things up every now and then - one way of doing that is to "repost" or "re-mix" an old post from your archives!
- Caleb says:
  
  Old Post Promoter plugin is great for the remixing aspect you mentioned ;)
The Bad Blogger says:

If you ever gone to my blog, I always delete the time and date of my post... somehow... I once heard that... human mind.. when they reach a blog... they saw the time and date is to far away from today... they will feel this blog is not that good... I'm not sure about whether or not you believe about this... but I sure do... cos I myself does think that way...
- Caleb says:
  
  And that's just basic human psychology or what I like to call the metaphysics of marketing ... p.s. I remember when you first started BadBlogger and it's really came a long way...keep up the good work :)
Andreas says:

Its not really important how often you post as long as you do it on a consistent basis and create a content backup plan for times when you are on holiday or unforeseen events like illness etc. (for example storing guest posts) Think carefully before posting a lot of articles each day, because when you suddenly drop to 5 articles/week you may see a sudden loss of interest in your site by your readership.
- Caleb says:
  
  Think carefully before posting a lot of articles each day, because when you suddenly drop to 5 articles/week you may see a sudden loss of interest in your site by your readership
  Good point as it is real easy to burn out real fast!
Lennart Heleander says:

Hi Caleb, I write 4-5 posts a week about Marbella and properties with a lot of job on the SEO, title, keyword, links, related articles ect, I prefer quality before quantity.
Patricia says:

As a newbie blogger I found this a helpful post. I started off with 3 posts a week but wasn't really networking so not much point talking to myself lol Then I began blog commenting, joined blogging communities and tweet a lot so I began to get visitors to my blog and now have regular readers and the traffic is going up which I find very encouraging. I usually post once a week but I am thinking of increasing to twice a week cos my regular readers visit often so want to be able to provide them with more information. Thanks. Patricia Perth Australia
Devesh says:

Great Post Caleb. I'm totally agree with you. I personally write 2-3 posts a week. I always prefer quality over quantity !! Thanks for sharing this great Post. Great work Caleb !! Have a great day.
ZK says:

Like your secret tips ... I always take every posts seriously and do promotion and link building with the keywords. You wont get the benefit instantly but believe me later on this work will pay you for long time.
- Caleb says:
  
  Thanks! One thing many marketers neglect is promoting their individual posts as they would for their main url ;)
Shanker Bakshi says:

I guess the TIP that you have mentioned at end is tricky but not very cool, If you ask me I write 4 to 5 articles on Sunday and schedule it for the week. Its working for me. :-)
- ZK says:
  
  I am sure whenever any serious things come up you write special posts. For a regular Sunday trick works fine but be ready to post any special thing when any special event occur.
  - Shanker Bakshi says:
    
    Sure mate i will keep that in mind. Writing about breaking NEWS
- Caleb says:
  
  Not very cool you say :?: Well like I said, "This may be a bit controversial for some". But I would suggest you think deeply upon what BadBlogger above commented plus it creates a timelessness effect to your blog. Besides that, your Archives will still have all posts in their appropriate chronological order.
Kimberly Castleberry says:

Lately I've been publishing 5 days a week and I find my comment numbers "overall" have fallen. My guess is that most of my readers check in no more than three times a week and if they know they are backlogged and want to get through any posts they missed, they don't slow down long enough to comment. I need to continue this pace for two more weeks while I finish up some series sets that have deadlines but after that I look forward to going back to publishing three times a week (and using the other two for guest blogging where they can bring more traffic!) Kimberly
- ZK says:
  
  There may be other reasons of comments falling ... Add some kind of contest and this one is always helpful. PS - You got good alexa but seems to me that you should bring little change to your design. Like in footer there is footer 1, 2 and 3 options are still there.
- Caleb says:
  
  Check out Ryan Biddulph' comment and take note out how his comments increased after "letting the content marinate" ;)
Prasenjit says:

Well written Caleb. I think if we maintain a good posting frequency along with a good posting time can really make a difference. 2-3 posts a week is enough I believe. Rest of the time we should market those posts, comment on other blogs and most importantly read further and prepare ourselves for writing our future posts. For a good posting time, I have written an article on my blog. Thanks for the wonderful SECRET TIPS. :)
- ZK says:
  
  I believe consistency first. Whatever pattern you adopt ... be consistent to that so that your readers knows when they are going to have your next posts. Simply adopt consistency for 3 months and you will see the difference. Darren, John, Famous blogger ... they all are consistent in their posts and hence their popularity is growing day by day.
  - Prasenjit says:
    
    Yes. Consistency is important. But I think posting more than 1 articles a day is not required. Though if you can manage posting couple of posts everyday, then thats fine. I remember somebody saying in the comments here that we should give some time for our posts to marinate. Thats really important. Thanks.
Suresh Khanal says:

I am convinced with my previous experience that I can't write more than 4 posts per week, so I set my blog update frequency to two posts per week. Hope this is not too less, but its Okey for a starting blog.
- ZK says:
  
  If your blog have enough content than you can go for two posts on a week but if not than I think you should go for once in every day.
  - Shanker Bakshi says:
    
    once in a week is too little to expect a group of MOB roaming on your site, one should at least post three article per week, Thats a minim to me.
    - Prasenjit says:
      
      I completely agree to Shanker.
- Caleb says:
  
  @ Suresh, Twice a week is definitely "too less". To come up with more content try inviting guest posters, using a few ezine articles as long as you give explicit credit, make a Top Posts day, or browse the forums for common problems ppl are having and then make a series of posts to tackle it...you got to excercise your creative juices :idea: @ZK, I kinda see that the other way around!
  - Prasenjit says:
    
    Hi Caleb, How can we use ezine articles properly without infringing copyright? Can we publish the complete article and at the bottom of the post give the link to the original source? In that way, will Google penalize of duplicate content? Thanks.
- Caleb says:
  
  @ Suresh One more thing: you MUST study How To Find Your Writers Voice here on Famousbloggers :)
Ryan Biddulph says:

Hi Caleb, I like your viewpoint on this as I feel the same way. I let my posts marinate for a few days over the past 3 weeks and my comments went through the roof along with a surge in readership, especially over the weekend. I went from an average of 6 - 10 comments per post up to almost 90 comments for one post last week. A portion of my readers comment 2 - 3 days after the post. Our readers have lives too; we have to give them time to view our blogs. Interesting that you note taking the date and time out, I considered doing this in the past. Thanks for sharing your insight :) Ryan
- Shanker Bakshi says:
  
  Take it from me, Regular posting is the KEY to all your blogging success worries.
  - Caleb says:
    
    @ Shanker, The proof is in Ryan's case study...look at how his comments increased from letting the content marinate! The exception is if you get Mashable-like traffic or the infamous "Digg effect" of course. NOT letting it marinate for too long is the secret here ;) @ Ryan, Taking the date and time out is something I do for certain blogs and it has the effect of making your content timeless. It also helps once you have volumes of content to just use the Old Post Promoter plugin for v new visitors or for times when you get "writer's block".
Daniel Snyder says:

Thanks for your post. I was overwhelmed by the 'post everyday' mentality when I first started blogging, and the quality of my posts really started waning. Now I publish quality content as I write it, which is sometimes only one post every two or three days. I'm okay with this. As my blog starts growing, then I can work on producing more content, but to supplement this I'm finding guest blogging can help fill in the gaps.
- ZK says:
  
  In my opinion you should add more contents at the beginning so that your blog can have good collection. Once it grows you can limit to two posts or three posts in a week. People will read your latest post and would love to read your old posts. BUT BE CONSISTENT.
  - Caleb says:
    
    Whatever method you use you MUST be consistent at testing it for a prescribed time period and only then tweak it out according to your results.. ..as one of my main mottos go "Only Do What Works!" and what may work well for one may not work so well for another :)
Richard says:

I try to keep my posts to one a day or slightly less, every other day, but I think it should be no less than 4 times a week. I want to give my readers a chance to read my posts before I put up a new one. I actually do a couple of things to keep my older posts fresh. I use tweet old posts. But also, I changed my theme over to one that has a featured post slider and displays random posts on my front page.
- Caleb says:
  
  That makes one more good reason for using Post Sliders ;)
Gabriele Maidecchi says:

I really agree with your no-post-everyday philosophy. I don't think it's strictly necessary to do it, I set my personal goal to 3 posts a week, trying to differentiate topics and make a "trend", for example I try to post something strictly related to my industry on monday and go a bit more on the social media side of it on wednesday and friday. More important than high frequency I believe is consistent one: if people know when to expect a new post on your blog, it's gonna be all fine.
- ZK says:
  
  That is really a nice move ... fixing a day for its own kind of posts. I am sure your readers will be sooner or later will be habituate of this format. But drawback is ... if I like to read about social media than I will come to your blog only on Wednesday not on Monday. So in this case you loose me for one day and that is crucial.
  - Gabriele Maidecchi says:
    
    That's a risk indeed, but what we noticed is that the "industry posts" get 3-4 times more reads than the other ones, so I gotta take into account that as well, I think the best method is far off from what I ideated, and of course I am still learning, as we all are. Time will tell I guess, but thanks for making that point, I kinda overlooked it! :)
    - ZK says:
      
      Its Ok Gabriele ... To make proper decision take the help of your data like when traffic increase to your blog ... while you post about Social media or about industry. After one year of any blog you can always make decision with the help of data.
    - Caleb says:
      
      Posting everyday just seems like something for a blog that gets Mashable-like traffic. Now as for your specific post on a certain day idea, this is what some major blogs do while you'll see some of the less viewed blogs do it by having a "Friday Top Posts" or something of the like. ..
  - Caleb says:
    
    @ ZK, I do not see this as a drawback at all...in fact it is a part of the branding process. If I come to your site on specific days, you stick in my mind more than others...you will have branded yourself in my head :!:
    - Gabriele Maidecchi says:
      
      Yes I know what you mean, rather than being just another blog where you check for new posts kind of randomly (or looking at the badge count in Google Reader), you will stick in one's mind as "the blog that posts *this* kind of info on *this* weekday". Lots to experiment with I'd say ;)
Mani Viswanathan says:

I Schedule my old posts either using Tweet Old Posts plugin/manually scheduling it using Hootsuite. This really helps to revive the old posts which would be forgotten by people.
Pawel Grabowski says:

Hi Caleb, really good post. I personally post 3 times a week and I noticed that many of my posts start getting comments around a day after publication. I think due to a nature of my blog my readers need to absorbe the information first.
- ZK says:
  
  I always believe that if you have enough content in your blog than two or three posts in a week is good, but if you have not than try to fill up your blog first. So that after reading your latest posts, readers can look for similar kind of posts in your blog (Install yet another similar posts plugin)
- Caleb says:
  
  Content is like sauce is for good food: You Got To Let It Marinate!
Karen Clark says:

I agree completely. As someone who trains entrepreneurs and sales people how to market online I often run into this question. People are told to blog every day, but when your blog is not your business but just another avenue to serve people, there's no way - you need to be spending your time running your business. And I've found that people just tune them out and pick and choose which ones to read. Wouldn't it be better if people looked forward to your message? Thanks for saying what I've been feeling too. As to SEO benefits, everything is accumulative - it isn't like it is going anywhere. So if you are writing once or twice a week or even less, so what, it will still get indexed and still lead to increasing your ranking while also offering quality relevant content. Slow and steady I say! Have a great weekend. Karen
- Caleb says:
  
  So if you are writing once or twice a week or even less, so what, it will still get indexed and still lead to increasing your ranking while also offering quality relevant content..
  Now that is a very wise thing to add, thanks for your comment!
dandellion says:

"Post daily" is the worst advice ever given by probloggers. While big blogs with thousands of subscribers and daily visitors can benefit from constant stream of posts and daily exposure of the ads on their sidebars, most bloggers are just doing harm to themselves this way. Regular blogger just can't produce interesting and useful content every day. Which leads to weak posts. Which leads to readers losing interest. Write when you have to say something that your readers will like to read. On the opposite side, regular writing improves the skills. As much as I'd recommend dailyt writing, not every draft has to be published. And there are so many other stuff to be written beside the blog. And even blog posts can be offered to other bloggers. Guest posting can be a great promotion method, much more successful than daily posting.
- Caleb says:
  
  “Post daily” is the worst advice ever given by probloggers.
  :lol: Your part about guest posting is right on, you can save some of your divine content for that one purpose ;)
Sujith says:

"Build your site for real live human users, NOT for search engine robots!" This is absolutely correct. But if you can able to write good contents regularly, nothing can beat that. Thanks
- ZK says:
  
  I think there is some problem in your blog. I simply love tech related blog and when I click on your blog this one is not well organised or showing hostgator page. Please have a look Sujith.
  - sujith says:
    
    Hi ZK, Yes, I was migrating my site to Hostgator. Some glitches were there . Now everything is OK. Thanks
    - ZK says:
      
      There are few issues with php with hostgator ... My first choice is Bluehost ...
      - Shanker Bakshi says:
        
        @ ZK mine too, but now i am hearing lots of BUZZ about hostgator, how it is?
      - Prasenjit says:
        
        I double your opinion. I am currently hosted on Bluehost. Excellent uptime and support. I have used HostGator in the past and had very poor experience. Cheers.
- Caleb says:
  
  "Building for humans" is the overall job, it just gets sidetracked when as we start thinking too much about the Laws of SEO when if fact SEO exists so that real humans can better find the content they need. p.s. Even if you can write good content regularly, thats all the better reaseson for spacing it out or even saving some for gest posting)

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