Ever find yourself writing a blog post that begins with something like “Hey there readers, sorry I haven’t updated in a long time!”?
It’s what I call an empty phrase (no one really expects or needs an apology from you about your publishing schedule), and your post will read better without it. As Shakespeare said, “brevity is the soul of wit.” When in doubt, delete. 🙂
Example:
“Hey everyone, I know it’s been a long time since I last wrote. It’s because I’ve been up to lots of cool things lately and you know how life is, things just get busy sometimes. For example, I went to the Coachella Valley Music Festival and met lots of celebrities — no seriously! The first celeb I met…”
Edited to:
“A few weeks ago, I went to the Coachella Valley Music Festival and met lots of celebrities — no seriously! The first celeb I met….”
Share the Word 
I’m glad you broached this subject. What is your opinion regarding how often a blogger “should” post?
I love blogging, but haven’t had the time to post yet this week. As time passes between my posts, I feel a growing sense of guilt and obligation, but guilt and obligation were never my goals for blogging.
My mother tells me I should post when it works for me, and that I shouldn’t worry about frequency. I am under the impression that infrequent posting is frowned upon in the blogging community.
Any thoughts?
I know exactly how you feel! My own personal blog hasn’t been updated in about a week, and I know it’s there, waiting, lonely, sad.
🙂
In reality, your mom is right — blog when it works for you. Frequency helps because people get a sense that you’re “there” and engaged, and if you’re trying to make money (you host ads on your site, which isn’t allowed in most cases on WordPress.com) frequency helps because you need a lot of content out there so you can have a lot of ads, and increase your chances of someone clicking on those ads with more content.
However, if you don’t blog enough, it’s hard to grow an audience (if that’s your goal). Each new post is a new opportunity for people to find you and read you. But your “core” readers probably subscribe to your blog via email or an RSS, so they just wait for it to arrive, and will read your post when it does arrive.
Does that all make sense?
Yes, that definitely makes sense. It’s very comforting to know that you can relate, too.
I don’t intend to make money from the blog right now, but one of the best benefits I’ve found about blogging so far is the feedback and suggestions I’ve received from readers.
If I lose those readers on account of infrequent posting, I guess I lose that benefit. Looks like I’ve got myself in a bit of a pickle. 🙂
In the meantime, I’m pretty psyched about the post I just published. Hopefully I can ride this high at least through the weekend before the self-imposed pressure returns. 🙂
Have a great Friday!!
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