Blogging Posts: Quality or Quantity?
One of the hardest parts to running a successful blog is always having something relevant and worth while to write about. Guy Kawasaki has said many times that he now has problems writing new content on his blog, simply because he has already written so much on what he knows. On the other hand, bloggers like John Chow average over 2 new posts per day, while continually grows in reader size and revenue. As a reader, what do you prefer seeing from the blogs you visit often? Do you want new posts daily, or more high value and relevant posts a few times a weeks.
Personally, I would like to post every day on the blog. However, if I don’t have something great to write about, I’d rather write nothing then something I didn’t feel was worthy of a post. I asked the same question above to my Twitter followers, and here were their responses.
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BrianHawkins @moneyreign BlogWorld Technorati presentation said the top bloggers do 3 posts a day. But i’d rather have one really good one a day or week.
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VladZablotskyy @moneyreign Call me old but I subscribe to most blogs in e-mail. Does not make that much difference to me. But good content is always a king
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majorbta @moneyreign good posts once in awhile, i stop reading if it is mediocre half the time
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WorkPlusFaith @moneyreign once in a while with great posts. Everyday becomes a bit too much, imo.
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thesilly1 @moneyreign Depends on the blog. If it’s a ‘random blog’ then daily because really it’s just random anyway. Otherwise, good posts.
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chadimoglou @moneyreign Once in a while with really good posts.
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NeilsWeb @moneyreign def once in a while with great posts 🙂
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brynyoungblut @moneyreign I don’t think daily is a necessity, posting stuff your interested in is all I care about.
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jaredatch @moneyreign quality over quantity
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Dr_Ngo @moneyreign good posts
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| ClintLenard @moneyreign once in a while… Too many blogs out there with regurgitated (sp?) posts. |
So now I ask you the same question. What are your favorite types of blog posts and how often do you find relevant posts across the network of blogs you currently read?
at this time, I have so much I want to share and say that I find it hard to organize my thoughts. I have another blog where all I blog about is Safety. On the subject of Safety, I have shared all I have learned, however, I am required to renew my license and continue daily to educate myself on sites geared to it, manufacturers etc… So, even when I had found myself stuck I can always refer to educating myself.
Each blog will differ for me 🙂
Hey Zac, the bottom line is what your goal. If your goal is to truly help people, then only posting when you have quality content is correct, however, if you are in it to make money, you can't argue the fact that 90% of the big blogs out there post at least once per day on average.
I'm not saying to just throw up trash posts, but for example…I love learning about the different bloggers, including yourself, so while you may only post a "quality" post every 3 days, I don't think throwing stuff out in between about you, your life, or whatever is a bad thing….Those that don't want to read it will skip it, those that want to will, however, I don't think you'll lose readers for posting too much…IMO.
Also, you have to remember that we as "webprenuers" will always say quality over quantity because well we all want to make big money so we want all the "big" bloggers to only write posts that are going to help us with that. I think people enjoy the fluff posts to a certain extent…and by fluff again I don't mean crappy…
You've hit upon what I call the Blogger's catch-22
Readers want quality postings only as frequently as you have something of quality to share, but the search engines show favoritism to blogs that deal in quantity posting and you need the search engines to gain exposure and readers.
I read blogs that are very relevant to my interests and what I blog about. So I find useful content often. I prefer quality over quantity. One thing though, with bloggers (myself in cluded) that are small fries, we tend to focus so much on quality, that sometimes we forget that you need some quantity too. Confusing.
i'd take a few high quality posts a month over multiple shitty ones per day.
example:
johnchow.com (multiple posts per day, usually 1:100 valuable posts)
vs.
bluehatseo.com (rarely posts, but highly valuable)
I think you do a great job of balancing the two, Zac.
Part of the beauty of the growth of the web is that you can constantly update old posts with new, pertinent information, too. This provides continual, quality information, if you stay on top of the latest info, even if you have exhausted all your good information, like Guy said.
My favorite posts always cause me to take immediate action, inspire a new thought or way of thinking, and/or provide a new perspective on an old viewpoint.
My favorite blogs are almost always the ones that don't have daily posts, but rather 1 or 2 per week. Even less in certain cases. And they tend to have the highest quality info!
Quality matters. Quality wins the .rss spot. When I put a blog on a .rss reader, if there are more posts per day than there are days in a week, that blog is likely to be removed, no matter how good it is. In hundreds of posts a day, I don't want a majority of them coming from one blog. Like being a room with a crowd of people at a party, and one of them just stands next to you and blathers on and on and on, not letting you get the rest of the people before the party is over, that's a quantity blog, and they can be annoying.
Quality over quantity if your blog is highly trafficked with a lot of subscribers and daily readers. Loyal readers already want to stick on your blog.
Quantity over quality if your blog doesn't receive too much traffic or have a little amount of readers. The quality would push Google to read your blog a lot more, which means a grip more search engine traffic.
-Mike
I like lots of posts. It's good to know you're alive. Everything you say is valuable – at least it is to me. I'm a noob though, what do I know? 😉
I find that the blogs that write a lot tend to have maybe one good article a week. There is however an exception to this (Zenhabits). I guess it all depends on the types of blogs you read.
At the end of the day, it is all about quality. If you can do 2 quality blog posts a day, great. If not, when you do write a blog post, at least write one where the user takes something away from it.
For me, the reader, tts all about Quality. 75% of the posts on JohnChow.com are crap. I really could care less about the house he is buying for 50% less then its worth. If you break it down, John Chow does post 1 good post every few days. The filler posts well they just make sure his income is enormous! For the blogger, it is obviously more posts = more income.
As both a writer and a user I prefer quality over quantity. If I'm subscribing to a new blog I would rather them publish fewer useful or interesting articles than daily articles that have less value. Quality over quantity is my vote, that's m vote.
i seem to have missed out on your tweat
You should follow the top bloggers with three posts a day. Reason why has nothing with quality or quantity, it has to do with community. When you post three times a day, that gives people opportunity to comment back. Also, it tells a story, and let's people follow along. John Chow posts an average of 2.8 times a day. A lot of that is his pictures of food, his fascination with expensive homes, and recently, his philanthropic endeavors. Essentially it is a soap opera, and people tune to find out what is happening next. Shoemoney does the same with TV shows and MMA. The other thing they do well is comment bait (is that a term?). Again commenting is about community and letting people get passionate on your site. During the election shoemoney set-up some scenarios to get people upset on both sides, and he had his highest comment totals. Product or service notices reviews do the same. Allows everyone be an expert to tear down a service or brag how they were an early adopter. Interaction, that's where it is at.
@Scott Bannon:
To me, a quality post is just some unique content. It doesn't need to be 'exposing' some latest industry secrets or trends, it just needs to be fresh. With blog posts, it's always good to strike a balance between being professional and being personal. It doesn't need to be about making money online all the time, it can be just a piece of personal information every now and then. Even though, it might not be any technical advice, but it really helps to build that relationship.
@Chadimoglou:
Yeah they're crap in the make money online tips sense. But posts like that are important because they make his readers feel like as if they really know him. It's this type of stuff that helps to build his own personal brand. If he only posts technical things every day, then he would not get as many visitors and subscribers. It's the psyche behind reality shows and things like that too.
For me, the quality is important because that's what keeps the readers coming back. Quality is really about delivering value, and if people find that they can receive value from you, then they will deliver value back in the form of traffic, subscribers etc. So regular quality post with some meat in it is important.
I Regularly Browse Internet marketing Blogs.I think Quality and Quantity Both are important.Basically i am looking for new tools and ideas to do Internet marketing.For this I like to visit Blogs with Quality content.
Well, my personal opinion is that it really depends on what type of blog you are having. For instance, if you are running a tech blog-you need constant updates readers with latest information and not spending sweet time to write your content. Keypoint-short, sharp, simple, speed (4S).
But if you are running a niche blog like mine – Cupid Blogger which is a blog that rambles about love and relationship. I will not sacrifice the quality of the content and spend adequate time to research what readers want to read from my blog. But at the same time, it is crucial to maintain the frequency of post but not quantity. For example, you may post one or two articles per day consistently so that your readers know that this is not a dead blog but constant updated blog with quality content. Just my opinion.
Guys, do check out my recently launched love blog at
Cupid Blogger Dot Com