How Frequently Should You Blog?

I’ve been having an internal debate today after reading several blog posts about blogging frequency. What’s interesting is that there isn’t a very strong consensus. However, there are very strong arguments for both sides: less is better, or more is better.

Blogging Less

I think this is the bigger camp. There are good reasons for it. Blogging once or twice a week means high quality blog posts that people will want to read. It also allows the blogger to spend more time doing other things. In my case, it would allow me to spend more time writing my book. The blogger can also spend more time promoting the posts they have done, as well as visit other blogs and comment on them. Also, people will see the blogger as having better quality posts, rather than always making short daily posts that may not have as much quality.

Blogging Daily

There’s another group who advocates blogging daily. And there are good reasons here, too. First, it gives the blogger discipline. They do it, and they become good at maintaining a schedule. It also helps a person improve their writing. If they’re only blogging once a week, they may take more time to actually get into the mood. If you’ve maintained a daily blogging schedule for a long time, you’re always ready to post. You also find your voice. However, you can burn out, get bored, or find that you’re only blogging because you feel that you need to make that blog post.

What do I do?

I blog daily. Twice a day, in fact. I don’t feel tired of doing it. I enjoy it. I always have ideas, and I have plenty of things to say. I wouldn’t say it takes away from my book writing time, because I don’t write blog posts when I’m in the zone. I write them when people are around. I can shut them out for blogging, but not for writing books. Writing twice a day started as a challenge to see if I could do it. But you know what? I enjoy it! It makes me want to write.

But you see, I can’t go down to once a week. That would mean I’d probably only be doing Authors Answer. That’s not the focus of this blog. If I were to reduce my blogging, I’d go down to five times a week. Authors Answer would always be there. I’d also work on one or two other series, including Worldbuilding. And the rest of the time, I’d be blogging about various topics, mostly related to books, book reviews, science, and education. I guess the topics wouldn’t change much at all. I wonder what would happen.

In April, I was blogging mostly once a day. Traffic dropped dramatically, and I had far less interaction on my blog. I love the comments and conversations that go on. This month, I returned to twice a day, and the traffic is better than ever, and the comments are back up to normal. Interesting results.

In the future, things will probably change. As I get more into writing my book, as well as working, I may drop down to five posts a week. I expect a drop in views, but I plan on spending more time going to other blogs. But it’s a difficult decision to make. I enjoy blogging daily. But we’ll see what happens.

What do you think? Which camp are you in? Let me know in the comments below.

34 thoughts on “How Frequently Should You Blog?”

    1. It’s basically the only way I could write for the longest time. Now that I can get back into writing, I may have to cut back a bit.

  1. I’m impressed, you’re very disciplined blogging twice a day. I blog 3 or 4 times a week generally, sometimes a bit more. I like to spread my time out between writing, reading and interacting with other bloggers. It’s hard to do that if you’re constantly writing. How do you manage to do all three?

    1. I’m not quite sure. I just go with the flow. I have so many ideas for blog posts, I don’t know if I’ll run out. Some are simple posts, but I try to make them interactive for people and ask questions. I respond to comments when I have the time, usually every two or three days, but ideally every day. I haven’t actually had the quiet or privacy to write or read much, though. I need a chair in my office šŸ™‚

  2. Do you think April’s lower stats were in part due to the A-Z Challenge as well as posting only once a day? I try to post daily, but lately has been 5 times a week.If I were writing a book, it’d be even less.

  3. I don’t blog at all when I’m writing books. I post once, maybe twice a day and I keep up with the comments and this keeps me more than occupied. I like to focus on one thing at a time so I couldn’t be writing a book and keeping up a blog at the same time.
    If only I had more time. šŸ™‚

  4. One other thing – the sheer volume of posts on your blog leaves me unable to persuade myself to read more. I feel that I would never be able to catch up so there’s no point in trying. This is not a criticism of you, it’s a note on my own psychology. No point in thinking further about it … unless you meet lots of people similar to me. Not many of them will be as forthright as me though.
    This makes me reassess my own thoughts on how many posts to … Oh, wait – great idea – put the archives into books! If people are as interested in my posts as they say they are, then maybe they would be interested in a leather bound collection of them! šŸ™‚ Thanks, JD – you’re a marvel! šŸ˜€

    1. I find that I don’t read many past blog posts on any blog. I’m more interested in what’s happening now. I actually know someone who’s turned his blog into a book šŸ™‚

        1. His book’s doing quite well, actually. He’s getting it translated into Japanese now. You see, he’s an American living in Japan, and he decided to write his life story with a focus on racism. Interesting book.

  5. I’m once a week as I find my book suffers if I attempt any more posts. Only managed A t Z by (a) writing the posts in advance; (b) letting my book take a back seat for a month.

    But I admire your dedication.

  6. I’ve been blogging daily the last two weeks, and it’s been good for the blog, but my fiction writing is suffering. I think I might try writing a few times a week and reblogging articles that fit in with what I’m trying to present. I’ll personalize the reblog with a few sentences. I’ve even made a fancy reblog image.

    I’ll experiment with it after the 27th. I have scheduled content up until then.

  7. Wow, twice a day sounds superhuman to me ;-). I’m only posting 2-3 times a week. My main focus is still reviews and I don’t like to be pinned down to ‘fixed’ categories. I’m only starting and for the moment I post what I like, when I like. I’m still doing it ‘for me’ so I don’t feel much pressure to post.

    1. That’s how it was when I started. I began with reviews, then expanded when I became more used to it and had more ideas. These days, I’m trying to refocus on my writing, so a lot of writing posts will be done.

  8. Wow. I didn’t realize your stats took such a hit just going down from twice a day to once a day. I’ve tried just about everything except daily, but I can’t imagine that anything would be that interesting if I did it every single day. Y’all would prolly get tired of seeing “can’t sleep again, watched the same movie 3 times tonight, worked my ass off, am exhausted, super crampy, I’m in pain – halp” all the time. O.O

    I go for the important stuff now. If I had something to say once a week, I’d do it. For me, writing for a blog post and writing to work on a story are two totally different things. Blog writing doesn’t really help my book writing at all. I have no idea how you come up with all this stuff to share all the time. XD

    I musy say that I love the variety of stuff you talk about on your blog, though. It’s my favorite kind of setup. šŸ˜€

    1. Variety is good, but I don’t want to be all over the place. I want to keep a focus. I did a lot of political stuff recently, but I’d prefer to stay away from that. And I don’t want to keep pushing my Patreon page, either. Got nothing happening on that front. I think I need to make more videos and actually do some writing. On that topic, I’m going to work a bit on the office today šŸ™‚

Leave a reply to Jay Dee Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.