- As a personal diary OR
- As a source for public news
If your blog is more like your diary, feel free to update it whenever you like. It's for writing down your own personal thoughts so whether or not anybody reads the posts is not important.
Regardless of topic, if you do want people to read your blog, you must treat it as a source for public news. A blogging schedule is crucial if you want to increase your readership.
Think about it: a magazine or a newspaper cannot become a trusted source of information if the news they provide is sporadic. One day they report on a political announcement, you don't hear from them in months and then they decide to report on election results. This is not the way to gain readership. Even if the readers neglect to read every article, they need to know that the articles are at least there.
The difficult part is that a blog is usually run by a company of one: you. It's exciting when first starting up a blog but eventually life will get in the way. Hence, the blogging schedule. It is better to have your posts follow a predictable schedule rather than posting at random.
Why?
If your readers suddenly receive a slew of email notifications from you saying there have been four new posts, chances are they will only read one or two. So much of your hard work will be lost on them. It's ok to have a space of time between posts, so long as your readers know when to expect the next one.
A blogging schedule also makes your blog look more active when new potential readers stumble across it. If you post all four at once and then nothing for the rest of the year, it's discouraging to see that the last entry you made has last year's date on it. Why read a news source that has already shut down?
A blogging schedule will also help from an SEO perspective. When people type in keywords, search engines are looking for the latest, most relevant content. A blog that has updated recently will be more desirable than one that last updated years ago.
In order to establish a blogging schedule, start small. Take what you think you can handle and then cut it in half. Think you can post every week? Aim for every two weeks. Every day? Every other day. Start easy because you are planning for the times you don't feel like blogging. Take advantage of the times when you feel inspired to write. Write several posts in one sitting and then schedule them to appear at future dates.
What you want to ideally happen is have posts scheduled out for several months. This will give you the leeway to write when you feel inspired and not have the blog consume your whole life.
The difficult part is that a blog is usually run by a company of one: you. It's exciting when first starting up a blog but eventually life will get in the way. Hence, the blogging schedule. It is better to have your posts follow a predictable schedule rather than posting at random.
Why?
If your readers suddenly receive a slew of email notifications from you saying there have been four new posts, chances are they will only read one or two. So much of your hard work will be lost on them. It's ok to have a space of time between posts, so long as your readers know when to expect the next one.
A blogging schedule also makes your blog look more active when new potential readers stumble across it. If you post all four at once and then nothing for the rest of the year, it's discouraging to see that the last entry you made has last year's date on it. Why read a news source that has already shut down?
A blogging schedule will also help from an SEO perspective. When people type in keywords, search engines are looking for the latest, most relevant content. A blog that has updated recently will be more desirable than one that last updated years ago.
In order to establish a blogging schedule, start small. Take what you think you can handle and then cut it in half. Think you can post every week? Aim for every two weeks. Every day? Every other day. Start easy because you are planning for the times you don't feel like blogging. Take advantage of the times when you feel inspired to write. Write several posts in one sitting and then schedule them to appear at future dates.
What you want to ideally happen is have posts scheduled out for several months. This will give you the leeway to write when you feel inspired and not have the blog consume your whole life.
