I’m posting less than ever (and more erratically) and my traffic is the highest it’s ever been.
Sarah from XO Sarah recently reported similar results. She’s no longer posting the six times per week she used to, and yet her traffic is higher than ever.
More blog posts does not necessarily mean more traffic.
Unless you’re super woman, you usually have two options:
- Write a lot of ‘okay’ blog posts every week.
- Write one or two AMAZING blog posts every week.
This is because of one simple reason: time.
Awesome blog posts take time to write.
The more time you put into a blog post, the better it’s going to be. It’s hard to publish 5-7 super high quality posts per week, simply because there’s not enough time (again, unless you just have a lot of time to put into blogging, which a lot of people don’t).
A lot of people go the route of #1 because they see other bloggers recommending “consistent posting” in order to build a following and gain more traffic.
I call bullshit.
Bull. Shit.
The best thing you can do for your blog is to make each post amazing—not work on filling a weekly quota.
What inspires you to click the “follow” or “subscribe” button on someone’s blog?
- Is it because they post a lot of stuff every day?
- Or is it because you love the content they’re posting, no matter how frequent (or infrequent) it is?
I follow someone because their posts are amazing—not because they post a lot.
If your goal is more page views, more subscribers, and more engagement, then focus on creating fewer, more epic posts.
- Stop publishing posts you don’t like. If you didn’t enjoy writing it, people will notice.
- Stop following arbitrary “rules”. Don’t work on posting 5 days a week because someone told you it’s necessary. Don’t keep posting your monthly wrap ups because “you’ve always done it” even though you no longer enjoy doing them.
Put more time into fewer posts and you’ll see great results. You’ll see more posts shared, more images pinned, and more posts going viral on social media (like my post on designing a logo, which has had 10,000 visits from Pinterest in the last 30 days).
I give myself one rule: I only post when I have something to say.
This is actually quite similar to how I behave in life. I’m not really one for small talk and I’m kind of quiet. That’s because I only actually talk when I feel like I have something to say. It makes sense that this would carry over to blogging as well.
I don’t post out of a sense of obligation. I don’t post because I feel I “need” to. I post when I want to—when I have something to share.
Very useful post for me as I’m new to the blogging game.
I always wondered about that advice of posting as much as possible, 5 days a week, etc, etc. Admire your stance on this topic and love the headline too!
Request: A future post with advice on writing an epic post? That would tie in nicely with this piece.
Oops, just say your prior post “What the Hell is a “Quality Blog Post”? ”
So ignore the Request line in my initial comment.