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The Guilty Blogger

November 12th, 2007 by Karen Zara

Do you feel guilty when you don’t update your blog? Are you afraid your readers will forget about you and/or hate you for not offering them new articles? Do you believe a good blog is necessarily a daily updated one?

Stop right now.

For a long, long time, it was assumed that a blog should be updated every single day of the year. If you searched for blogging tips, you would find dozens of articles on this subject, and (almost) everyone seemed to agree that there was no other way to go about this. A day without an update would be seen as a lost day, a lost opportunity to retain your readers, get new ones and make more money. Many bloggers would write dramatic posts informing that they had seen a significant decrease in traffic because they hadn’t updated their blogs for two or three days in a row. At the end of such posts they would invariably promise to their readers — and to themselves — that they wouldn’t let that happen again.

I don’t mean that those bloggers lied when they stated they’d get less traffic whenever they failed to update everyday. I just want to draw your attention to their “dramatic” attitude about it. Was it really necessary?

There are some basic things you must understand if you don’t want to let your own blog become a burden to you. One of them is: traffic varies. There’s no such thing as having a fixed number of visitors every single day of the year. Another one: quantity may be good, but quality is even better. A third one: while you may try to have both quantity and quality, as time goes by it gets harder and harder. And a reminder: some things in life are out of our control (e. g. illnesses, family issues, blackouts, just to name a few). Most of your readers certainly are aware of this fact, as everyone is subject to such problems. Therefore, there will be times when you just won’t be able to do what you planned, no matter how much you want to.

Haven’t you noticed the increasing amount of articles recommending that you don’t update daily if you can’t maintain your posts’ quality? This seems to be a new trend in the blogosphere. Of course, this is a sort of controversial topic. Many bloggers still insist that it’s mandatory that you post fresh content as often as possible, otherwise you’ll risk losing readers and money.

But do you want a friendly piece of advice? If I were you, I’d take advantage of that recent blogging trend.

Don’t feel guilty. Learn to accept some things just as they are, and relax. You won’t be hated by your visitors if you aren’t able to post daily. Some may eventually forget about your blog, that’s right, but the Internet is vast and you can always try to win new readers. So, don’t panic.

Karen Zara

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8 Responses to “The Guilty Blogger”

  1. bloggingzoom.com Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 8:44 am

    The Guilty Blogger…

    Are you a blogger who is guilty of freaking out at the mere thought of missing a single day? Well, if you are then fret no more as this article by Karen Zara will clearly point out to you what has been whispered around the blogosphere for a while now.
    …

  2. Frank C (4 comments.) Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 9:01 am

    I’ve found it really depends a lot on where your traffic is coming from. If your primary traffic source is social networking an absence of more than a couple of days here or there will have an significant impact your traffic. However, if your primary traffic source is Google and other search engines your day-to-day will remain relatively stable.

  3. Lin (3 comments.) Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

    I used to think that to succeed as a blogger, I had to blog every day without fail. But, it’s simply not possible for me, as I not only have to maintain my full time job, but I have a husband and children to care for.

    Bloggers who are able to make a steady income blogging from home, and do so full time, are in a much better position to blog every day. I’d rather post every couple of days and have something palatable to read, than to simply post drivel for the sake of posting daily.

  4. Grizzly (31 comments.) Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 6:42 pm

    Good post Karen,

    I’m a firm believer in “less is more”, of course I’m lazy too so this motto is ideal for me.

    Frank is correct as search engine traffic doesn’t vary too much. The social site friends can vary but usually learn to check you out less often. If someone likes your stuff they usually come back.

    and speaking of lazy I guess it’s mine turn to post something here - can’t have you and Trent getting to far ahead!

    Griz

  5. Heather Masson (2 comments.) Says:
    November 12th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

    That’s a hard lesson some days, and one that I keep trying to learn. I try to update everyday, but some days it is impossible to find the time. I need to learn not to feel guilty for those days and know that life will carry on.

  6. Monika (79 comments.) Says:
    November 13th, 2007 at 5:23 am

    Good point Karen,

    I was always a firm believer that the more, the merrier, but admittedly I have slowly changed my mind. I still think that frequency is the key to keeping your readership, but it doesn’t need to be daily.

    Quality is way more important than quantity. :-)

    Monika

  7. It's Quality that Matters Says:
    November 14th, 2007 at 8:54 am

    [...] The Guilty Blogger Monika says: “We can all have success.” Do you agree with her? [...]

  8. Terry (82 comments.) Says:
    November 14th, 2007 at 1:08 pm

    I enjoyed your post Karen.

    This is a subject that I probably change my mind on daily- so if one day I feel I should post daily but don’t, then the next day it’ll be ok, because I didn’t want to anyway. Then the next day I’ll beat myself up for not only missing a day, but condoning it yesterday and not doing anything about it until today, thereby missing two days!

    Of course anyone who didn’t know me by now is probably thinking “This one’s about ready for the funny farm..!”

    Ha! What I’m getting at is that whether you blog every day or not, whether you go crazy and blog three times in one day because you’re trying to cover a paid review in the middle of the three ;-) or whether you go for long quality posts every few days or so - the choice is yours to make and no one elses!

    One of my favourite things about blogging is that I’m the boss.

    So when my boss says “work”, I’m happy to work… and when the boss says “take a break for an hour or two… or better still go lie on the beach for a few hours” gues there’s no arguing with a hard taskmaster like that - because when you’re your own boss, you can tell the boss to go take a hike if you disagree with him.

    The only thing you can’t do is sack him, or it’ll mean working for someone else…

    So by making your own decisions on how often you post in your blog(s), if your visitors are loyal, they won’t mind as long as you post something great, informative and useful at least every so often.

    …and if you like to post long, drawn out but thought provoking comments when you should really be saving that creative talent for writing a long, drawn out thought provoking blog posts instead… well that’s your choice too!

    Now I’ll get back to work, because the boss is looking over my shoulder… :-?

    Terry

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