Blog Tip #2: Don't Make Them Guess (Too Much)

I am going to use my favorite blogs from tip #1 for this post as well.

All of them post almost daily. It is kind of random on what time they will post, but they post regularly! That is key. I have been trained to know when I will get my next post.

Jess Lively gets up in the morning and one of the first things she does is blog. Sometimes it's at 9 a.m. and sometimes it's closer to 11.

Kendi wears an outfit, photographs it and then posts it in the afternoon around 4 p.m.

With the other bloggers, they post regularly but sometimes you will even get two new posts right in a row. It's like they don't realize they can schedule posts for the following days. But this does not bother me one bit.

Actually, the thing I love about this - whether it's posted at 9 a.m. or 4 p.m. - is that I know the content is fresh. It feels very emotional and current.

I personally love when I am done writing a post and then can click Publish instead of Save Draft or Schedule. There is something about that Publish button that feels so refreshing and satisfying.

We used to schedule our posts for 6 a.m. CDT (on the dot!) all five weekdays. Most people didn't come to our blog that early, so typically there was a new post for everyone waiting for them as soon as they came to our site. If you've come to expect that from us, you may have been disappointed in our lack of regularity lately. (Totally our fault. We trained you to expect something new every morning!)

The thing I really didn't like about it was at one point I think we were scheduled out three weeks. By the time a post went up, we had completely forgotten what it was about, and in some cases had completely moved on from the topic.

(And don't even get me started on my style blog, Snappy Casual. My posts have been very sporadic over there since Rooney was born. I am not sure what is going to happen with that blog quite yet.)

You may not agree with me, and that's OK. I don't argue that if you are a serious blogger that you should show up daily, blog though good days and bad days, blog when you don't feel like it (sometimes) - but I don't think every post needs to be written ahead of time so it can be published at the same exact time every day.

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P.S. This does NOT mean to be predictable. Keep them guessing as to what your next post will be about, but build up some excitement for when it will be posted.

P.P.S. I understand this is more difficult for those of us who are not full-time bloggers or stay-at-home moms or those with a flexible work schedule. If I want to write a post and then press Publish immediately when I'm done with it, many of our posts will go up in the evening after Rooney goes to bed, or on the weekends, when likely less people are reading. Last weekend I published a post on Friday evening and Sunday morning. I may have missed out on some traffic by posting at odd times, but I hope you appreciate that our posts will be more current from here on out.

 

BloggingKelsey Williams4 Comments