Blogging: Quality vs. Quantity
After yesterdays speed blogging challenge, Finn attempted to declare that he won (despite the fact that I wrote faster) due to the argument “quality vs. quantity” (the same argument I tried to pull on Friday). He’s right… in terms of a good blog post he won. If we were going purely on speed, I still won. With all teasing aside, he made a good point and it bugged me all night last night, my post wasn’t my best work and I knew it.
As you are working through your Golden Tech 33 day challenge, think about the quality of posts you are putting out on social media sites and blogs. Are they decent quality? Or are you overdoing it?
Why Does Quality Matter?
Quality is the MOST important thing about your blog.
First of all, if you are making posts that have very little relevance to the main topic, people are not going to come back. If you have a great deal of visitors who visit your site daily looking for information on technology and one day you switch it up to talk about living in Amish country, you’re going to lose a few visitors.
If you happen to write a post about a specific topic that search engines might pick up for a keyword that your site wouldn’t normally rank under, make sure you have something to pull those new visitors into your website.
A good question to ask yourself:
“When a person finds your site through a search engine, are they getting anything out of your blog or will they leave pretty quickly?”
If you answered no, then you need to step back and rethink a few things. Writing a 500 word blog post about something your blog users can relate to or use will be a lot better in the long run than a post speaking your opinion on a topic that pretty much everyone in the industry already agrees on.
For example, if anyone came to our website through our April Fools blog post looking for information on driving ranges in northwest Indiana, they probably won’t stick around too long unless they are encouraged by our humor and want to learn more about us as a company. Any other day that post wouldn’t really fit on our blog.
As Finn mentioned in his post earlier today, look to what your customers want for inspiration. If you are stuck there, maybe it is time to close your blogging software for the day.
Why Does Quantity Matter?
Quantity matters but only to a certain extent. If you start a blog and post on it once or twice a year, you might as well have a static website that you update every six months. I always encourage people to blog a minimum of once a week. This way you are giving your readers something to come back and look for, as well as providing updates to search engines.
I’d love to say blog everyday, but one thing I will not do is encourage you to blog every day just because you have to get a post up. On days when you don’t really know what to say, it is okay to skip out on your blog. If the topic at hand is something that his just not that interesting to you and you don’t know where to go with it… sit this one out. There is always tomorrow.
In Lisa Barone’s post The 5 Old Blogging Rules Killing Your Readership, she makes a great point that every blogger should have hanging above their desk:
“New Rule: Blog when you have something to say.”
She’s right.
If you have something to say everyday, then that’s awesome. Eventually you are going to hit a wall and question what to blog about. Take a day off. The internet won’t go anywhere.
Quality vs. Quantity
Remember in kindergarten when your teacher used to say “if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all”? The same idea applies here. Don’t write something you wouldn’t want your kindergarten teacher to read and not be afraid to admit you were his/her student.
While I would absolutely love to find individual bloggers who have something incredibly awesome to say 24/7/365, I know that is something that would be incredibly hard to come by.
At the end of the day quality is a lot more important than quantity, but don’t forget about your blog just because you don’t think you have anything to say.
Which is more important to you? Someone who blogs everyday? Or someone who has something to say once a week?
Photo Credit: acmephoto on Flickr
Another intriguing post!
I think the post frequency is niche dependent. I have “a few” lawn care blogs and I pretty much post on them in accordance with the seasons. If I post too often, I lose subs like a leaking faucet! They just don’t wanna be hit everyday with fert and weed killer articles. Once-a-month and they are good.
I have another blog in the MMO niche and though I don’t post often, I get emails daily asking “when ya gonna post again?” These readers are new to a subject and crave info.
When it comes to brick and mortar biz, I think your once-a-week post preference is dead on! People can and will love your “brand” but not so much as to wanna hear from ya everyday.
Now, back to speed blogging… for me, it is passion based. I can write a 500 word post on grass in like 10 minutes because it’s something I dream, sleep and eat (like for real).
However, research type stuff, not so much.
So, for me, the quality vs quantity comes in based on the subject matter.
AL
@Allyn
Agreed with your niche development, and I see what you mean about only 4 times a year… Perfect example of why not to overdo it!
Awesome post with great points! I definitely agree it’s a quality versus quantity thing. I would much rather read a blog that has a point and the author sticks to the topic at hand, than a author who is posting to make a “quota”, so to speak. But Allyn does have a point that it is dependent on what your blog is aimed towards.
All very thought provoking for a Wednesday! Write on!
Yeah, we shoulda waited til after noon on hump day before we made people think. And for that we apologize.
I agree with niches. I also consider what story lines and concepts you want to run. If ESPN can figure out how to report on NFL 12 months of the year, there’s ways to come up with content links when your industry is in the offseason. That’s the season of planning.
It depends on how savory you can make the content at that point.