Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Can You Post TOO Much?

January 11, 2010 | Blogging

There is no doubt that posting frequency is a huge contributor to traffic growth for your blog. Most hobby-bloggers tend to have the problem of not posting enough. And it shows in their traffic.

Not posting enough harms your growth because you are not in front of your potential readers often enough. You get forgotten and essentially need to recreate the relationship with each and every post. You are also not providing Google with enough “juice” for good indexing.

It would be easy to assume, then, that the more you post, the better. After all, if not posting much is bad, then posting a lot is good, right? Is it really true?

Yes And No

From a pure traffic standpoint, high post frequency undoubtedly works. In other words, take the human being out of the equation and it works. When you look at large-scale blogs like TechCrunch, Mashable or Gizmodo, it is clear that high post frequency works.

But, these blogs have something very important in common: Multiple Authors.

They also have a second thing in common: they talk about technology.

And here is my point:

  • The work load is split up.
  • These blogs are in markets with a lot of news, thereby justifying a high post frequency because there is always plenty to talk about.

Not all blogging markets can sustain a post frequency like that. Quite simply, you’ll run out of stuff to say! Either that, or your drive for quantity over quality will make your content less useful and more like filler.

The Human Factor

You also need to consider the reader and your market. Again, a market like technology can sustain higher post volume. Tech readers are out to consume the latest news. That’s often why people bother coming to a tech blog. In a niche where people are there to learn things, however, high post volume can actually BACKFIRE. What you’ll end up doing is contributing to information overload. Human nature is such that, when the volume becomes too great, they’ll often just flee.

One must also consider the human cost of pounding out high post frequency for a single-author blog. It is time consuming. You can end up posting shallow content because you don’t take the time to write something worth reading. You can lose sight of your goals for the short term gratification of knowing you reached your post quota. In the long run, it does not lead itself to REAL growth. It leads to burnout. It leads to misplaced priorities.

It also can lead to failing to monetize properly. There is a reach/withdraw to any market. The more you reach, the more some withdraw. It comes into play with your content, too. There IS a point where, if you provide too much, you cannot monetize the blog by offering anything.

So, can you post too much? Yes.

I think once per day is just fine. I think it is more important to be regular and predictable for your audience than it is to throw sheer volume at them. If your audience comes to expect only 3 posts per week, then just stick to it.

But, if you just decide to take the “balls to the wall” strategy to grow your blog, realize that the strategy can backfire on you if you don’t play it right. Working smart is more important than working hard.

So, what do you think?

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  • Hi,
    I can't really comment as a writer since Give A Brick is still so new and tiny. However, from my experiences as a reader, I agree that if a blogger suddenly increases their output it can be hard to keep up, regardless of how interesting the writer is.

    However, taking James @TheInfoPreneur as an example (seeing as he's been discussed already ;)) the great thing about the likes of Twitter is that readers can be exposed to your great content days and even weeks after you wrote it.

    If the quality is high, it will be read. However, I for one would rather write 5 excellent posts in a week than 7, 10 or 14 average ones so I'll be trying to keep that as my guide.
  • HI David,

    This is interesting as you have given the same sort of advice on my site, I am positive that by publishing 140 posts in 9 weeks, I'm where I am now. My traffic, readers, newsletter subscriptions all based on the amount of information I produce.

    However, I have decided to post once a day (still 30 times a month) but keep the same intensity and now produce a lot of guest posts.

    Consitency is the key, the readers of my site expect content regulary and still do, so it's exactly what they get, but now I provide at least one fresh post a day 7 days a week and now I'm increasing my reach because of the amount of guest posts I'm doing.

    Top post David, Hopefully I was your inspiration, go on admit it! lol
  • Consistency is more important than Volume! The exact phrase :), thanks for the share David
  • I agree with you there David. Working smart is way better than working hard. We don't have to sacrifice the quality of our site for many crappy posts. I think posting once a day is enough for me ;)
  • Right on the button there David. I post about once a day during the week. Sometimes Twice if there is enough content and I have some good ideas. But as single author blog, it does take a lot of time. Not the writing, but the research. That takes oodles of time.

    But each blog and blogger needs to find their ultimate post frequency. I do find that at times when I post more than one post a day, my traffic does increase. When I do this normally the posts are not of the same topic. One would be about blogging, the other might be more technical, web development, programming. So may do appeal to different audiences, even though I do structure the technical posts for bloggers as well.

    Even so, I do not want to burn myself out, nor do I just want to post multiple posts a day just for the sake of posting,
  • Very true David. If your a lone blogger don't over do it with posts instead make 3-4 posts a week but make them real good posts with lots of good valuable info, not just filler. Of course if you have a staff and considered "big" then then the audience expects nothing less than many posts and can expect many repeat visitors during the day.
  • As a hobby-blogger (at least now!), one of the ways I found to maintain post-schedules is to use the Wordpress Post-Scheduling. I write 3-4 posts over the weekend - or on a weekday when I have time and these would be scheduled at regular intervals over the week. This way frequency can be sustained.

    I know many of us use these - just thought it might help a few :)
  • I definitely think you can post too much. I can remember back when I was a heavy blog reader (wasn't writing yet, just taking it in) I would unsubscribe from blogs that wrote too much. A good example is TUAW and even Mashable. I love getting the news but as Tim Ferris says (not exact) - if it's GREAT news the people you surround yourself with will tell you if it's newsworthy without having to read it yourself.

    I'm more inclined to un-subscribe to a blog because there is too much coming in than not enough.
  • Hey David... After running my first months statistics for my forty2fifty blog I discovered my traffic was up during the two weeks I posted everyday as opposed to the two weeks I posted only three time per week. So I'm posting everyday, Monday through Friday on forty2fifty.

    I have set up three posts per week on my new guyknowledgy.com blog and hope to ramp that up in the coming months to five a week. I'm also going to include some video blogs on there as well.

    My biggest concern is writing 10 posts per week for my blogs and trying to include some guest blogging in there. What do you think?
  • In regards to social sites: The two points from the post that hit home with me are the "niche" dictating posting frequency and also "what your readers are used to."
    IOW-- to me, consistency is what matters.
    Of course, there is the "playing hard to get" strategy where you make people wait long periods of time between posts, but when you do post, it is a gigantic firestorm... anticipation is a great tool to feed from.
    In my niche blogs outside of the arena of tech, IM and MMO, I post only 3 or 4 times per year; whenever I come up with a keyword rich money-making topic. I don't wanna make friends and get comments on those sites... I want to make money, so the posting frequency doesn't matter a bit,... only the content and it's ability to translate into dollars from organic search traffic.
    AL
  • Hey David,

    I agree. I posted 2-4 times a day (1-2 were interviews and news) at first but I found it to not only be overwhelming on me, but on my readers. I had quite a few unsubscribers because they couldn't handle it anymore. I changed it up and rebranded so now the plan once I'm done with the design (thanks to HEADWAY!) is to post 2-3 times a week and focus on the business rather than just the blog.
  • I firmly believe in quality over quantity, but if you can have the same high quality posts more often, then it could work for you, depending on the niche.
  • I believe you can post too much, and like you stated, I expect that from tech or news sites. I once said I was going to increase my writing frequency because I felt there is a huge amount of information I want to share. Ultimately, I decided that any writing schedule I created had to have specific articles for that month or else I was kidding myself. From there I could see what topics were good to research or just filler to meet my quota.

    I'd rather try to add insight and help visitors open their eyes rather than roll their eyes.
    I've noticed that traffic is great to have but sometimes your "vanilla" content will hurt in the long run. I love horse racing and realized you gotta pace yourself....
  • Hi David,

    I don't think there can be any sort of a hard and fast rule, that applies across the board, when it comes to post frequency.

    Basically, if you have something useful and interesting to say, you should probably post it. And if you don't, you should probably wait until you do.

    Sounds overly simplistic, I know ... but sometimes the simplest "rules" are the ones that work the best. :-)

    Todd
  • Once a day should be ample. People usually subscribe to many blogs and want to have time to check them out. Coming back to the same blog twice a day is undesirable for most readers.
  • David, you've hit that exactly right. Be consistent.

    Moreover, if your consistency is about unleashing a deluge, you dilute your own message . . . err . . . or turn that message into "my deluge is my message, and you don't really need to read the content".

    You know. . . like Guy Kawasaki.

    If you're after mass, you do what Guy does. Long-term-trustworthiness, though, can only be achieved via long-term trustworthiness.

    Jeff Yablon
    President & CEO
    Answer Guy and Virtual VIP Computer Support, Business Change Coaching and Virtual Assistant Services

    Answer Guy and Virtual VIP on Twitter
  • My Challenge is trying to figure out how to control the information flow. I am strictly a "Newbie" site. I have to stay on point in the featured section of my blog. However there is so much breaking news now, that I feel compelled to make this available to all. Posting this late breaking news helps me by making it easy to index, so that I can find it for myself. I don't have to go searching for it on my hard drive, it's right there on my blog, usually in a section entitiled "jeffrey's corner". But I have noticed that if I post this as it flows to me in the featured section of my blog, it really looks like a mess. There is no real train of thought. It's just all jumbled. Thank Goodness for Twitter !
  • The whole thing is a bit complicated I think. And it all depends on how often you post on a daily basis, i.e. what number of posts are your readers expecting.

    If you're posting 1 time per day on average, then you just can't change it to 10 times per day overnight. What I'm trying to say is that it's still you who decides what is "too much", but you need to watch the response from your readers carefully and adjust the frequency of posting.
  • Hmmmm. I'm not so sure about this. I agree there may come a point where you can overload readers, but I've yet to find that point.

    I generally posted every day last year, but a couple of times I ramped up the posts, and the traffic, comments and most importantly, the subscribers ramped up significantly each time I did that. As a result I'm planning to increase to 500 posts this year - 10 a week - and see how that goes.

    I'm not disagreeing with your point, and understand each niche is different, but I suspect for our niche the upper limit might be more than most of us are currently producing.
  • Perhaps, but it is also a matter of balancing out all other factors. If I made a habit of posting twice per day to this blog, I think my audience would deal with it quite well. But, other things would suffer. And in the end, it would show in post quality, I believe.
  • That's a good point - and I know I've been guilty of letting quality drop for the sake of numbers. It's a real balancing act.
  • David, there have been a few articles in my circle that I read pertaining to this, and I agree with you, unless your niche calls for it (news, tech, maybe even political) then one a day is fine.

    Also, I know a blogger that posts a minimum twice a day, where I post once, we are in similar niches and our total comment count is similar, even though he posts twice a day. That tells me the readers can't keep up with him....
  • But does comment count necessarily reflect the total traffic numbers? A blogger I follow posted about a traffic increase of about 25%, which was solely due to an increase in posting.
  • Lisa, I only used comment count because that was how he measured how his blog was doing (and I don't think it is a bad way to measure, along with other parameters), so that is what I had to compare with.

    To me, if the traffic increase doesn't convert (sales, ad clicks, comments etc..) then does it really help? I would have to ask if the blogger you mentioned received increases in other areas other than traffic.

    Of course everyone measures the success of their site differently. :-)
  • I know who you're talking about. ;)
  • Yeah, I think I know who you might be talking about, too. And, believe me, it is a rat wheel. Effort doesn't equal output. He can blog in first gear and run at 10,000 RPM, or he can shift into overdrive and get the same results by writing less.
  • Hey guys I'm flattered you are talking about little ol' me! lol

    Yeah thanks to a lot of your advice (combined) I'm posting at least once a day now rather than minimum twice. Traffic is actually on the rise again because I can focus more on guest posting too.

    Cheers, Keith, Gordie and David for the top advice, beer anyone?
  • James, glad to hear you will be guest posting more.... feel free to send mine over anytime :-), also if you want to guest post at Blogger Luv, just let me know...
  • will do brother
  • Ne reason to mention him, but I know he is wrestling with post count now, I hope he opts to post less on his own blog, and maybe channel that to article marketing and guest posts.
  • I think it's okay for him to keep doing multiple daily posts for a couple more months for SEO and then cut back to once per day and do more guest posting and promoting.
  • If you are posting with a frequency that receives few or no commentators or readers (and your analytics will indicate readership levels), then cut down on the posting to let people catch up.
  • Well, I see your point, but would disagree that you cannot let comments be your driving factor for new content. Especially in the beginning, because you might not get many comments. But, the last think you want to do is sit back and wait before posting your next post.

    Comments aren't really the best measurement of post volume.
  • I wouldn't even post once per day if the quality drops. Like you said as well, knowing your audience is key, how often (and also when) you post can be determined by them. But the best advice I've ever heard has been "Only post enough posts that you can market".
  • Good quote. :-)
  • David for me the answer is definitely yes! This is what I tweeted back in October last year:

    I find even tho I luv certain blogs, if the blogger publishes almost daily & I can't keep up with it I visit less & less. Weird but true. 4:07 PM Oct 29th, 2009 from TweetDeck

    A lot of bloggers have a level of continuity between their posts and if I miss one I feel a little disconnected from the ongoing conversation. It's easy to catch up on one or two missed posts but when there are daily posts or even more than one a day it just gets too hectic and I visit less and less. Maybe I'm more time poor than most though...mum of two and all. lol.

    It's a balance though and I'm very guilty of not blogging frequently enough so I appreciate the reminder on that aspect too!
  • My blog gets a post each and every day except on weekends. Thankfully I've got some great guest bloggers and more to come. In my niche of real estate investing there are always things to blog about and I'm positive I'll never run out of content.

    Just to make sure that happens, I do a lot of 'day in the life of' videos which are popular among my blog followers.

    Your question lingers in my mind all the time. I always wonder if I'm doing too much or not enough. I will admit that others in my industry post less frequent and seem to have a higher following. Ultimately, I will decrease my actual posts and more guest posts will take over. We'll see how it goes
  • I really like the idea of your 'day in the life' blogs and I think thats one area where I can grow my blog - video content as well as regular posts
  • I would like to say yes, and that would make my blogging easier..lol

    But I think 3-5 posts a week is more then enough. Some bloggers post daily and on Sunday and to me that makes me think they are trying to hard,

    Your better off posting less but focusing on better content and sticking to a schedule.

    I agree with Firas, your post needs time to get out there and work for you.
  • Would you rather be the guy who talks incessantly every day, giving advice on everything, chiming in with any thought on any issue? Or would you rather be the guy who doesn't say much, but when you open your mouth everyone stops what they're doing and takes heed to what you have to say?

    The first guy may appear to have more influence because everyone knows who he is (since he's talking at every chance he gets) but I think the second guy actually wields more power, has his ideas spread and is looked at in a higher regard.

    One of the things I've learned in stand-up comedy from the "greats" is the power of pausing. Traditionally, you'd figure that keeping momentum, getting as many laughs in as possible would be the best method. But I quickly learned that the elongated pause between jokes is a much more effective weapon. It builds up anticipation. It causes people to give undivided attention. With this, your platform has now gotten exponentially stronger because the effect of what you're going to say next will impact your audience greater.
  • Yes. It is reach & withdraw. Actually, that's an important psychological component I can (and should) do a whole post on.
  • I 100% agree with you David! OVER posting most likely would backfire on the blog itself and its owner as well! I think each blogger should give his article the chance and the time to get exposed and to get enough traffic, while posting TOO much wouldn't be fair for some good articles since all the focus will go to the recent article by default.

    One more thing to consider when posting TOO much is that when the blogger get used to producing this frequency and number articles, he will be creating like a routine to his/her users and readers to find X number of new articles every day. What if the blogger really get bored at some point of writing this much of articles? he will not be able to reach his/her readers expectations and they will be disappointed!

    There are many different point of views on this topic, and many people just ignore or don't give it any importance which is a KILLING SIN to your blog!
  • Yes, consistency is more important than volume. If you get them used to super-high output, they'll leave when you slow down for any numbers of reasons you might do so. And, slowing down is probably inevitable.
  • I agree that consistency is key. I did an experiment awhile back on blog post frequency and came to the conclusion that writing 3 times a week was optimal for me. Any more than that and I ended up spending more time on writing than on marketing the actual content.
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