Choose Quality over Quantity When Blogging

August 2, 2010 - Last Modified: September 15, 2010 by Justin Germino

Many new bloggers think that the key to bringing in readership is to churn out as many posts as possible and publish them to get indexed by the search engines. While this may get more posts indexed quicker, this may hurt your bottom line if your articles are not high enough quality to convert a casual visitor to a fan and who will hopefully become a repeat and long term reader.

Unless your blog is a multi-author blog where you can easily output a higher number of posts, or you have enough free time to do multiple posts per day I recommend you follow some of the following guidelines before publishing your article.

Things To Do Before Publishing Your Post

Make sure you would be interested in reading your own post
Does it provide clear information?
Does it provide value?
Did it invite you to think and express an opinion?
Does the article have enough depth or is it too long?
Did it stay focused or seem to stray from the main focus of the topic?

By re-reading your own article and not only proof reading, but reading as if you were a casual visitor you may gain insight into your own article and find ways to tune it and make it more valuable to your readers. Writing content that you want to be long lasting and leave a mark in your readers minds doesn’t come quickly or easily.

A well written article will do more to bring traffic and attention to your site than posting four times as many “incomplete” or less meaningful articles. People will want to share an article that they thought was well written and inspired, educated or incited them to respond.

I have also written more detailed writing tips for bloggers which elaborate on how articles should have substance to ensure readers keep coming back for more.

Bottom Line

If you have to choose between generating quantity or quality for your blog then you should always opt for quality, the number of posts in your sitemap.xml or indexed by Google won’t matter if the content doesn’t keep readers engaged to where they want to read more of your work. Your written article is your first “impression” for any reader who arrives from a search engine and many referral sites, you want to make sure you always put your best foot forward and write each article as if you were trying to impress your reader and convince them to stay and make your site a part of their normal reading habits.

-Dragon Blogger

About Justin Germino

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My name is Justin Germino and I am also known as Dragon Blogger. I am a Technology and Entertainment blogger who focuses on sharing information related to Technology Reviews, Gadgets, Internet, SEO, Social Media and anything else I pick up. My passion is blogging and I enjoy sharing what I learn with my readers. Visit to read more about Justin Germino.

{ 69 Responses }

Piyush says:

First thing I want to ask is an article of 250- 300 words ok. Can we get good traffic if we write in that range and use keywords.
Mark says:

One thing I have noticed is that lots of bloggers and article marketers are trying to put a number on article length. Great checklist, Justin. With respect to your point about content length, I know that several article directories require at least 400 words to publish. Now, while it is true that more words generally means more relevant content, I personally believe that this concept is fundamentally flawed. I actually own an article directory and as one of its editors, I am seeing the same amount of content per article simply diluted up to 400 words without an increase in value. That is the problem with having hard standards like that. I believe that article or blog post length is completely relative. Mark
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Generally Google won't index posts very well unless they are over 150 words, but it is hard to really make a connection with readers in less than 200-250 words. I don't condone fluffing posts just to meet words but it is good to add enough meat to a post to take advantage of both providing good information plus laying enough keywords and keyword synonyms in the post to get good SEO benefit as well from the article.
cam says:

Hey Justin, Good to see you doing more guest posting. I enjoy and follow your blog regularly. You make some great points here. The point of blogging isn't to churn and burn but to create quality content that engages the reader. Nice post.
Biodun says:

Quality content is the key to successful blogging, both quantity AND quality are important. Its depends, quality and quantity. Some writers can make there point short and fast. Some need to tell a story equivalent to get to the point. All relevant of course
TJ McDowell says:

I think quality is great as long as you aren't a perfectionist that won't publish at all until everything is flawless. In that case, it's better to post something than nothing, don't you think?
- Justin Germino says:
  
  I agree, and "quality" is open to interpretation, as some people may consider a post good quality and to others it wouldn't be. Bottom line, read your article from the point of view of a reader and make sure it provides value and benefit. Would you want to read more after reading your article, or be a regular reader?
Harshit Singhal says:

Ya this time I agree completely.
element321 says:

Great post Justin, I believe that Quality over quantity is key. I use to believe a blogger had to produce a large quantity. But I could never figure out how I could have both. If I write to much I tend to get burned out quickly and run out of topics to write about. I found that writing two or three quality articles a week and try and get some guest posting and writing for famous bloggers in is more important than putting out a ton of low quality articles that no one wants to read or comment on.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Thanks, sometimes I get really inspired and motivated and just get on a roll and churning out tons of content. But even if I write 7 articles in one night, I don't let more than one or two post on my blog on one day because it is hard to get people to come back to same site multiple times per day.
  - element321 says:
    
    I agree, I think I have done as many as 3 or 4, but those were social media news updates and I wanted them to go live before anyone else got theirs out. Normally I wouldn't do that, because its true, its hard to get people visit your site multiple times. Unless its Famous Bloggers... :)
    - Justin Germino says:
      
      Two way conversations on comments like this one are the best way to get someone to come back to site the same day, but isn't the same as reading 2 separate articles :) That being said, multiple posts per day get more indexes in google SERP and this can bring in more traffic quicker from search engines than limiting yourself to 1 post per day, so it all depends on what you are looking for I suppose.
- Karan says:
  
  Well, I saw a video of Matt Cutts and he discussed a similar situation and adviced to go with quality content instead of lots of content having minimal information which might interest the readers.
Sachin says:

I agreed with Excellent Post Unique Content is king and writing such post like I read in this fantastic blog is an art and only Blogging guru's i found in this blog can enjoy it and i m lovin it all post :) ;)
Tran Tinh says:

Blogengage is exclusively designed for blogger community and most of members there are active rather than big bookmarking sites. I love it too :-)
Melinda says:

Quality for sure. If I have nothing to write about that I think is valuable..I would rather skip a post day rather than to put out something just for the sake of posting. I think the extent you can get away with this really depends on what you blog about. Nothing makes me unsubscribe faster than a blog that outputs quantity over quality. If my RSS feed to a site collects 100 articles before I get back to reading them..I'm more likely to mark them all as read without reading...and go to the site that put out 5 in that same time period and read them all instead. I think you do need to take into consideration that quantity can overwhelm your readers. Let your readers anticipate the next post a little, and they will appreciate the next post more. :) The exceptions are community sites like FB which can output high quality articles on a daily basis, and I think that works because there are a variety of authors.
Kimi says:

I guess it depends on what the goal of blogging is. If we care about traffics then probably quantity will win. But if we care about converting those traffics to returning visitors then quality should be the first. Best is mixing between quantity and quality, but i guess it is not easy to do, and need time as well. Thanks for the post!
Tinh says:

I do agree with your to-do list and I need to keep in mind anytime I write my articles. Thanks
chandan says:

One of the best strategy is first publish article on your blog and then submit it to article directory by spinning article. I use this strategy. It is good to update daily our blog with new post, but it is not good to post anything on our blog which no mean for our visitors.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  I do submit to the typical article directories once and a while, I really like BlogEngage and submit most articles there. To lesser extent I use Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Propeller, Sphinn...etc
  - chandan says:
    
    Yes blogengage is also my favorite social networking site. I am a big fan of mixx. Even I get the reputation of powermixxer at mixx.
Bryan says:

Hi Justin good point you put across. I think quality is definitely better than quality but I also think that at the early stages of your blog, the frequency of posting should be slightly higher than later. You can probably maintain your posting frequency by turning your blog into a multi-author blog or just reduce it. I generally won't publish everyday because otherwise I will get a burnout and my articles will be sort of half baked.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  This is why one of my methods for writing is to write many articles on a single day (Sunday) and then schedule them throughout the week. I don't write content every day, I write about 5-8 articles on Sunday and schedule them. I probably write blog content 3-4 days per week and always have at least 5 days queued worth of posts on all of my blogs. (The exception is my poetry blog where I do a live poetry game every day)
Felicia says:

Nice post, Justin! Quality is better than quantity when it comes to great blog sites. The writer should also know the ins and outs of the topic he or she is talking about, in order to create an outstanding post that is worth reading and earning some quality comments too. I think what makes a great quality article is even if it is posted for a long time, it still sparks the interest of other people who haven't read it yet.
Andreas says:

The best strategy is to drop the content with the most quality on your own blog/website. If you have then any content left, publish it on niche blogs as guest blogger. Submit the remaining content to article directories.
lawmacs says:

Well said Justin i have always believe that post every minute is not really the answer the better quaility article you write is the one that take you forward and one point that Hesham mentioned is giving your visitors time to engage themselves posting four or five articles a day is not bad my belief is that you publish inline with your readers base the size of your subscribers well said justin.
Julius Kuhn-Regnier says:

Quality is usually more important than quantity. Without original and unique content your blog will get nowhere. And I agree many people new to blogging think that they need to blog multiple times a week but after all in blogging it's the same as with sport. You will find your rhythm after doing it for a while. And then you should simply stick to it. For example I post an article every week which is the rhythm that I have found worked for me the best.
Dennis Edell says:

Not only should you read it over before you publish, you should also subscribe to your own feed.....read it again a day later (whenever it's published). You may be surprised at what you didn't see before, pleasantly or not. ;)
- Justin Germino says:
  
  I actually do subscribe to my own feeds and this is a great tip, also great for knowing if you have any feed issues and for testing your custom RSS Feed plugins.
Hesham says:

Nice conversion you have here Justin! I am having hard times for publishing articles these day, as I got a lot of pending guest posts during the contest time! most of them has quality and really say something! If you notice, I was publishing one post everyday, and now I am trying to publish more articles everyday not to make anyone feel stressed being waiting for ever! I was experimenting good conversations and comments when giving time between posts (the one post per day was prefect!) and hopefully this will not reduce the conversations as some bloggers visit his favorite blogs to read once a day, and they usually don't have time to visit 2 or 3 times a day, if you know what I mean! But, anyways, let's see how this will work, hopefully we can have have both, quality and quantity at the same time!
Tia says:

Hey Justin - Great post on such an important topic in blogging. I think it goes beyond that to article marketing, and generally any content writing. Posts and content that gets passed on by other readers brings in more traffic. You're right. You don't need as many of them when you're doing that. I suppose some people like churning out a lot of posts but the time is better spent writing something of great quality and networking with other bloggers who will pass it on.
Pete Stean says:

I try to keep my posts succinct, but the weekend ones do tend to stretch out as that's when I have the opportunity to get out and about with the camera... I must reign in the urge to write overly long posts though - it's a trick that a lot of other London bloggers seem to have the hang of which I'm still not getting :)
Steve Scott Site says:

Great points! Quality certainly will always trump quantity. I do think it is important to make a statement of how often you will post and stick to it rigidly though. Be it daily, bi weekly weekly or even monthly. That way your fans know what to expect and will not assume your blog is "dead" if you go a week without a post. The frequency should be up to the individual but there should be some sort of standard.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Funny that you say that, if you look at my previous post on this site it is called "You Set the Pace When Blogging" and talks about sticking to a specific posting schedule and not being rushed to get posts out as quickly as possible and as often as possible.
Lennart Heleander says:

Hi Justin, An excellent article. I agree totally. My 5 goal for a articles is; Quality before quantity, Good and interesting titles. Decide before a red thread and not float out into different topics. Not for large articles, (heavy reading) instead split them up over a couple of days. You must be passionate about the subject you blog about.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Thanks for sharing your 5 goals, one thing is that you can always edit and update previous posts and "freshen" them up and move them back into the spotlight. I don't do it often, but occasionally freshening up your previous posts (provided they weren't about something news related or time critical) is a great way to capitalize older content with minimal effort.
  - Lennart Heleander says:
    
    Correct and thanks, and I also use links in the text to other articles and in the bottom in different colour: Related articles.
Colleen says:

I think we are guilty of a few of your points Justin. In our niche, we generate new clients through search engine queries. The stuff the searcher finds on our blog is not very good reading, but it satisfies the questions they have. We've considered being a bit more personal on our blog, but at the end of the day, the folks looking for a particular property is what pays our bills.
ashok says:

I agree with your call for quality articles, but I don't know that it's going to be possible to discourage people from posting multiple times a day, even if they post really, really badly. The rewards are just too high for posting a few times a day, and more clever bloggers can simply post a link or video with a brief comment and count that as a post. It's impossible to convince people that they aren't as clever as they think. Right now, there's actually value in writing for robots and human visitors so casual they're practically useless. There's more value in having a serious audience, of course, one willing and able to promote one's work. But I'd be hard-pressed to tell you that was even possible to get online, let alone easy.
Laura Davis says:

I definitely agree with this. Sometimes its more important to post every couple days with quality topics than everyday with crappy ones.
Jarret says:

One thing that's surprised me in my blogging experience is that it's not always the best written posts that seem to engage readers or generate traffic. From what I've found, choosing the right topic is the most important starting point. Basically, I agree with your first point, "Make sure you would be interested in reading your own post." Some sites do very well with short posts that aren't particularly well-written if they're very effective filters at finding unique, topical, and very interesting content.
Julia says:

You are absolutely right Justin, thanks for reminding me. Quality is number one, not quantity. If we still want to post twice or more a day then multi-author is the option.
Wayne Howard says:

I just recently started my blog less than a month ago so I have been making post everyday, sometimes twice a day. It has been gaining a lot of momentum but I think I will slow down to one a day to let things simmer a bit. So far though, it has been working very well for me and I have been getting a lot of traffic and I just had my first guest post today.
tushar says:

you are partially right man.... actually in the initial days, large number of articles are required to attract the SE bots and spiders....once you gain reputation,, you can decrease the frequency
- Justin Germino says:
  
  I myself wrote 4-5 article per day within my first 30 days of blogging, I agree that churning out high quantity of quality content is key. But unless you have lots of free time to devote to your blog or are a multi author blog you are somewhat limited in quantity.
  - Colleen says:
    
    Yikes! 4-5 articles per day! I guess you speak from experience, eh Justin!
    - Justin Germino says:
      
      Yeah, if you look at my blog which is only 2 years old, and yet I have over 1092 published posts with over 1030 written by me, you can see my average is almost 2 posts per day over 2 years.
      - Colleen says:
        
        I'll bet you get a ton of traffic from longtail searches. We have a lot of content on our site and close to 90% of our traffic is from longtail searches. And, we tend to rank for our area's competitive phrases, so you would think the traffic would come from the competitive phrases! Google loves putting together information from a variety content sources to the searcher. I guess it could be said quantity AND quality are in order, eh!
        
        Justin Germino says:
        
        Yep, I get around 70% of my site traffic from organic searches because I have so many posts and I SEO my slugs, meta title, meta description and meta keywords carefully.
Dev - Technshare.com says:

Hey Justin, Great Post. I'm totally agree with you. Quality is more important, than quantity. You can take the example of Glen Allsop from Viperchil..!! He only post 3-4 articles a month on his blog and still his blog is getting awesome traffic..:). Thanks for sharing this great post Justin. Great work. ~Dev
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Viperchill is an excellent example of posting only a handful of times and still capturing major content and audience.
Kevin M. says:

Great tips. I have been moving more toward this strategy lately and it is paying off.
Rebecca says:

I could not agree more than proofreading, and re-reading your posts before you hit publish is incredibly important. I even add another rule to it. I write my post, wait 24 hours, edit my post, wait 24 hours, and then re-read it. Only then am I allowed to publish it. It truly makes a world of difference in the quality of my work. I recommend the 24/48 hour rule to all who write.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  You make a good point, I have saved posts as drafts and re-read them the next day or 2 days later only to make many changes. The only time you really can't delay is when you are posting about breaking news or something that is time critical and if you don't jump on the "trend" bandwagon, you lose relevance.
Cindy says:

its best to blog about topics that are related to your niche, so it wont be a problem for you in trying to make quantity posts... if youre sure 100% of what youre talking about, the quality can be seen by other readers.
The Bad Blogger says:

That was quite a list of points to think about when writing new content, well... I usually write my article and re-read them till I'm satisfy. I learn by reading it out loud to myself, although I'm not sure is this necessary, but I learn from Gary Halbert that... if by reading it out loud and you feel bore, your reader will eventually feel bore, and if you read it out loud and you feel excited... eventually you reader will feel the same. That is you had to sell your own self content, and if you can't sell your own self, how in the world you gonna sell your content to your reader. I hope you understand what I just illustrate...
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Obviously there are some exceptions such as when you are regurgitating a news article or you want to feature another story, in that case you write a minimal post and direct your user to the article you want them to focus on.
Nasif says:

Some blogger suggests to write anything we like in fact this is a very bad idea...
Des says:

Great advice, and I also think it goes right back to picking the right niche for your blog in the first place. If you don't have enough to say on your subject you are going to struggle even more when it comes to keeping up the quality.
- Justin Germino says:
  
  Absolutely, niche is important and you should write about something you have a passion for and are fluent in.
Nabeel says:

Hi, I agree. Quality is more important than quantity. Usually when there is a focus on quantity, the posts are of low quality. Readers can grab this, they are not blind, so you better watch out for quality in your posts! Kindest, Nabeel
Justin Germino says:

Thank you, and I always think that if the author feels that their work is quality and they are confident and proud of what they wrote, then it will show to the readers.
Julius says:

Eloquently put, Justin! As they say - "Content is King" and for me quality should be it's kingdom. Although there are some drawbacks I see through this. Like what I perceive as quality may be mediocre for another. However, I'm sure there is a certain standard for a reader, you and me included, in considering what is good, average, mediocre, and candidate for trash kind of contents are. I like the essence of what you said. If you yourself can't and won't be able to appreciate what you wrote, there's really no sense in publishing it at all.

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