Blogging Myth – Post Frequency Consistency

In my last post I provided an example of a very successful website that uses tactics counter to what most bloggers would suggest because of their fear of annoying their users. I hope with that post that I provided some support to dispel what I consider to be a blogging myth. In today's post, I'm going to look at the myth that says it is important to establish a consistent posting schedule.

The general advice floating around the blogosphere is that you need to pick a frequency for your posts and stick to it. It doesn't matter so much whether you go with daily, weekly, or some other schedule, just as long as you follow through. The idea is that your users will learn what your schedule is and expect posts at certain times. If you stray from that schedule, you'll lose readers. This, of course, is bunk.

A regular posting schedule does nothing except help you be disciplined as a blogger. If you go from daily posts to weekly posts back to daily posts, your users aren't going to care. Why? Because you're really not that important in the grand scheme of things. Subscribers to your blog probably subscribe to dozens, if not more, of other blogs. If you don't post today, it won't be noticed because dozens of other blogs will effectively hide your blog's silence.

In addition, blog aggregators are pretty good at highlighting new posts. They don't emphasize a blog when there isn't anything new on it. Thus, the users of feed readers will simply have their attention drawn to whatever is new that day without a second thought as to the lack of a post from you.

Finally, in Darren Rowse's recent survey of why people unsubscribe from a blog, a consistent post frequency wasn't even on the list.

Now this isn't to say that you can go for months without posting. Eventually, your blog will seem inactive and that will cause readers to unsubscribe. So my advice is to write when you have something to write about and forget about arbitrary posting schedules.