How often should I blog?
'How often should I blog?' is a question we've all thought about and I believe is one of the most important questions to address. In the past year of reading numerous other blogs, I've come accross this discussion and it's various forms so many times that I've lost count. But what I believe all these posts on the topic have done is to create the false sense that what they advise you do is the best and only way to approach blogging.
Find what works for you
I believe that it's more important to determine what's the best level of posting frequency for you than to listen to some person tell you how much you have to blog. Let's take physical trainers as an example: Do you honestly believe they approach each and every client the same way and offer the same advice and excercises every time? Of course not! They develop a strategy specifically for that client based on various factors such as current physical condition (how long have you been blogging) and the amount of time you have dedicated to work out (time in the day to blog). But one thing is for sure, physical trainers give you a schedule to stick to that is designed to give you maximum results. This idea can be applied to the categories of posting frequency in the same way:
Daily Posting
Readers visit your blog on a daily basis because they know what to expect - one post everyday. I have several blogs in my RSS reader that post daily and I enjoy the fact that every morning I check my RSS reader and I get to see what they have to say. This consistent blogging schedule works great for those that can keep it up, but this is a huge time commitment for the blogger. Don't try and commit to a daily blogging schedule if you know you don't have the time for it because eventually this will show in your writing. If you do decide to post daily then I would highly recommend that you use the wordpress time stamp feature to ensure you have a post ready in advance.
Three to Four Posts a Week
This is the category I fit into along with most of the other blogs in my RSS reader. I do my best to blog every other day; however, I mainly just try to make sure I post about 3 to 4 times a week. Occasionally I'll write a couple posts back to back and follow up with another post two days later, but the main focus is to make sure that the gaps aren't too far between each post. What I do like the most about blogging in this category is that fact that I never feel a constant pressure to blog, which is really good for me considering I work a full time job and have a long commute as well. If I did have this constant pressure to churn out a post every day than I believe the quality of my content could possibly suffer. Likewise, readers don't really have a set expectation as to when they'll see a post if you have already established that you blog about 3 to 4 times per week because they've seen your posting frequency on your blog before and if they're still reading your posts they're fine with it.
Once a Week Blogging
The only way I believe this category of posting can work is if you write very lengthy and incredibly useful posts on a consistent scheduled basis. If you post once a week every Friday (or some other day of the week) I believe it could work for you. But if you are inconsistent on the day you post you could severely limit your success. I believe there is significantly less "wiggle room" when it comes to your posting frequency if you are already only posting once a week.
Anything beyond these levels of posting frequency and I think it's time for you to start writing more frequently, but if you feel inclined to post a couple times a month on an inconsistent basis and still manage to obtain readers I'd love to hear from you. 
Wrapping it up
I want to reiterate that in the quest to maximize blogging effectiveness it is important to establish some form of a blogging schedule. You have to decide on whether this schedule will be on a daily basis or less. Now I don't believe your blogging schedule has to be completely rigid, but readers come to expect a flow of content based on your past posting behavior and if you don't meet those expectations you may lose some readers. Although I believe the loss of readers due to an inconsistent posting schedule has been over exagerated by many bloggers it is still an important factor to consider when deciding how often you will blog. In the end, I believe that if someone truly loves your blog's content they won't unsubscribe simply because you don't post for a few days. If they're that fickle, then they are probably just as likely to unsubscribe to your blog just for reading a post they don't like.
So now that you've read my ideas, how about sharing some of yours? How often do you blog?
Got something to say? Click here to reply
I keep reading that posting frequency is important, but what if you have enough rss subscribers? They surely are not waiting for your next post. It pops up in their reader any way.
I might be making excuses here for not posting enough on my own blog
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Hah hah, you might be but one of the key points I was trying to make is that it is important but not nearly as imporant as all of these other bloggers have been making it out to be.
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Before I got screwed over, I posted daily. Every single day. If I knew I couldn’t post, like I did before exams, I posted ahead of time and set it to post the day I was gone. It worked like a charm. I got a lot of traffic with daily posting. I had it set to the hour before the most traffic came. I beasted.
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[...] How often should I blog? Chris Guthrie tackles a question that crosses all of our minds at least once in a while. He gives a few tips on how to find just the right mix while taking a look at what your posting frequency will say to your readers. [...]
You should post at least daily to have the spiders come and craw your site…this is very important.
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IMO it all depends on your blogging niche, and the purpose of your blog. If it’s a personal one I don’t think you really need to post daily to update your readers since most of them are people you know. If you are a problogger and providing tips to others it’s more important to post more often to get new readers and not losing the old ones.
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Frankly I started blogging like 2-3 times in a week, but is not able to keep that tempo. I am finally zeroing down on once in a week posting frequency looking at my blog is on autoline reviews and it’s not time bound as such.
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