Time for some analysis… About 15 days ago I posted on Google+ about my plan to publish a new blog post, every day from that day till New Year’s.
I have been successful in that but I’ve decided to give up on the idea. Sure, I said I will call myself a failure if I don’t do it, but it isn’t a question if I can do it, it is if I want to do it.
Posting every day wasn’t really that hard. I can do it until New Year’s and beyond. The more I wrote the more ideas I had. However, there are many other things that made me decide not to do it any more.
Why did I try this experiment?
We all know at least one blogger that says “You must blog daily to have a successful blog“. Which I never agreed with, but decided to try. My main goal wasn’t that, though. It was to try and form a more responsible me, since I am a terrible time organizer.
I had no plan in my mind as far as traffic or subscribers go. I just wanted to see if I can post every day for longer than a week (that is the limit I thought I won’t reach, but I proved myself wrong, lol).
Results of my experiment
- I posted 11 posts in previous 11 days (no posting on weekends).
The numbers below compare period Nov 4th – Nov 19th and Dec 4th – Dec 19th (data for Dec 19th is partial)
- Number of visits +31%
- Unique visitors +24%
- Pageviews +36%
- Pages/visit +4%
- Time on site +23 seconds
- Bounce rate -2.77% (the lower the better)
- New visits -5.37% (can be good and can be bad)
- New subscribers – first date range +28, second date range +61, 2.2 times increase
The traffic and subscribers went up. I think I can thank the fact that I had some giveaways going on, so the posts were shared on social media.
So why not post every day any more?
Sure, I am not lacking ideas. But I learned that time is the biggest factor in my life, when it comes to blogging.
When it comes to posting a new post, it was either “Let me post something short but useful” or “Let me drop everything and just write a long post”. I love writing long posts so this was a big thing for me. I also like writing in details.
In these 15 days, life got in the way so many times, although I did manage to follow the original plan. My hubby is between deployments, so I want to spend more time with him; I was supposed to take Roma to show for 6 days, I ended up sending her alone which really bothered me; I have more and more clients and I want to focus on them as much as I can; it is Christmas shopping time and our shopping trips take all day…
Besides life getting in the way, there are several reasons related to blogging itself, that I miss:
- I was short of time to network with my favorite bloggers on social media.
- I didn’t manage to keep up with reading my favorite blogs, not to mention leaving a comment on some of them.
- My inbox is full of unread newsletters I want to catch up with.
- I didn’t have time to properly promote any of the posts from this “challenge”.
The last thing is what got me thinking the most…
Which part of the stats taught me the most?
Obviously the numbers are pretty good. However, the one number that bothered me was the decrease in new visits. This means that I managed to attract less new people to the blog in the previous two weeks.
This can have two explanations:
- More visitors kept coming back after reading something good.
- I attracted less new visitors.
This is exactly the thing that made me realize I haven’t promoted my posts enough. When you post 2 or 3 times a week, you have enough time to promote the post and you also give enough time to people to catch up with your information.
If you are a subscriber of this blog and you took a 2 week vacation, only to come back and see there are 10 new posts here, you will click away or maybe read 2 or 3 posts with the best titles.
So when you post less, not only do you have more time to promote the posts, but you can actually do it on different venues and not just share it on a few social media sites and go on with writing the next post.
Posting less will let you go through your Google Reader, pick interesting posts to read to educate yourself and get new post ideas as well as leave a comment on few blogs to keep the networking going and attract new people to your blog. It is all connected.
What you may have missed
There are a few posts that I would love to mention, that may have gotten lost in this writing frenzy 
:
31 Christmas gift ideas for bloggers
How to use Hootsuite to help people before your competition does
Guest posting is not just about you
Conclusion
Posting every day will bring more traffic. It may increase your newsletter subscribers numbers, lower your bounce rate and make you more money. But it is not something I would recommend to single author blogs with nice amounts of social media and search engine traffic.
I am always in favor of writing better quality content (and letting people digest it) rather than writing more often. Except if you are actually a writer, then you can write 50 pages a day with no problem and just send them to be published to different venues.
This was a positive experience number wise. It also showed I can do something when I want to (which I kinda knew, lol). But it was too time consuming and inflexible for someone that enjoys social media and blog hopping as much as I do.
So, besides calling me a drop out 
have you learned anything from my experiment? Have you ever done something like this?
Hi Brankica. One thing I’ve learnt about writing (so far), is that there is more to life than words. It’s so easy to get drawn into one’s own private space, but at the end, that space will swallow you, without regard.
On another note, I’m amazed at your ability to carry that kind of creative weight.
I forgot to add: ‘Your wheels must be turning very fast.’
Brankica, I’m the same as you when it comes to writing long posts. Try as I may, even my short posts end up being long. (I think we both have a lot to say.)
Your post comes as a relief to me actually. I’ve tried posting twice a week and could barely manage that. I can understand how trying to post daily would be a burden to you. Some people enjoy blogging daily and that works for them. We all have to find our own voice and style and I like your blog just the way it is.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write this post! Hearing that your experiment actually resulted in a “decrease in new visits” is really great info.
So glad you liked it. I also can’t make a short post. I talk a lot offline so I can’t talk less online, I guess, lol. I think you and I are not one of those that are comfortable doing it every day, which is great, as long as we know what works for us
Thanks so much for such a great comment!!!
As long as the content is valuable and easy to read, I appreciate the effort behind long posts. What I need to get a grip on is writing mini-posts as replies to the comments I get. I think this is why I like Twitter so much. It forces me to be brief.
You can also make those mini replies as videos actually and get some of the Youtube traffic as well
Wonderful decision Brankica!
I could never call you a drop-out, as you have achieved what you set out to and learnt a better lesson from it as well!
Initially I had also wondered as why you had taken up the challenge, but after reading about it, I understood your aim. However, I totally agree with your decision to post just once or twice a week- as I myself do that for the reasons you mentioned above.
I guess I also love writing elaborate posts so that the readers don’t have to look for similar information elsewhere. And I also love to read other blog posts, connect with people, network, and share my posts on various social media platforms. All this does require time that is indeed so precious.
I would never want to be in the rat-race and leave all the to-do things that also play a major role in our lives- just for the sake of posting daily to attract more visitors or earn more money.
I congratulate you on your achievement and new learning Brankica, as if you wanted you could have continued well through the New year as well- but then so many other things, as you mentioned would have taken a back seat! I can well imagine as I would add my kids also to your list- who are a full time job!!
Thanks once again for sharing your feelings and thoughts, as I feel it IS the right decision you have taken ( guess now you can enjoy your shopping and spend more time with Roma and your husband
)
Wishing you a very Happy Christmas and New Year
Hey Harleena,
I posted in different ways through out the previous year and I think 2 to 3 posts a week are optimal for me. I enjoy some of the things besides blogging too and have a lot of other stuff online that also needs attention, so posting every day for a long time would not make me happy and more important, I don’t think my readers would be happy.
you completely understood me
I hope you have great holidays too and take some time off like I hope to, lol
I have considered trying to post everyday and my schedule is just too wonky. However, you made a great point – if someone goes on vacation and comes back to 10 posts, they will skim the titles and only read what jumps out. Due to said wonky schedule, it will sometimes be days before I can catch up on Reader and I will do the same thing – skim the posts and go from there.
Hey Pit,
Well first of all you could never be a drop-out because of your past training on special forces, quitting is not an option (unless it’s needed? lol)
I did enjoy your experiment and even though I didn’t leave a comment on every article, I did read them all.
I was pleased with the shorter articles but in a few I was like “oh my, this is all already?”
NOT that the post were incomplete but there were a couple of posts I think, that I was enjoying a lot and felt they could’ve been longer.
(maybe you have spoiled us with your long posts already?)
About catching up when you have an inbox full of published articles from the same blogger… if it’s from someone epic, I do go and check out every single one of them, but you may be right: not everyone is crazy to keep up.
I know that as I recently started a 7-day experiment to overcome my fears of recording myself on camera.
Some buzz was created in the beginning and for the final days, the interest was already almost gone.
Same went for Corbett Barr on his personal blog.
He decided to write something for 30 days and I was excited in the beginning but then again, I started feeling that a few posts were not even meant to be published.
So to sum this up, I think you learnt a lot from this, I did too, I have an unfinished post about “posting frequency” and honestly, I believe that the frequency is very subjective.
The big blogs post up to 14 new articles a day and like you said, even a post a day, can be overwhelming not only for us, for our readers too.
I have also heard and read the “publish one daily post” recommendation and I disagree hardly on that one, not because I don’t think it’s a good idea, but because every site has a different goal.
There are many other blogs that I really like and I know there is no human way to keep up if everyone kept publishing long and amazing posts, on an every day basis.
I think I would just say “enough is enough” and stopped even visiting them! LOL
Really cool summary Pit, now go and have some quality time with your loved ones!
Sergio
PS. Did you say “I’m glad this is over!!!” when you hit the Publish button for this post? LOL
Haha I did say that (re your PS).
I know that some people are just posting too much for me to catch up cause I have 1.000+ unread posts in my Google Reader, lol. I love writing those long posts even if it means spoiling people, and I myself felt like that when I posted the shorter ones. Sure, they explain everything I wanted to say but they are just like if you start eating a Nutela sandwich and when you reach the part that has most Nutela in it, someone takes the sandwich away from you, hahaha
Oh boy that made me hungry lol
I know many people have Jens’ posting schedule (Mon, Wed, Fri)
What could happen if that turns (which I think it already has) into a posting standard and then you’re fighting everyone on the inbox to get someone’s attention to read your blog?
Wouldn’t it be smarter to take the “non crowded” days instead?
Like Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday?
Or maybe a combination to not get lost on the weekend like:
A long post on Monday, short one on Tuesday, then skip Wednesday, publish on Thursday then on Sat…
Oh never mind, I got it all tangled already lol but I’m definitely going to plan a schedule and try to stick to it.
(I just don’t know how yet lol)
Sergio
I agree with you about fighting in the inbox. I tried Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays and it actually works great!
I always have a jar of nutela ready for situations like this haahha
Hi Brankica,
I’ve learned a lot from your experiment, and I am sure that if I did the same, I would end up with the same conclusion. I love to write, and I love to write long posts in detail as well. I can write short, and I can write and post every single day too. But, in the end, I believe it’s even more important to keep in touch with people (your favorite bloggers).
Your results are very interesting. I’ve found that blogging 3 times a week might be the best solution for me. I’m currently testing monday, wednesday and friday. That brings more traffic, and I still get some time to keep in touch with people and do the things I do when it comes to social media. On the other hand, I need to focus on a business strategy.
I think that is the best schedule for me too. I had it for a while, then I downsized to 2 times a week plus round ups and now I am thinking about 3 posts a week again.
Here is an idea for you, maybe you can try posting on weekends sometimes, I noticed that sometimes I get a lot of traffic on weekends, I guess people have some free time to check blogs or something and at the same time, not many blogs do post on weekends so there is not much competition for attention…
Hi Brankica. I guess the lesson learned here is that if you want to make something happen, sometimes all it takes is determination and the will to do so. I myself never did go by the daily posting thing, and preferred like you said, to write articles that at all possible would bring value to users. Kudos for sticking to your plan, and more kudos for prioritizing what’s important and what’s not..
Thank you so much, Francisco, I guess I just like socializing better than anything haha
I always love posts like these Bran because you actually took action, studied the results, showed them to everyone, and now have reached a conclusion.
Like you, I prefer to write long stuff that really gets into meat and potatoes. I like to push thought as much as I can. Invite conversation. Etc.
That’s my style today, and it might be completely different in a year, but I think the key is that we’re willing to try new things, compare, and then get better along the way.
Thanks for being awesome
Marcus
Thanks so much for the awesome comment, Marcus. I always think of you as someone that writes in details as well. I love that. I would rather read one looooong detailed post then 10 short ones, no matter how useful. It doesn’t make sense and I am not sure why, but that is how my brain is wired, lol
Great Brankica, thanks for sharing your experience. A lot of people need to understand that the big blogs who post every day or several times a day have a team of people working for them to make sure those posts get promoted and get the traffic. Sites like Problogger are so big that they don’t have to spend much time on promoting their posts. Plus, a lot of their multiple posts are done by guest bloggers, not by one person trying to write and promote everything.
Like anything in life, there is more than one road to being successful. Huge authority blogs are good, but you don’t have to be the biggest authority to be successful. I think consistency and quality is more important than frequency.
Absolutely agreed. Sometimes, I would rather promote one of my posts for a week (if I think there is a reason for it) than post 3 new ones in that time. Especially that the more we write, the more we know what the readers like, so we can often decide what is it they would love and promote that type of information. This was a great challenge though, although I posted it publicly because of the accountability, I didn’t really think I will make it pass day 5, lol
My colleagues schedule their blog posts, feel like they haven’t done enough if they don’t post four to ten times a day, etc.
I typically write and post live. I don’t know if being on schedule helps. All I know is I don’t want to write just for the sake of posting something. I am, first and foremost, a writer, and I’d rather have quality content five times a week than crap content 35 times a week with the occasional gem here and there.
Lol, I can’t imagine writing that much. I am not a writer though so it makes sense.
Scheduling can actually help a lot. Like if you are in the mood and have inspiration and can write three good posts in a day, then just schedule them to go out every 2-3 days and you are set for a week. It is great if you have stuff going on and need to step away from the blog.
I would like to add that it’s SO refreshing to come here three days later and this is still your newest post! I’m completely burned out right now. I will email you soon for coaching.
Lol, glad to hear that, I feel better too, managed to finish the Christmas shopping, spent more time with Jim and got more “Roma is pushing me off the couch” time as well haha
Brankica,
You made very valid points here and they make sense. I am glad you examined why your new visits went down, I would think it would be the opposite. But your analysis made perfect sense.
Last week I posted once. The first day, great traffic. The next, less. The next, less. And so on. I was not online to promote either. Once a week doesn’t work with me, I need to keep up at least twice a week, beginning and end.
But in the past I posted for 5 days straight (once) and my traffic was amazing! I bet if I went back to my analytics I would find a lot were simply my usual readers, no newbies. I simply can’t keep up with that schedule; I just happen to have a lot to say.
I settled in on 2-3 posts a week. This seems to be my sweet spot also.
I’m with Sergio, I read Corbett Barr’s blog when he posted for 30 days. I simply couldn’t keep up with all that reading so I chose to pick and choose. In the end I only read 1-2 a week there anyway, backing up what you stated above, readers won’t read all your work in a week.
~Allie
I think that is my sweet spot too. It isn’t too time consuming and I still get to go into details. I also find that the posts I promote do better most of the time, for the sole reason that people get informed about it. Cause not a lot of people are just sitting there and waiting to see what am I going to write next. But once you present it to them, they will come and check it out.
I agree. Quality, in both content and interaction always comes first. It’s like the question about facebook fans. Having thousands of fans doesn’t matter if there are no real conversations going on.
Thank you for sharing.
I agree, I like networking and the more I wrote the less time I had to reply to comments or network.
Oh, so it’s about Time.. again!
Publishing everyday has nothing to do with being successful, but I think it’s just an indication that you are active, you care, and you actually there! (which is a good thing)
When publishing daily, you will garantee that Google will crawl your site faster, so that’s a good reason for me to update the blog daily, a few of my high traffic posts was depending on how fast it gets indexed as it’s some sort of news content that can not really wait for an extra two hours to get indexed!
This is also helpful for me as I always try to test stuff on the blog, so I can not imagine my self taking the meet out of the fraizer to grill it for tomorrow!
Anyways, being reponsible for a multi-authors blog with a few mad bloggers pushing me all the time to get their content published , I consider it motivation
(some times I hate motivation)
So what about publishing more than once a day!
The thing that annoy me alot, is that when I publish more than once a day on the blog (who is talking
I don’t get a chance to promote, or even get enough comments and feedback on those posts!
It’s not because the posts fade out or disappear from the front page, but it’s because there are more new content that probably a single reader won’t actually read and bother to engage with all of it, I mean no one will leave their own business to check out the amazing and incredible posts we have for today and engage with it!
However, this works best for readers with different tastes, so it may bt useful to have different type of content that target different types of readers!
By the way this explains the high bounce rate on my blog as I think no one reads everything!
Now I understand how some blogs gets 100+ comments on each post -of course 50% are author comments- they gets it mostly because they don’t update the blog everyday, basically they leave their last post there till it stink on the home page and gets tons of comments
(with respect to interesting content)
And, yes! I agree that it’s not a must to publish everyday, especially if you run a single author blog -in my case, I have a personal blog that I update once a month or two- but when it’s about multi-authors blogs, the whole thing is totally different!
That’s my case, my way, and my thoughts!
Brankica, you go do it your way, there is no right way, there is only a successful way!
I already told you on Twitter, you are so out of this story, lol. Your blog is big and having multiple authors really helps. I think that for a smaller single author blog like mine, especially that I have other projects and sites going on, it is time consuming.
On the other hand, if I was only working on this blog, posting once a day would probably be better, but overall when I measure the results and my goals, it definitely doesn’t work for me in the long run.
Was I a unique visitor?
Roma didn’t call me BTW.
Interesting stat about new visitors. I think fewer posts would allow for more promotion.
I hope you and the family are enjoying the holiday season.
Your are one unique visitor
Roma is in heat and hated the Florida trip, she wasn’t treated as I treat her at home so she was pissed at the world. When they brought her back she would not pay attention to me and turned her back on me ever time I would talk to her. So you definitely didn’t want her to call you in such a bad mood, hahaha
Merry Christmas!!
You’re doing the one thing that so many bloggers fail to do: You analyze your stats! Thanks for sharing your results – I tweeted your post.
I’ve gone both ways over the years. Lots of posting generated lots of traffic on the short term.
In the long term, I get more traffic from the posts I took my time with.
I agree with that, when I write a more detailed post I have time to promote it and there is a lot of content to keep people happy, which makes Google happy too
So I am just going back to my regular posting type and schedule. Thanks for taking the time to comment!
Hi,
Nice Post Brankica you mentioned very nicely how we can increase traffic on our blog and this is very nice thought if we will post a new post every day then other readers can understand about us yes this person is serious about blogging which can be prove good for us to attract many readers and bloggers for our blog post.
Thanks, Sam. I guess we just have to try and test all the time.
At this very moment I’m studying the program Inbox Magazine Empire produced by Mary Ellen Tribby and Ryan Deiss.
Mary Ellen worked for the mega info-publisher, Agora, and was a key part of the success of their Inbox Magazine (read: ezine) – “Early To Rise”. They started out publishing every day and did this for years and it led to massive success.
But Mary Ellen was getting feedback that their fans, while loving the content, were feeling overwhelmed and kinda feeling guilty because they kept putting off reading today’s post til tomorrow, and then never getting back to it – even though they meant to.
Upon hearing this feedback they changed up and I believe now they do three days a week. Mary Ellen herself does a Monday and Thursday publish with her Working Moms Only site – remembering those were the days they got the best open rates over at ETR.
I remember feeling the same way she said other people had told her the felt about being overloaded. And it seems to me that this could be one reason people opt out of getting your content – not because they’re pissed but because they’re ashamed of not reading your stuff and it’s less stress on their ego to not see your emails.
Very cool to see your test results and very cool to see you exploring like this. Thanks for sharing your results!
Lewis, that is an amazing comment and so true! I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. So even if they are not posting every day, I still have so many that I can’t keep up (but I want to stay subscribed). So imagine if they post every day. That would be nuts.
On the other hand, you just reminded me. I had a few people unsubscribe from my newsletter list (although it isn’t the post update type of newsletter) and a few stated the reason for unsubscribing: “Trying to downsize the amount of newsletters I get”. I know exactly how they feel.
I can’t imagine posting every single day. However, seeing the positive effects makes me want to! My problem seems to be in doing the writing itself. I have a dozen good topics and the basic idea of what the post will say…but I’ll procrastinate writing it forever.
That is the exact reason I wanted to give it a go. To see if I would procrastinate or not
Try it for two weeks and see how it works for you 
I think I’ll need to after new years (more procrastination?!?). I’ll make it a new years resolution
I’m coming late to the party, but I just wanted to mention that maybe the decrease of visits is due to the dates, you know, is December, holidays, travels, shopping, visits to family friends and so on (Im experimenting this also in my blog)
So I want to think is because of that
nevertheless, great lesson for us to learn!
You know since it is only decrease in NEW visits I wasn’t really worried, it was just interesting and it can have more explanations. But it is great to be able to compare numbers and see what happens
Fascinating! There is something to be said about living offline too eh?
Well done for completing your goal! That’s cause for a celebration in itself …
I think it’s interesting how you said that you attracted less new visitors … was that because you had less time to focus on spreading your message?
I’m a strong believer in not all traffic is created equal but this was a great experiment, and one I have seen before, the findings are always interesting!
You know, the new visitors thing confuses me a tiny bit. Because I have more visitors over all and it is a period of 2 weeks. So you can say I didn’t have the time to bring new ones but on the other hand, you can say I did bring new ones (traffic increase) and they liked the blog so much that they were coming back (less new visits). If I had a drop in traffic I would not be so confused, lol
Hi Pit.
In my world quality always beat quantity and if you should be posting every day you would not be able to keep the quality as high as with a couple of posts a week. There is nothing as great as reading a good well written post that you can see has required a lot of work from the blogger (as this one for sure has from you).
Always nice with some blog experiments
However it does make more sense to publish guest posts after seeing the numbers of this experiment.
I agree with you about keeping the quality. I have read several blogs where people were writing daily and you can always see something really lousy coming through. So I don’t plan to do it anymore
I think guest posting from time to time is less time consuming and at the same time more productive than posting on your own blog daily, of course if all the posts are great.
These are interesting conclusions. I like to wrote out of inspiration. Sometimes I will raffale 7 articles in a row, but opposite can happen as well.
So all in all I have semi frequent posting scheduele, and so far it’s been good to me. Quality over quantity anytime of the day. If you can keep up both, good for you. Bu those who can’t shouldn’t sweat it.
Blogging i is not competition
Actually I think blogging is a competition if you are making money of it or have some other goals. I am not talking about “my cat’s life” blogs though.
Because if you have a blog, you will have at least one goal and that is to have people who read it. So you need to be better than the next guy. That is competition in my book, lol
Two things stood out for me in this post:
“I was supposed to take Roma to show for 6 days, I ended up sending her alone which really bothered me;”…been there, done that!
and:
“I didn’t have time to properly promote any of the posts from this “challenge”.”
never even considered that I need to promote my own blog! Thanks!
Oh, what kinda of dog are you showing?
As far as promotion, oh yeah, if you want to have a successful blog and traffic, you definitely need to promote it a lot
If you go by that saying “build it and they will come”, most will agree that doesn’t happen, lol
Thanks so much for the comment, hope to see you coming back often!
I truly enjoyed this post, not only for the content itself, and also because I applaud the idea of assessing whether a goal is worth pursuing in the process of acheiving that goal.
I used to think that agreeing or deciding to do something mean that I HAD TO follow through, even if I discovered I wasn’t getting the value I wanted. Sometimes I even followed through when I was harming myself or others, because I mistakenly believed that doing exactly what I said I was going to do was more important than honoring myself!
Now I have a healtheir and happier perspective and I can allow myself to change my mind, and make decisions that are self-loving and self-respecting!
Chrysta
I can not agree more. That was my dilemma in this “challenge” and once I realized that doing it for the sake of doing wasn’t making me happy, it was a different story for me. Has to be a part of growing up I guess
Thank you for the great post. So glad to hear someone else who shares my point of view. I have been trying to increase my blog activity, but I also believe in quality over quantity. Also true about too frequent postings getting read. I don’t have time to go through my Google Reader everyday, so when I do get there, the blogs with many posts get quickly skimmed or overlooked completely.
Although I am one person and so many are different than me, I still always try to start from me: “Do I have time to read all those posts”, “Is there a blog I follow so religiously I could read it every single day” etc. And if I answer some of those with no, I kinda get the idea what others would do as well
I always think that posting 1 to 3 posts a week is better for readers to catch up with our content, and as you said we have to give our self the time to promote our posts.
for me when i post a very long post that deserve more attention I actually promote it more than my normal posts. I think giving our posts and work the deserve attention is what we actually have to do.
I agree 100%. That is the main point in my post (with the alert sign, lol): If you post something awesome and no one sees it – what is the point. So I definitely like to promote my best posts more!
Thank a lot for the sharing. I always love your practical experiments. You inspire me and you have helped me keep up with this blogging work. Have bookmarked your work and refer to it time and again. allow me to say thank you again.
Glad to hear that
Hi Brankica, I knew your daily blogging adventure was going to be an interesting one.
Because we only have so much time in the day we lose in other areas when we put more time into daily tasks. It’s really an impossible balancing act we have to maintain. I work a job 60 hours a week on top of the online stuff and a little local consulting. I think you made the right choice, family has to come first. Isn’t that why we do this anyway; for family time and freedom? Its crazy how quickly blogging can eat up an entire day when you toss in all the other duties that go with it like optimizing, interacting via comments, images, promoting and social media.
I think you have a very successful blog and are doing a great job. I try to post every two or three days and that really does seem to give most of my readers a chance to read and interact. Daily posts do lack on interaction, as Hesham was saying.
I did want to ask about your decrease in new visits. Are the actual numbers down or just the percentage? If the overall numbers are way up, the “percentage” of new visits can be lower even when the actual numbers have grown. I know you already know that, I’m just curious.
I hope you enjoy your Holiday and I wish you and your family a Merry Christmas.
That is the only percentage that is down. The question makes a lot of sense, lol.
I think posting 2 or 3 times a week is the best for me and my readers too
And I can not agree more with the comment about the families !
I did this back in Feb of this year when I did my Black Super Hero Month event. Every day of the month, even weekends with no day off.
What an ordeal. I mean, I know my black super heroes, but I had still had to go research them all and provide relevant links for those who didn’t. Then I had to write up a detailed post on each one -and I’m not a short-winded poster either lol.
On top of that I had to draw each character and color it in. It was TON of work, way more than I anticipated. I had started the posts in January, but as I was still at my full-time job then, life caught up with me and by the end of Feb I was doing all that work each night. Sheesh!
Traffic was up when I was doing it, but not enough to justify that level of work. Now that I’ve settled into a weekly comic the traffic keeps going up steadily so I’m pretty happy about that. It gives me time to go read stuff and work on other pursuits.
So yeah, I see exactly where you’re coming from and I wouldn’t do it again, either…I’m glad that’s over!
Oh this is a great point – Traffic was up when I was doing it, but not enough to justify that level of work.
Oh I hate when I stay up those times when I simply must finish something and I didn’t have time to do it earlier!
Brankica,
It’s great that you actually carried out the challenge. I won’t call you a dropout. I too will go for quality post rather then quantity. I too try to post daily but have realized that certain type of posts (esp picture related) are certainly drawing more attention and new visitors then short text posts.
Yes, shorter posts really have to be wow to keep people around and I love longer posts anyway, lol. Thanks for the nice words!
Always love a good old fashioned chunk of transparency, Brankica!
This line held a bucket full or meaning for me …
“I am always in favor of writing better quality content (and letting people digest it) rather than writing more often.”
Any time you make a promise to yourself and give yourself a nudge to stay on that path and see it through, you’ll always come out a winner — no matter the statistical results.
Thanks for sharing this personal challenge! It has reaffirmed my recent decision to post less often.
I am glad I could help and save you from doing the same thing I did here, lol. It was a fun challenge but I just think it isn’t worth it, lol
Brankica love your analysis. I am very much a numbers person. We post daily and sometimes more because we have several topics people can follow separately and may not have a interest in say “Epicurean” (twice a week postings) but very interested in “Travel With Kids” (thrice a week postings). Our goal is increasing awareness of our travel services and when we post frequently we obtain more loyal clients. In addition, we offer a twice monthly newsletter for travel and the option to subscribe to our feed for daily postings to your inbox, but our goal is not so much the feed subscribers, but the newsletter subscribers.
In October, we began our 90 day challenge to achieve our goals to grow our blog setting several measurement goals as our benchmarks. January 6th marks the end of our 90 day challenge. We have achieved 2 of 3 measurements… and working diligently to achieve the 3rd in the next two weeks. If I had to write myself and promote, then I would post 2-4 times a week at most with a mix of long & short posts and less topics to cover. However, we are a tight-knit team so so far it is working for us. Still learning new and many ways to promote will always be my favorite part. Cheers to you! Merry Christmas!
P.S – I used to show my Yorkie and boy I miss it. She is a gem.
Merry Christmas to you too
Time for another show Yorkie? Roma is only a year old and I am already planning a show puppy boy for this spring (still waiting for that breeding to happen). She will love to have some company as well.
If you have a team and posting about news in travel for example, that is a great way to go. Please come back to tell us about all the goals and how you achieved them! If you feel like it, you can email me and maybe we can make that a guest post here
I would love to do more shows, but no time to truly commit to it. I will definitely return to let you know our results. Thanks for providing so many valuable tidbits. Happy New Year!
I’m a fan of posting every day (or at least several times per week). It’s a discipline, but it’s the only way to get better, IMO.
Love that the traffic supports this, too. Thanks for sharing, Brankica!
Posting a lot is the best way to get better at posting a lot, I agree
But the bottom line are the goals and my long term goal isn’t to get better at that part of blogging. I expected the traffic to go up with so many posts but the traffic alone, if not converting doesn’t mean much. So there is a lot of testing and trying to do to make sure we are getting what we want, in my case at least.
LOOOL Brankica , I am glad you don’t want to use the word failure on yourself. I will also not use it for you either but I must say I don’t find your excuse of quitting convincing. If anything at all, you should know that the major challenge to posting daily was not having the time not the ideas.
Anyways, you did great by going 11 straight days
Haha, actually MY major issue was that I didn’t think I can do it, since I am too scattered brain and always multitasking so I can’t keep up with the schedule
we’ve come to the same kind of realization with our blog – it was great to see so many guest bloggers writing for us this past month but it also meant that each post got limited exposure and much less time to sit on the top and be “new”
That is one of the things I didn’t like with my blog in the period I mentioned above. I like when they are “new” longer
Brankica,
The big takeaway here is that each of us must TEST our willingness to adhere to a schedule – daily or otherwise. I started 2010 with the cool idea to write 52 weekly posts. I abandoned that for reasons entirely different than yours.
What parrots miss by regurgitating platitudes is that everything isn’t right for everyone.
I’m glad you found this out for yourself.
Happy Holidays,
Mitch
Oh yes, I can not agree more with that, Mitchell! I always stress that out to people too, because what works for someone may not work for me. I am all for testing and trying but once I have my conclusion (after running a test) nothing can convince me someone’s way is better than mine, cause it just didn’t work for me
Hope you had a great Christmas!
Hi, from february 2012 i planned to start losing weight. Shortly ago started a blog about that so i can blog (Dutch) my daily affairs about this. It is costing me big effort since I’m not a natural born writer. And i wasn’t looking forward to write daily continue sly, but Im so happy i now can throw this overboard and then only blog daily during my actual diet. So guess i will get the best of both sides at the end. More traffic, less weight…
Oh I can’t wait to see those updates… I hope google translate will work good with it cause I would love to read about the progress
Hi Brankica, I agree with you. I posted at least every weekday for the first six months of my blog. Last week I posted seven times. But I learned that sometimes a blog post needs time to mature. If you replace a blog post with another every day, then you don’t have a lot of time for an article to stay at the top of your homepage.
I think blogging has to work for you. If daily posting is hampering your life, you won’t keep it up. You may even start to be resentful of the commitment.
You’re doing great by posting on a schedule that works for you. If it ain’t broke…
Hey Carolyn, I can see it working on a tech blog with all the new stuff happening all the time but if you are a single author it has to be so hard to write so much. And with a blog like mine, you are right about letting the posts mature. I have seen spikes in traffic even days after I would not post anything so if it ain’t broke…
This is a great post. I have been torn on whether writing posts everyday is beneficial from a non-search engine perspective. I think you are right, and thank you for taking the time to write about it.
I would rather have someone read a great post than miss it because I wanted to put up some other article the next day.
Glad I ran into your site, I’ll be back!
–Shannon
Shannon, I know people say Google loves blogs that are updated often but I have a site that I don’t update for months at the time and it is growing in Google daily. So often in this case is a relative term.
Thanks for sharing this, Brankica. It is interesting to hear bloggers’ journeys and how they come to the posting frequency that works best for them. But when it comes down to it, this is YOUR blog, YOUR space, and YOUR call. You know the writing style, length and frequency that works best for you, your readers and your life.
I, too, have struggled with the frequency question. Less than a year into it, I’m realizing that if I don’t write every day, I lose the momentum pretty quickly. I have experimented, and have chosen to make an effort to write every day in the coming year. It’s not about numbers (entirely), it is about what works for me and my readers.
Thanks again for sharing, and good luck with your new (old) schedule!
Oh I am sticking to this one
This was too tiring. But it is interesting to hear that you plan to write every day this year. Will you post a post a day on your blog?
Well, I joined a blog challenge of posting 31 times in January – so it will be an ambitious month. But after that, my long-term goal is to post at least 4 times per week. Those posts will be a mix of my own writing and pieces from guest authors. I will still be writing every day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I will write an entire post each day. My plan is to devote 20-30 minutes per day to writing. We’ll see how it goes. We each have to find our own groove, right? It sounds like you now really know yours, which is great!
Like you, I always prefer the long, detailed approach to blogs. But then again, there are three types of blogs. One, that is long and detailed on a broad complicated subject. Two, that is short and sweet on a simple query. Three, that is more like a rant. So, I basically go for the first and the third. My choice!
Oh I think there are more than just those 3 but no matter how many are there I am sure we can make them all work
I totally agree with you that if we post daily and people miss important posts than its a waste of time.
My thoughts exactly
Hi Brankica, I did a 30-day blogging challenge in July last year and I came to much the same conclusion as you. I found it valuable to try for many reasons. I was pleased to see I had the discipline to do such a challenge (although I know there are many harder challenges out there) and the best lesson I learned was that my writing is much better when I write for others rather than for myself. I share things that matter to me on my blog so there are a lot of different themes I write about, but if I share things that happen in my life with the audience in mind I get much better feedback. My blog is very small and most people comment back on Facebook, but writing for 30 days was a rewarding experiment that I too will not be repeating in a hurry. All the best for a wonderful 2012..
Hey Vanessa, I am with you on taking the break from it
It is interesting to learn that you “write better for others”. I don’t want to act smart or anything but maybe you should determine your perfect reader and write for him/her on your blog from now on. That usually brings a lot of great results
I at one point tried to blog every day, and for the most part still do, just not for the same blog. The last time I tried to count the number of sites and blogs I must update regularly put the list somewhere between 25 and 30.
Needless to say, unless God were to expand a day from 24 to 96 hours, there is no humanly way to update each of these every day. My target is to update each one about once every two weeks or so, but even that can be difficult at times.
My one saving grace is that a couple are so popular that I receive enough guest-post requests to keep fresh content coming on a near-daily basis.
I can totally understand why you would not be inclined to continue to commit to posting every single day of the year. It’s just too draining.
Hey Peter, wouldn’t a 96 hr day be awesome
Brankica,
Sorry I am so late on commenting on this one. (If you didn’t notice I have been pretty much not making my normal rounds for the past month. Lots of people visiting, etc. and a busy holiday season.)
This daily or not daily posting has been something that has always interesting. I did daily posts for exactly 1 year. In the end I was only doing it to make a year…
WHile there are benefits I totally agree with your assertion that it helps people catch up… and perhaps more importantly the promotion aspect you talk about. Writing the post, after all is only about 1/2 of the work. (perhaps even significantly less than that).
That you were able to figure it out quickly is a testament to you and how hard headed I can be.
I did notice you were less active but when I miss you, I just go read some of your old posts! Yes, I do that just to mess up your GA stats
This was a cool lesson and although I am hard headed often, this was not the time to be like that (for me), haha
Wow that is a great challenge that you took.
For me, I would be out of ideas soon (if I try to write everyday) and I wouldn’t have enough time to do other things. I would just be writing (and no marketing and networking; since I also need to work on my college stuff).
Yes, it is a great thing to experiment with. But the problem is that, if you stick with that kind of schedule, you really need to have a lot of time (as your readers will be expecting a post every day).
Plus, I think it is much greater to write fewer posts with greater quality and invest a lot more time into marketing and networking!
I am glad that you conducted the experiment and shared the results with us! Thank you Brankica,
Jeevan Jacob John
Hi Brankica, I agree that Blogging can certainly take you away from other things in life… ie: Your hubby and Roma.
Last year I took part in a 90 day challenge. It worked out to three months of continuous blogging with only the weekends off and WOW… talk about a huge time suck.
I will admit it did drastically improve my ranking and definitely helped me get more visitors and a few opt ins (don’t have the data)… but I wouldn’t be the first in line to do it again.
I have been a little busy lately focusing on other projects but I do hope to get into a more structured routine but certainly not every day. It’s enough to make your eyes roll back permanently in your head.
Jayne
That’s an interesting take you had on your experiment. I get the part about not having enough time to promote posts. I don’t get the part about having too many of your current visitors coming back at the exclusion of new visitors.
To me, the best part of the blogging community is having a loyal following, people who will come back over and over, see what you’ve written, possibly go back and read all the other stuff, and if they’re loyal and trust you possibly buy from you, if that’s what you’re all about.
I love new visitors but they’re fickle and untrackable in a way. They might stop by out of curiosity and never come back; I’m not sure I think those folks are better. That’s just my take on it though.
I don’t think that new visitors are better. I don’t think that is what I say here. What I say is that you need to grow and growth means you have to attract new visitors. And then hopefully turn the new ones into returning ones. If you keep getting the same visitors over and over again and you are about sales, they will buy everything you have and then what? One day, you may not have anything new to offer to sell them or they may not have money for it.
To grow, you simply must have new people coming to your blog.
I agree 100% that its better to write less and have them be better quality posts with much more content in it then writing a lot of low quality posts with not as much content. And like you said it gives you time to promote your posts. I notice with some blogs they write so much you don’t even want to read everything. What good is that doing?
I keep to 3 good quality posts a week. Not including other stuff I add like video’s and adding to my always expanding directory.
I don’t have a e-mail newsletter but was thinking of getting one once my blog is getting more traffic and I have been around for awhile. My blog is only a little over 2 months old.
Hi Brankica, nice post. Actually I found the link to it on a friend’s blog and the last part of the title cough my attention.
I too find that posting every day is not the best option, because the content published at that speed may suffer in terms of quality and it may not get the deserved attention.
There is also an aspect that many overlook. Work on a post is not over when you hit the “publish” button. And here I’m not talking about promoting it, I’m talking about replying to comments.
I also did an experiment on your post – I looked at the dates people commented on it. People started commenting on it on 12/20/2011 and it actively went on until 1/5/2012. That’s 2 weeks more or less.
If we take that into consideration it means that if you post something every day, not only you have to come up with quality content for that post, but also to reply to comments on probably 10 other posts. It is more time consuming than I can take
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