I came across an informative post the other day at Problogger that posed the question, “What do you know now about blogging that you wish you knew when you started?” The titled says it all about the post that followed, but the real meat of the post exists in the comments section where readers respond to the question and share their “lessons learned.” And while I also shared my response to the question, I did want to elaborate on my personal lesson learned and offer it up a simple bit of advice for new bloggers: post consistently.

No One Reads a Dead Blog

No one likes to read a dead blog, or even a seemingly dead blog. I’ve certainly learned that lesson the hard way as I’ve watched my readership drop off during weeks when my day job got in the way and prevented me from posting. Readers like to see fresh content on a predictable basis. If the most recent post on a site is several weeks old, and there isn’t an “on vacation” notice anywhere on the site, then why would anyone stick around? The competition for “eyeballs” is fierce and there is no shortage of blogs to choose from. Falling off the face of the blog-o-sphere for even a week can have a dramatic impact on your traffic.

5 Tips for Consistent Posting

Of course it’s easy to say “post consistently”, but how can someone post consistently? I’ve certainly struggled with this battle and here is what I’ve come up with to help pull me out of my slump and get me back on track:

1. Set a posting schedule: Sounds simple but I believe lots of bloggers skip this point. Lay down a schedule of which days you plan to post and how often you plan to do it. On TechTraction I’ve committed to a Monday, Wednesday, and recently added, Friday post schedule. I’ve included that schedule on my about page so readers know that’s when new content arrives.
2. Don’t over commit: New bloggers tend to come out of the starting gate with bang and can post several times in a single day. Whoa! Hold your horses. Unless you have a real need to post several times in a single day, don’t. Likewise, if you can post once a day, I’d recommend you hold off on the schedule until you’ve blogged at least for a few months and get a real feel for how your daily life can impact your blogging schedule. If you have a bunch of ideas, go ahead and write them and pre-schedule their publication date. If something more “timely” comes along and you prefer to publish it rather than a pre-scheduled post, go ahead and change the publication dates. It’s very easy to do. Personally, I recommend nothing more than a 3 times a week schedule for starters. Then, after a few months, evaluate your situation and honestly determine if you can actually post more frequently.
3. Use a specific posting theme for a specific day of the week: Having a hard time coming up with ideas for posts? Try to invent a theme for a specific day of the week. Recently I added a Friday post to my schedule and called it “Friday Finds.” Posting under the category of “Friday Finds” means I am writing a short post that highlights something of interest I found on the web that week. I’m not trying to write a lengthly essay on the “find.” I’m just trying to pass along a point of interest to my readers with a link and a quick summary of my thoughts on it. Look around at other blogs and you will quickly find other bloggers doing something very similar (David Airey at davidairey.co.uk talks about a similar idea in his post about speed linking).
4. Try to create a series post: I did a part 1 and part 2 with creating a WordPress staging and development server. Part one dealt with Wamp installation and part 2 addressed WordPress installation. Later I came back to the topic with a single post and added Joomla to your WordPress staging and development environment. If you have an idea that runs long, try to see if you can break it into a couple of posts. There is nothing wrong with getting as much mileage out of a single topic as possible. The series idea also gives readers a reason to come back to your site.
5. Get ahead of yourself: Before flipping the switch on your new blog, create at least 10 basic posts that you can use to fill the points in your schedule where your day job gets in the way of writing a new post. This post was actually started on 06/23/07 and finished on 06/25/07 but wasn’t published until today. By getting ahead of myself, I got more time to work on the next post rather than having to write it in the eleventh hour.

I’m Not the Only Blogger Recommending Consistent Posting

Consistently posting is a critical part of building your readership, and I’m certainly not the first person to blog about this topic. Stark at Fuzzy Future wrote a post outlining 10 Minute Ideas for the Busy Blogger with similar useful posting tips. Daniel at Daily Blog Tips suggests that you underpromise and overdeliver. And those are just two examples of what other bloggers are suggesting when it comes to being consistent.

Just remember, no one likes to visit a site that looks dead regardless if it is or isn’t. I know for certain that my previous inconsistency certainly cost me some readers, and since my blog is still fairly new (less than a year old), I can’t afford to lose any readers. For that matter, neither can you.

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