Though I did not intend to run a case study on how important it is to post consistently to your blog, that is what I have essentially done in the past two months. I have posted intermittently, but not daily as I had done previously. There are several reasons for this, none of which are terribly interesting or original.

At first, my traffic wasn’t really affected too much by my inconsistent, intermittent posting (non)schedule. My uniques and page views stayed up around where they had been for most of the fall. The thing is, this should have been the time in the life of this blog when traffic really started booming. However, since I wasn’t posting anything new, no one was coming back.

In the last two weeks, I have noticed a serious downturn (about 20%) in the amount of uniques I receive every day. While the page views remain about the same. What this says, quite clearly, is that new visitors are reading archives, but daily visitors have started to give up.

Once I noticed this not-so-suprising development, something surprising did occur to me – the feed reader I use has a built-in delete feature. If a blog hasn’t been updated for fourteen days or more, my reader will prompt me to remove that feed. Should I decide to keep it, the feed will remain red in the feed tree on the left until I delete it or the blog is updated. Yikes!

So what did this mean for my blog? I’m sure not everyone is as patient as I am. What if they delete after a week? Ten days? In any case, I can’t go on like this. Basically, Pajama Professional won’t go on like this. I have been using overall life chaos and the upcoming installation of my home office as excuses not to stay on top of posting here.

What kind of bullsh!t is that? I sat in whatever quiet corner of the house I could find, fired up my laptop, researched articles and posted every day here for months and months. Now, suddenly, because I will have a home office soon I am unable to update? Lame.

I haven’t even posted a Trip Around the Blogosphere, even though I have somehow found the time and means to read the feeds that usually inspire it.

Home office or no home office (and there will be one, it’s just been pushed back a couple of weeks), there is no good excuse for semi-abandoning a blog on which I have worked so hard. It is not fair to me or my readers. Here are my new goals:

1. Post three times a week, including a weekly Trip Around the Blogosphere.
2. Post at least two extremely indepth articles a month.

Just two goals. And not so difficult at that. The bottom line here is that as my one year blogiversary approaches I don’t want Pajama Professional to be another statistic.

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  • well is it important how many uniques you have? if people still look at the archives (and all in alle same nr. of impressions) and you get the same ad revenue, it makes your day, doesnt it?
  • Heck yah, you have to post often. If not, then you will lose your readers interest in your blog.

    tummy tuck jeans's last blog post..Be the Best with TummyTuck Jeans
  • Once your blog is established you don't notice much difference, whether you post every week or monthly, if most of your traffic is from the search engines and your site is established.

    Bodybuilding's last blog post..MSG (Glutamates) in Protein Powders Dangerous?
  • Good point made, if you want to build a readership then consistently posting is needed. I never seen a feed reader prompting to remove the feed though, pretty neat but could also be annoying.
  • great post
  • well how nifty, I made it to around the blogosphere with my post about this site... I almost feel like i am a success having it come full circle!
  • I had no idea about the deletion process either. This article is extremely useful and informative!
  • job
    totally agree!
    the bloggers should post consistently, with a great content of course... this is to ensure the readers keep on reading on our site..
  • Good to hear that you are posting more frequently. Thanks...
  • It's not all that tough doing a few big articles a month if you really enjoy what you're writing about.

    Weird Gifts's last blog post..Does Your Nose Hair Trimmer Have All the Comfort of Your Own Finger?
  • does anyone find it odd that people are still commenting on the importance of daily blogging when the site reccomending this hasn't been updated for 25 days?

    brad's last blog post..New Do Follow List
  • Yes, i have also just learnt that daily posting is important especially for those who are serious in blogging to achieve your page ranking. For new bloggers, this can be so very challenging as it seems to have "so much to do". I find Courtneytuttle.com information there are very solid and valuable which was shared from his own experience in this game.
  • Its good to finally see you get back to posting a lot more!

    I have missed you!

    1990 toys's last blog post..Do anyone remember the Slider burger?
  • I absolutely agree that content has to be high quality as well if you want a regular readership. However, if you don't post consistently your organic traffic just won't be there and those quality articles will be for nothing.

    Sara
  • I am not sure that posting consistently is enough. Along with it content should be appealing, informative, interesting to users. Then they visit your blog again.
  • I knew someone was going to call me out soon, Snow in Whistler. =)

    After I wrote this post I realized I wanted to take some time to decide on the direction I want to take with this blog and my other online endeavors. During that time, I wasn't ready to commit to a posting schedule. When I do post here again (should be within a week or so) I will be reestablishing my frequent posting habit.

    Sara
  • You are right, it is best to write on a consistent basis for a blog site. It looks like you are breaking your own law, this post is almost a month old.

    Snow in Whistler's last blog post..Sunshine followed by fog
  • The frequency of posting in our blogs depends entirely how much time we allocate for this hobby or interest. We have other things to take care of as we go through life day in and day out. A full-time blogger, I believe, can post 20 times a day, if he or she is a prolific writer.
  • One way to keep things consistent is to write several posts ahead and load them into an autoresponder or another automatic posting tool. Then even when you're away your posts are being made on time without you.
  • Those are definitely some good tips.

    Brad Hart's last blog post..Promote and Publicise your blog with Brad’s SEO Meme
  • We don't just post 3 times a week, we try to post at least 5 times a day. It's made a huge difference with Google traffic, and there is always something fresh on the site.

    Digital Camera Deals's last blog post..Samsung S73 7.2-Megapixel Digital Camera for $80 at CircuitCity.com
  • I'm new to blogging, so thanks in particular for these tips: "1. Post three times a week, including a weekly Trip Around the Blogosphere.
    2. Post at least two extremely indepth articles a month."
    I'll try to put these into practice!
  • Very interesting. Thanks for sharring ^^
  • You have to keep your content fresh. Google loves to see the new and changing content on your site or blog.
  • Nice post. I agree, you should have a posted schedule but unfortunatly, most of us bloggers break it all the time. Any decent blog should be updated at least twice a week Id say.

    Free Online Recipes's last blog post..Chicken Parmesan Recipe
  • I just ran across your blog yesterday. It seems to be a blog that I would like to visit frequently. Hope you do start posting more.
  • I just ran across your blog yesterday. I hope you do start posting more. This seems to be a blog that I would like to visit frequently.
  • Great! I'll be glad to see things back up and running. Good luck, and I'll stay tuned.
  • o1w
    always helps to keep a few articles back so if something gets in the way of writing you have something to fall back on, also try to get a couple of guest writers to help you out
  • I know exactly what you mean, and this has been a problem of mine in the past. My problem is that I write too many blogs and sometimes have trouble keeping up with them all. BTW, I enjoyed this post so much that I linked to it from my blog. Keep up the good work!
  • I totally agree with the posting regularly, but its funny how even at times I found that when I didn't post, my feed count still went up and up following the days after. Its a weird thing.

    Gadgets's last blog post..The Carbonite Han Desk
  • This is a great reminder because we often forget how important consistency is in the blogging world. Not only does it affect traffic to one's blog, but once you get off a schedule, it's much harder to get yourself back on traffic. Thanks for the interesting info and it's certainly a good motivator for all of us.
  • Thanks for sharing this knowledge with us.^_^
  • Being fairly new to the blogging world, I've noticed the more I post, the more traffic I get. I try to post a minimum of once a day, because I've seen how badly a hit in traffic can affect you.

    Average Joe's last blog post..Getting Started: A Beginners Guide To Checking Their Vehicle?s Fluids
  • good luck! I think you can do it. Keep a schedule and establishing goals are great ways to accomplish many things.
  • Thanks for the great feedback, guys.

    I am very glad that my lack of consistency hasn't had worse repercussions. I could have lost a lot more readers.

    Rajesh: My reader can be set to delete or warn me at different intervals. I'm sure that's the case with many of them. I have found that, in general, the more often I post, the better response I get.

    David: I agree with your method - butt in chair is definitely the best tactic =)

    Brennan: I'm definitely interested to see how things pick up once I re-establish a schedule. I just don't think I can commit to daily anymore with all the other stuff on my plate, but certainly three times a week is do-able. Your blog is very nice, by the way, I'll be visiting it more often. My knowledge of viral advertising is somewhat limited.

    Sara
  • Great post.

    I co-write a blog that has just gotten back "in the horse" after a month of being focused on other things. Just in our first week back (we've posted every weekday for 7 days now) we've more than doubled our subscribers and increased our views by a significant margin. I really think that, while losing momentum is painful, posting every day for a while can get you right back up there in almost no time...

    Great insight though... glad to see someone talking about their own experience.
  • Blogging, like writing in general, is something very hard to do consistently. But like always, the Butt in Chair method leads to pretty darn good results.

    Best of luck!
    David
    Writing articles, business stuff
  • I had no idea about the deletion process. That is very interesting. So two articles a month I can do, but three times a week seems a bit much!
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