Blog Posting Frequency and Web Traffic
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If you post to your blog often, will you get more traffic? Someone asked me whether problogging means he’ll be a slave to his computer, typing day in and day out (or all throughout the night), just so that he will get a lot of visitors to his web site. Will traffic dry up if you stop posting to your blog? Here’s what we found out…
The relationship between how often you blog and your site’s level of traffic depends on the kind of information you publish.
If you write about late-breaking news events, or information that changes or is updated on a regular basis, then yes, blogging often will bring in more traffic. And yes, blogging less often will result in drops in site traffic.
If your topics are more or less steady in the sense that the information does not really change that quickly, then writing once or twice a week will bring you steady traffic. There are exceptions, though, particularly when your topic happens to be a hot item of interest, and your new or old webpage appears on page 1 of the Google search engine results, for example.
Now if your articles focus on “evergreen” topics, or subjects that practically take forever to change (i.e., a blog about algebra), then blogging even once every three months will bring you steady traffic, particularly if your content is useful (i.e., your visitors spend more than 20 seconds on your web page or website).
Come to think of it, you might be better off with a non-blog, which is perfectly fine if you’re willing to learn HTML or if you can get help from techies. Otherwise, get a WordPress blog installed, even if you will add content only 4 times a year.
Do you feel like you’re forever running inside an endlessly spinning hamster wheel? Do you feel “forced” to blog each and every single day, just to maintain your 100+ visitors daily? Are you starting to feel trapped?
Let’s face it… You’re not a superhero who can write just like that. Sometimes, inspiration eludes you. Other times, you just want to relax and take a breather. So how can you maintain your traffic without having to blog on a regular basis?
TIP: Build a combination blog + static web site.
The static portion can be in the form of WordPress pages (not posts). These pages can contain “evergreen” content, which brings in visitors even when your regular or returning traffic eases. When you try this approach, your site’s traffic levels will make you feel more at ease and at peace.
When you’re tranquil, you’ll be able to write better blog posts. Yes, you will write when you’re truly inspired, or when you have something to say. You won’t end up blogging just because you “have to write a blog post today.”
And what if you truly enjoy blogging, but cannot commit to producing 7 articles a week? Then aim for 2 articles a week. You can do that, right? Before you know it, you’ll have enough content, and your site will have reached a critical mass of sorts. Soon, even if you sometimes do things other than blogging and end up writing just once a week, or even twice a month, your website traffic will remain at respectable levels.
I’ve seen bloggers who are now posting less often than when they started blogging, but are earning 8x more. Amazing, isn’t it? Their online business model focused on getting visitors from the search engines. Such visitors didn’t really care how often those bloggers added a post. Also, those “lazy” bloggers are not selling ad impressions, so their income is not largely dependent on repeat-visitor traffic.
Of course, you might be in a different situation. Please ask yourself why you want more traffic. Study your statistics and evaluate if the increase in traffic has brought in more sales (or helped you achieve your other website objectives), or if decreases in traffic have affected your online sales (sometimes, traffic dips do not necessarily lead to lower online income).
Take a step back, and see whether you truly enjoy blogging, or if your strengths lie in the area of helping people online. And when you get to know yourself better, you’ll find yourself blogging… when you feel like it. 
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"Blog Posting Frequency and Web Traffic"
First Posted: November 9, 2008 | Filed in: Web Traffic
What you say here hits the nail on the head.
“The relationship between how often you blog and your site’s level of traffic depends on the kind of information you publish.”
Great Post. Thanks for the information.
From my experience, getting free traffic can be tough. It takes a lot of work. YOu might spend 2 or 3 hours building traffic and only get a few hits.
If you have no long term plan to capture those visitors it can be a total waste of time.
Once you find the traffic methods that work for you then it is ideal to apply them over and over until you see great results.
The key is to persist. It can be quite easy if you persist.
Nice insights. This is one reason why I try to avoid posting daily. Although I have many “old” posts from my old blogspot blogs, I was not able to promote them properly. Somehow, I have learned some lessons from that experience. I am now re-writing them and transferring them to my main blog, but try to manage them and promote them harder than before.
Based on my stats, referring sites is the top contributor and I owe them to social sites and fellow bloggers. Eventually, I am starting to gain followers.
Now, my problem is monetizing my blog and this is what I am working out.
Thanks.
@Gerry – Yes, getting free traffic can take a lot of work. It depends a lot, though, on the kind of traffic you’re trying to attract. If you’re the only one fulfilling the demand for that topic, free traffic will not require too much work.
@Angel – In a future post, I’ll write about the “relaxed” promotion of blog posts. Sometimes, certain webpages have a way of practically promoting themselves.
I hope I’m not trapped in that quote that “write every day”.
I try to make some post but my problem is i often unconsistence. Someday i write about automotive but he others day i write about gadget.
That’s horrible..
hi manuel,
how to increase blog traffic ? I have some blog and want to increase my blog traffic so that my PR would increase too.
I am quite intrigued by the term “relaxed”. I will be looking forward for that post. Thanks!
@ardhian – Before you can get sustainable traffic, start with content. Ask yourself why should people visit your site? What does it have to offer?
@Angel – Here’s a tip: Keep a diary of what you have done to promote your blog posts, along with the results. Did commenting in Blog A bring in traffic? How much? What about commenting in Blog B? How many visitors dropped by your site?
great tutorial bro, thanks for sharing with us,
Hi Manuel,
Excellent write up! I fully agree with your points, I should enjoy while doing it & not to feel trapped.
I wish more traffic to your site.
Very interesting points, i hope posting 3 times a week can bring me traffic
but i have to be patient and look for backlinks, do social media, and etc!
I wish you success on your blog!
I truly agree with you that adding insightful and valuable content to your blog is the sure way of generating traffic. I personally believe that another great arsenal for generating traffic is article marketing due to the fact that submitting articles will generate traffic 24/7. The idea is submit to several high ranking site like goarticles, amazines, ezinearticles just to mention a few. The ideas is that the more article you have on the internet the more you generate. It has worked for me.