Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Blogging :: How often should you post?
As you'll know I haven't written anything here for the past four days. A combination of lots of work, a computer network breakdown and a busy social life all conspired against me. And it's shown - my rankings as revealed by Alexa have dropped. Every time I stop blogging, my rankings slip. So how often should you blog in order to stay up the rankings, indeed to get higher each day? This question was provoked by an article in yesterday's Guardian newspaper which said that several famous bloggers had simply stopped writing. Some said they hadn't found the time; others simply gave up. It all reminds me of The Bulls Head pub in Guildford - sadly no longer there. But my office was just a few doors up the High Street from the pub, so most nights you would find me and my colleagues having a drink after work. Every night there was a chap who stood at the bar putting the world to rights and entertaining us all with his thoughts. He was a local solicitor and a part owner of the pub. Then suddenly, he stopped coming in; we asked the barman and it transpired that the solicitor had sold his share of the pub. To begin with we missed his banter, but after just a few days it became "normal" for him not to be there. In other words, it didn't take long for us not to miss something we enjoyed every night for several years. Psychologically we have a huge capacity for adapting to new circumstances. At the moment, readers of certain blogs wonder how they coped without the information; if that particular blog stopped tomorrow, within a few days they wouldn't miss it. What this means is that if you have a blog and you have readers you must blog frequently and regularly. So, I've taken note of this myself....! Not only will it help your rankings in the "blogosphere" but it helps you stay connected with your human readers - who are much more important than any ranking system.
Labels: blogging, internet psychology
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Readers' Comments:
At
March 29, 2007 2:56 PM 
Jeremy Jacobs said…
At
April 09, 2007 11:26 AM 
Ian said…
I do agree that regular posting is important but it has be maintain a high standard.
I'm sure if your friend had become a drunken bore it wouldn't have mattered how often he came to the pub.
On a personal note, I also find that if a blog is updated more than 2 or 3 times a day I just don't read the posts. I'm too busy (hah!) to sit reading all the time.
Thanks to feeds, I can wait for the good quality content.
Totally agree with you Graham. Once someone stops blogging(and there are one or two I could mention) you forget them rather quickly. Just like
"normal" word-of-mouth or other types of networking; stop promoting yourself and you wont be in it to win it.
Regular commenting on blogs is useful to!